Bead Arts

Artist: Debby Arem
Business name: Arem Designs (Beadles and Three Ring Circuits)
Location: Gaithersburg, Maryland

Website:
Debby Arem

Debby, tell us about your work and why you picked the names that you did!
At the time ( 1979 ) Beadles seemed a clever name, one that popped into my mind almost immediately and one that people wouldn’t likely forget. Of course it’s a little corny, but people DO remember it! Three Ring Circuits was harder to come up with and was a joint family process. It really was so fitting as back when I started this line, my life was pretty chaotic with 2 kids still at home, a large number of pets and a busy career. So it really was a pun on words so to speak. I’ve never tired of this name although now my life is a lot calmer and more orderly thank goodness.
As far as my jewelry lines are concerned -both of my jewelry lines have a number of things in common although they are so different. Both lines rely on color and texture I think to get their point across. Both lines have within them many different styles – elegant, casual, funky, whimsical, geometric, and monochromatic to name a few. Both lines are pretty intricate as I love to layer …layer…layer – a throwback to the time when I was a silkscreen designer. I know I’m very fortunate to have been able to find another creative outlet ( beading and my recycled line ) when I decided to quit printmaking.

What is your creative process like?
Well even though I have two separate and very distinct jewelry lines, I would say my creative process is pretty much the same for both. I have never been one to draw things out first. I design in my head as I go along although sometimes I have already envisioned the final design before I begin and it’s just a matter of “ filling in the missing pieces” if you understand what I mean.

When working with beads I first gather together all the colors I know I want to use. There is usually a main component (for instance black onyx) around which I would base my design. I always try to have a variety of shapes and textures within each necklace and in many cases, one special focal point such as a very unique carved bead or an unusual pendant. I’m also very careful to make sure that there is some symmetry even in an “ asymmetrical” necklace and I’m always very careful to match beads of the same type in pattern and depth of color. Because I have some designs that are very elegant and formal, some that are more ethnic, and some that are outright “funky,” I also have a certain feeling in mind that will dictate which components I choose, the length, and the final cost to the client. Of course, with three cats, I have to be very careful never to leave a design out on the table that I am working on unless it is covered up with a cloth! I have always found it most curious however, that from time to time, a cat will actually walk across a design ( as I am working on it ) but no toes will ever touch the piece or disturb a bead! This never ceases to amaze me and it’s consistent for all my cats.

When designing my 3RC line (Three Ring Circuits) there are many more steps that would go into the process. Again though, the first consideration is my main color and from there, what type of feeling I am trying to convey. Many of my 3RC designs are very whimsical and cartoonish. Others are strictly geometric. Because I am working with so many eclectic components such a brass stampings, anodized aluminum, beads, electrical components and of course a recycled circuit board , the challenge is a bit greater to layer just the right components onto the circuit board to create my mini collages.
I have always been one to work best when it is quiet and I find that the hours can just slip away when I’m so engrossed in my design work. It’s probably my secret to staying thin as sometimes I actually forget to eat if I’m busy at work!

What kind of training did you have which helped you achieve your current level of artistry?
I have been a jewelry designer for over 25 yrs. However, this is not what I was first trained in. I have my B.A. in Fine Arts with a concentration in silkscreen design, but gave up working in this medium because of the toxicity of the inks. At the time, there were only oil-based inks and without proper ventilation in my home, it would have been foolish to continue. My husband is a gemologist and because of him, I was first introduced to the incredible world of beads! I took a beading/knotting class and found I was a natural as I had always knit and crocheted and enjoyed working with my hands. Initially, I was only designing necklaces for my husband’s clients if someone requested something in particular. I got my first “big break” when I approached Bloomingdales (at the urging of a friend) and showed my (then) somewhat limited line to a buyer there in the “bridge” department. Bridge jewelry is jewelry that doesn’t use precious metals or precious stones, which would be considered “fine jewelry”, but it is also not “costume”, where one would expect to only find plastic, glass, and base metals.

I was asked to do a “trunk show” and had such a wonderful response that it was the impetus for me to approach other stores. I found that transitioning from a “hobbyist” to a professional was really the result of a snowball effect. Many times one gallery or museum would suggest another and soon I found myself submitting designs to the Smithsonian for their museum shop and their museum shop catalog, which in turn led me to submit designs to other catalogs as well.

How I came to work with recycled circuit boards is a very interesting story. My husband owned a computer company at the time and one day I found myself in the back room where the computers were being assembled, looking at the motherboards. I had never seen the inside of a computer before and I was struck by the beauty of the circuitry. I remember immediately thinking “this would make great jewelry”! Of course the challenge was how to cut up the motherboards. I went through many trial and error attempts until I found what worked best. Because I already had a relationship with a number of the Smithsonian’s museum shops, I was VERY fortunate to be able to show this line when I was first started creating it, and to have it sold in the Smithsonian’s Air and Space museum shop. I suppose I was one of the first “green” companies without realizing it and now that computers are everywhere and just about everyone has one (and is replacing and upgrading all the time- in this throwaway society), this line is even more relevant – not just as a pretty piece of jewelry, but as a way to help keep circuit boards out of landfills .

Is there a tool or material that you can’t imagine living without?
What an interesting question ! Believe it or not, I would say my set of dental tools! I found that these are wonderful for scraping or picking off excess glue!

What inspires you to create
I’m not even sure how to answer this – it just happens. I think because I have always been a creative person (even as a child I took art lessons) that just waking up each day and really SEEING what is around me has been inspiration enough to want to create something – whether it’s a piece of jewelry or cooking something special for dinner. I’m such a visual person that quite honestly, just being out in nature as we live out in the country has been the driving force to make me want to come home and design something.
What inspires you to keep going when the work gets frustrating or tough?
This is an easy question – I’m a perfectionist. I can’t stop until I feel that I’ve done the best I can do. I suppose it’s a curse and a blessing in a way. If you check out my website, you’ll see I even speak about this on my opening page as part of my greeting!

What is your best piece of advice for those who would like to rise intheir level of artistry?
The best advice I can give is to attend high end craft shows and see what other people are creating. I never get bored doing this (and have to restrain myself from wanting to buy everything sometimes!) I am also personally always stretching myself to take on something more difficult (even in my knitting) as I feel this is another way to rise to the next level in your craft. I think the more skills you have that pertain to a certain art form, the more ideas are possible.

What takes up the majority of your time besides your art?
When I am not designing my jewelry or out marketing it, I am a volunteer with two dog rescue groups. My husband and I are very involved in helping to place dogs that have been either given up by their owners or found abandoned. I find this volunteer work so rewarding, and try very hard to educate people along the way to ALWAYS spay or neuter their pet. I also try to educate people to always keep their pets up to date on their shots and be on heartworm preventative. There are so many unwanted pets in this world, and the reasons people give up their pets never cease to amaze me.

What’s your favorite hobby?
Knitting! I’m a knitting fanatic and always have a couple of projects going at the same time – an easy project such as a simple scarf or sweater that I can work on while watching TV and a very difficult pattern where I can only knit for so long and then I have to put it down and take a break. I love the challenge of trying to decipher a pattern and the satisfaction when you have completed a new stitch and know it’s exactly as it’s supposed to be!

I discovered knitting a number of years back and find I get the same pleasure out of this as I do designing jewelry. With all the amazing new yarns out – and all the different textures – I find it’s very much like designing jewelry or silkscreening. I like texture in anything I create and I love the fact that I can do this both in my business and in my hobby.

mixed-media, jewelry, beads, beading, artist-profile, creativity, designing, jewelry-business

Etched Raku

Artist: Maggie Towne
Business name: Bead Towne
Location: Los Angeles County, California

Websites:
Bead Towne
Etsy Store

Maggie, how do you describe your work?
At the moment my latest art of choice is lampwork bead making using a single fuel hot head torch. I also design and make jewelry, have been doing so since I was a child. Like many other lampworkers, I began buying handmade artisan glass beads to use in my jewelry design. It took a gentle push from a friend saying, “What would it take you to make beads?” to sign up for a beginners class in July 2006. I am somewhat of a perfectionist, which sometimes stalls my creativity, but also defines my style.

A few years ago I was trying to come up with a new name for my business. Family and friends were giving all kinds of help and we had a lot of fun and laughs. Bead Towne became a play on words, using my last name and my love of beads. It is a name that works for both my jewelry making and lampworking.

Things that go bump in the night

What is your creative process like?
As stated, I am something of a perfectionist when it comes to execution, so I usually have an idea in mind when I sit at the torch. I will have glass rods in the colors of the day, frits (tiny shards of glass), and tools at hand. My inspiration may come from a piece of art, my mood, colors I like, books, suggestions from friends, etc. Sometimes I make a sample bead and if I am not sure of it, I’ll put it in my bead bin and maybe get back to it later to make a set, maybe not. Other times I crank out a set of 5 to 10 beads in one sitting.

Chocolate cupcake

What kind of training did you have which helped you achieve your currentlevel of artistry?
My first lampwork class basically taught me how to light my torch and not much beyond that. I love to read so I bought several books on glass beads. Love research and kept getting hits on a website called WetCanvas, my best resource to date. Beyond that, it’s the PPP motto. Practice, practice, practice.

When starting out I wanted to make every kind of bead possible as quickly as possible. Found I needed to go back and master some techniques before I could go on to others. I have to continually push myself to try new techniques.

Crazy as this sounds I got my Bachelor’s of Art in Art Education just for fun and to challenge myself. Never took a glass class in college, but I feel my art background helps with using color, design, experimentation, and discipline.

Valentine Treats

Is there a tool or material that you can’t imagine living without?
Beyond the basics of my torch, glass, and safety equipment, I love using presses, a razor tool, and various other tools with which to poke at the glass. Can’t imagine progressing along without my support system of other lampworkers.

What inspires you to keep going when the work gets frustrating or tough?
If I have been away from the torch for awhile, feel uninspired or frustrated, I go back to what I do well. It used to mean making frit beads and now it is making seashells. Who knows what it will be a year from now. Once I get back in the groove, I can expand and get back on track.

Yummy Cocoa

What is your best piece of advice for those who would like to rise in their level of artistry?
The basics of believing in yourself, challenging yourself to try new techniques, and good old practice, practice, practice.

What takes up the majority of your time besides your art?
Teaching sixth grade 180 days a year, friends, and reading take up the majority of my time outside of art. I also like to visit museums, attend concerts and plays, and enjoy nature when I can.

What’s your favorite comfort food?
My love of ice cream also goes back to my childhood. Nothing like a scoop of two to comfort my soul.

Macchiato

handmade-beaded-jewelry, wearable-art, beads, beading, jewelry, lampwork-glass-beads, artist-profile

Crystal Passion Cuff by Penny Purdie

Well, there are 300 to chose from, which will be whittled down to 30! Here’s the site where you can see all of the entries and chose your own favorites. Some of my faves are posted here!

Mermaid’s Tiara by Bernadine Stoopman


Pearl Omega Necklace by Loraine Scarr

[call-for-entries,creativity,designing[/tags]

I recently went to see what all was on Tammy’s updated list of e-courses, and I was amazed by the number of offerings she has! She has divided them into “crash courses” and “slow-and-easy” formats, so you can pick what fits your needs. Do you want to learn more about knotting, metal clay, or business tips? How about macrame, basic stringing, or metal fabrication? It’s all available at Tammy’s About.com jewelry making site!

[tags]tutorials,beading,jewelry-making,beads,wearable-art[/tags}]

Transformer 2 bracelet
Photographer: Greg Mullin

Artist: Tina Koyama
Location: Seattle

Website & Blog: Tina Koyama
e-mail: tina@tinakoyama.com

Tina, your work is obviously very organic. How do you describe it?
My current focus is on self-supported sculptures using off-loom beadweaving stitches. My work is probably most closely related to contemporary basketry: 3-dimensional forms made from flexible materials. I like to keep an open mind about what constitutes a “bead” (technically, anything that has a hole going through it!). I have a series of sculptures made from pasta, which, as anyone who has strung a macaroni necklace knows, makes excellent beads!


No. 5 in the Semolina
Photographer: Greg Mullin

What is your creative process like?
My creative process is completely improvisational and intuitive. I never plan or sketch anything – I simply choose some beads, thread a needle and plunge into it. That improvisational process is both the fuel and the outcome of my work. I am as compelled by the challenge of continually asking, “What happens if…?” as I am by the eventual answer, which always surprises me. Ultimately, it is that surprise that motivates me to continue exploring in a way that implementing a planned design never would.

I always listen to music while I’m beading, and my favorite is the improvisational jazz piano of Keith Jarrett. I can listen to one of his CDs a hundred times and always hear something new – some tiny nuance I missed previously. I’m completely inspired by his apparent fearlessness in appearing in concert before thousands of people to play music he has never played before. My artistic goal is to be the Keith Jarrett of beadwork!

As far as my work habits go, that’s where my background in writing (see below) comes in handy. I get up every weekday morning at 5 a.m. and bead for a couple of hours before going to work at my various day jobs (when I was a writer, I wrote every morning before work – different medium, same habit). On my days off, I bead for 4-5 hours in the morning. It’s not really about looking for or waiting for inspiration – it’s about showing up every day and being there when inspiration arrives. Sometimes it arrives, and sometimes it doesn’t, but either way, I get a lot of beading done (almost 1,000 hours a year).


Soft & Stone
Photographer: Greg Mullin

What kind of training did you have which helped you achieve your current level of artistry?
I have a B.A. and M.A. in creative writing, and before 2002, most of my creative and professional work was in writing (I did corporate communications for 20+ years before I discovered beads). Until 2007 when I earned a certificate in fiber arts from the University of Washington’s Extension Program, I had no formal education in art.

I began beading probably the way many beaders begin: I made a few earrings and strung a few necklaces, but that type of beading didn’t interest me for long. After a while, I got bored, and I almost gave up beads entirely – until I discovered seed beads in 2002. That’s when I realized the amazing potential of beads – the ability to create complex, 3-dimensional shapes simply by pulling thread tightly through them. The book The New Beadwork (Kathlyn Moss and Alice Scherer) changed my life because I suddenly saw that beads could be used for artistic expression in many ways, not just as jewelry. It really opened my mind to the possibilities.

As far as my beading education goes, early on I used books to learn basic stitches, and I’ve taken numerous classes at local bead shops and bead shows. Even though I’ve been teaching since 2003, I still enjoy taking classes myself, because everyone has a different way of doing things, and there’s always something new to learn. I also enjoy the social aspect of classes.

I’d have to say, though, that my primary training is and always has been simply experimenting continually. I have several shoe-box-size boxes filled with tiny pieces of beadwork (maybe ½ to 2 inches wide) that I have made to explore a stitch or technique. I’d say those boxes are equivalent to a painter’s sketchbook.

Is there a tool or material that you can’t imagine living without?
You mean other than beads?  Three things: Beading glasses; full-spectrum task light; triangle-shaped scoop. I am always on a quest to find the ideal beading thread, which, as far as I’m concerned, hasn’t been developed yet!

What inspires you to create?
Curiosity is probably my primary inspiration. I’m always wondering what would happen if I tried doing something different. Beads themselves (the various shapes and sizes) are also a strong source of inspiration because they can come together in surprising ways, depending on the light, finish, color, stitch used, tension, whatever. The continual discovery keeps me motivated.

What inspires you to keep going when the work gets frustrating or tough?
If I run into a frustrating problem, I usually just “bead through it” and keep going until I find a solution. I’m kind of persistent that way. Sometimes I’ll put the problem down and start working on something else for a while, and often that frees my mind enough to go back to the first problem and find a new solution.


Transformer 1 necklace
Photographer: Greg Mullin

What is your best piece of advice for those who would like to rise in their level of artistry?
One of my goals as a beadwork instructor is to help students overcome the fear of working without instructions and discover the joy of working improvisationally. My encouragement is to continually experiment with whatever stitch or techniques you know and go beyond what you have learned. If you take a class or read a magazine article to make a piece of jewelry, take it a step further by changing the design in some way. Another tip is not to feel compelled to always complete something as planned. For example, if you start out to make a bracelet but find that the design is changing in some way that is no longer appropriate for a bracelet, let the bracelet go and follow the beadwork. Even if you end up with a piece of beadwork that can’t be worn in any way, you will have learned more from it than if you had simply made another bracelet according to plan.

[editor’s note: Tina teaches nationally at bead shows, bead societies and other venues and also sell kits for many of her class projects. For information on kits and classes, please visit her web site and see the “classes” section!]

What takes up the majority of your time besides your art?
I have several “day jobs”: freelance writing (feature articles for magazines and marketing writing), teaching beadwork locally and nationally, and customer service for an online bead shop.

What’s your favorite activity besides beading?
Knitting! In the evening when the creative side of my brain is tired and lazy (I do my best creative work in the morning), I like to knit, which engages my hands and a different part of my brain but still feels constructive. At night, knitting calms me so that I can get to sleep (whereas beading would rev me up). I also like to take knitting with me to the doctor’s office to fill the time while I’m waiting, and I like to take it with me on planes, too. (I also love freeform knitting and crochet! But that’s creative and isn’t the same as comfort knitting.)

beads, beading, creativity, designing, bead-embroidery, artist-profile

Winners in the 7th annual Saul Bell design contest, sponsored by Rio Grande, can now be oogled at this link.

Details for the 2008 Saul Bell contest are available now…the deadline is September 21, 2007.

Botanical Bracelet by Patrik Kusek,
First place winner in PMC

calls-for-entries, Saul-Bell-awards

Only its temporary home though! In about a month, our collaborative charm necklace will be auctioned off to support breast cancer research.

For those who never heard our story, or who don’t remember it, here’s the summary:
Over the course of a couple months, a small group of my friends and I collaborated on a charm necklace project. None of us had ever met in person, but this project certainly made us feel closer in so many ways. The artists who participated with me were Wendy Van Camp, Illaya Brown, Bobbi Chukran, Leah Hitchcock-Ybarra, Dorothy Lueloff, Ellen Chasse, Amy Fraser, and Dulcey Heller.

Each of us made a charm in an “ocean” color palette that we all agreed upon. The charms were sent to me last July (2006), and it was my responsibility to get them all to play nicely together! Since we had spent quite a bit of time discussing palette and size issue, this did not turn out to be a problem at all.

Our necklace then made the rounds to all of us. We each wore it to a special event and had shared pictures and stories with each other. Some wonderful experiences resulted from the travels of the necklace. In the midst of this, Belle Armoire magazine put out a call for collaborative necklaces…could there have possibly been any better timing? As soon as we finished passing it around, I packaged it up and shipped it off to be photographed for the magazine. “A Charmed Life” should appear in the Sept/Oct issue of Belle Armoire!

So now it has temporarily come back to live with me until it’s time for the auction!

handmade-beaded-jewelry, wearable-art, beads, beading, jewelry, mixed-media

Ready, set, go make something!

This short series of discussions that we’ve been having about the various pathways and journeys that you can take into designing your own original work was not intended to turn your creativity into just another mechanical exercise. It’s also somewhat artificial to imagine that most of us are so organized and linear in our creativity that everything always flows in one pre-determined order. Still, I believe that the more you understand about your own preferences and biases, the more you may be freed to try new things.

I hope you will spend some time thinking about the steps you usually take in designing, and maybe even spend some time mapping them out. Understanding your dominant patterns of working can both help you to play to your strengths, and also to challenge and stretch your creativity.

Perhaps you could deliberately try a completely different approach to your next project, just to see what happens. It may not work. But then again…it could be wonderful!

Here is a list of all the articles in this series:
Introduction
Focal Point
Theme
Color Scheme
Materials
Structure
Conclusion

designing, creativity, tutorials

Structure: Patterns and techniques

No matter how intuitively you work, at some point you will need to make some decisions about the structure and pattern you’re going to use in order to avoid having to go bead buying right in the middle of a project. That is usually not the best time to be making clear-headed decisions!

You might be the type of person who decides what project to do based upon what type of stitch you feel like doing, and you make most of your structural choices at the very beginning of your design process. For me, the technical details are often one of the last things I consider, but like all of the other pathways into designing, structural questions can easily pop up at any time along the way.

In design terminology, pattern generally refers to repetition or lack of it in stringing or weaving a piece. (It can also refer to the plan for the exact placement of beads in something like a flat peyote weaving, but that’s not what I’m referring to here.) The pattern can be repeating, symmetrical, asymmetrical, or random. No matter how complex your piece is, from a single strand to the most intricate multi-strand weaving, these underlying patterns can be detected.

Asymmetrical and random patterns are the most dynamic and challenging to the eye, but can still be peaceful and pleasing if they are balanced visiually, either by color repetition or by judicious placement of larger beads. A peaceful feel may not be your desire, however! Repeating and symmetrical pieces tend to be easy on the eye with a classic feel, but they can also be seen as static and boring. You can use your pattern choices to keep the eye moving around the piece, or to focus it on a spot you choose. Pick the pattern you use to complement your entire theme and be aware of the underlying message pattern can send subliminally. This is certainly not an unimportant afterthought, even if pattern isn’t the first design element you consider!

Other structural considerations in designing include length, complexity, and contruction methods/techniques. Will your necklace be a standard length or adjustable? How many strands will it contain? Will it be needle-woven, strung, loomed, or a combination? Will your design necessitate large-holed beads that can accommodate many thread passages? Will it require special findings that you must buy or make? Will you use thread, wire, or some combination? Do you have enough materials and all the tools you will need?

This is also a good time to fill in all the gaps, before you start constructing. You may need to head back to the torch or go on a (perfectly justifiable) shopping trip. Make sure you’ve got enough of everything, including all the mundane items like thread, wire, crimps, jump rings, and spacer beads, to complete your design.

designing, creativity, tutorials

Materials: Building a palette

I usually like to build my working palette and choose my materials after I’ve decided upon focal point, theme, and color, but it can be fun to try it the other way around. Some designers like to use this method most of the time, sorting through their beads and treasures, and letting the raw materials “tell” them what to choose. I’ve personally never had the stones speak to me. My more practical method to building a palette works well for me, whether it is my first step or somewhere further down the designing road. I’ll share it with you in case you want to give it a try.

I usually take my focal piece (or the first item to catch my fancy if I haven’t chosen a focal piece yet) and place it on a white towel. After gathering up all the possible beads, stones, buttons, and other treasures that might look good, I “audition” them by laying out small piles of each candidate near the focal pieces. Keeping my theme in mind as well - if I’ve already picked one - I look at how the colors, sizes, shapes, and textures interact. There is no right or wrong answer to this part of the process, but it often takes a lot of time. Do not let yourself be rushed! If any beads seem too prominent, you may want to remove them, or at least place them judiciously in the mix. keep in mind also whether your idea calls for a variety of shapes and textures or for a more uniform selection. Each choice you make will narrow down future choices, so sometimes you might have to start all over again if it isn’t going the way you want.

Sometimes you will find that you just don’t have everything you need to proceed with beading. Don’t look at this as a problem! Instead, this is the perfect justification for buying more beads!

designing, creativity, tutorials

Have you ever thought about selling your designs? Not the finished product, but the designs themselves? Here’s how one designer decided to go about it:

Creating and selling jewelry tutorials

handmade-beaded-jewelry, wearable-art, beads, beading, jewelry, mixed-media, tutorials

Color Scheme: So many colors, so little time

Color is one of the basic elements of design, and many designers start off with just knowing that they want to make something purple. Or green. Or green and gold. Choosing your color scheme first is a perfectly natural pathway into designing. You might find that making your color decisions overlap your decisions about focal point or theme. Sometimes the focal point and color scheme develop together, one from another. Other times your theme will suggest or limit a color scheme. And still other times…you just simply want to make something purple. It’s all good. Usually I will choose the focal piece first and let the color scheme develop from that, but I’ve certainly also been known to do it the other way around.

This piece is an example. I was participating in a year-long project headed up by Dulcey Heller and Mary Elter, called Bead Art Exploration. One of our assignments was to pick a color scheme that we wouldn’t normally use.

Nomadic Treasure

We all have our favorite colors and color schemes, but sometimes it’s nice to stretch a bit and see what else is possible. I have discovered that, using my focal piece to start, I will most naturally gravitate toward a monochromatic (tints, tones, shades, and pure color of a single hue) or analogous (several hues in close proximity on the color wheel) scheme if I make the choices intuitively. These are just combinations that I find naturally attractive. I will usually add a metallic color or a neutral (black, white, or grey) which best suits the warm or cool undertones of the main colors. But in the case of Nomadic Treasure, I chose to use a triadic scheme. Ouch! It didn’t feel natural at all, but I liked the results.

Another method I have used to choose colors is to take my cue from a painting that I admire. Not surprisingly, the color scheme still most often ends up being monochromatic or analogous! I like to have a lot of textural interest in my work, but to avoid a cluttered look, and I’ve always felt that these two schemes allow me to achieve that. Still, it’s fun to play sometimes.

In another attempt to stretch my safe and predictable color schemes, I read a book that I would highly recommend to everyone: Exploring Color, by Nita Leland. Although it was written for painters, Leland gives wonderfully clear explanations (with glorious full-color examples) of different color schemes and also of different ways of achieving contrast through color choices. Leland points out that the color wheel palette you use does not have to be based upon primary hues. The wheel could consist instead of tints, earthy shades, high intensities, muted tones, transparents, opaques, etc. Maybe this will seem obvious to you, but since I’m not primarily a painter, and was raised on the primary color wheel in school, this was very exciting stuff to me!

designing, creativity, tutorials

Ladies Social

Cindy Forrester recently started an Etsy shop to sell her unique twist on vintage! She mixes old jewelry parts with ephemera to create one-of-a-kind jewels. Cindy writes:

Since I was a child I have always had the need to be creative. My 7th grade teacher kept every piece of artwork I did and she told me she had them framed and hung them in her home. She was such an inspiration to me. She always told me I could do anything I wanted to do with my art. I have never forgotten those words from her and have been creating ever since. I have mostly done paintings and some commissioned work, murals and furniture. I would pretty much paint on anything-canvas, old saw blades, furniture, and pieces of wood.

I was raised in Virginia in the country and my grandparents had a tobacco farm that we helped work in the summer and fall. They lived in an old farm house (no plumbing in the house except for a kitchen sink) and there were lots of old things in there. I grew up appreciating antiques. They had 3 rooms they never used that had all kinds of things from old jewelry (what we call vintage now), old clothes, shoes, paper dolls and even a few skeleton keys. I played dress up all the time, I loved the old jewelry, I would give anything to have them now. I guess that is where the love for old things came from. Since I have gotten older I love going antiquing, finding old rosaries, pearls, cameos, and religious medals, and medallions, and going to flea markets.

I am inspired by anything European from the past (my ancestors are English and Irish), antique, old, unusual, rusty, old metal, tin ceiling tiles, vintage chains, rhinestones, crystals, charms, tintype photos. I love the tintype photos or any old photos. When I look at them I try to imagine what they are doing or thinking and I will name some of my pieces that way. When I start creating the jewelry I am not always sure where I am going with it, it just evolves as I work on it. This is the part I have a passion for putting it together and seeing the end result. I like things that are different and I could never find jewelry in stores that had that Wow factor enough for me to buy,so I decided to combine the two -art and jewelry. Since I am having so much fun I decided to start selling my jewelry at CindyForrester.Etsy.com

3 Sisters All Dressed Up

City Queens

Theme: Your guiding concept
Suppose that you have an idea or a concept that won’t leave you alone…you just must design something with that theme in mind, but you can’t find the notion of theme on your list of design elements and principles? Never fear, theme is a wonderful potential pathway into designing. Many many of my necklaces started out as a concept or theme, and then hung around my brain or notebook just waiting until the right focal pieces and materials fell into place. I made several Hand of G-d necklaces that started out this way. Here’s one:

For Such a Time As This

I knew what I wanted this necklace to convey long before I had the items to make it. In this case, I made the focal beads specifically for the necklace, after having chosen the name and all the symbols that would be included, including the colors.

When you chose to enter a contest, you are often called upon to create something to fit a theme. This is a great way to stretch your creativity, but you can easily set your own concept challenges. Practically anything that is important to you, from the sublime to the ridiculous, can be the inspriation for a conceptual piece of jewelry. The grandeur of the earth and heavens, or the minute detail in a seashell…Creation itself is very inspiring to many artists. Places you’ve traveled to, especially places much different from home. Favorite hobbies and pass-times. Lines from a favorite poem. Verses of sacred scripture. Family and pets. Ancient, antique, or ethnic styles. Look anywhere and everywhere for the things that stir your soul.

We’ll be continuing this series on Design next week, with color scheme on Wednesday, materials on Thursday, and structure on Friday.

designing, creativity, tutorials

CoolToolsVideos has a number of good shorts on YouTube that teach Precious Metal Clay techniques. This one goes over making molds:

handmade-beaded-jewelry, wearable-art, beads, beading, jewelry, mixed-media, precious-metal-clay