Who's a good Guest Blogger?

Hey everyone!

I finally have a new blog post...somewhere else! I am the guest blogger today for Art Jewelry Elements, a very cool blog from an amazingly talented group of artists. Please check out my first-time adventures with resin!

Yup. That's resin.

BeadFest Silver Glass Class with Sara LaGrand!

I have wanted to take a lampworking class since...well, forever! Ok, not quite forever, but considering my first class where I learned to make beads was about 10 years ago, I was overdue. I needed something to help hone my skills, get the creative juices flowing and just give me a boost creatively. I've tried to get in to classes in my area and Rochester, and have always been turned down because they fill up immediately.

Cool pink and dark caramel bead! Super cool reactions around the edge of the lines!

So I was thrilled to see that BeadFest brought back lampwork classes, and that there was a class of high interest to me--Silver Glass. For those of you who don't know the behind-the-scences of the glass world, silver glass refers to specialized 104 COE glasses that have a high silver content. These glasses, when worked properly, give incredible iridescence, sheen, and pops of color you can't get with regular soda lime glass. The "worked properly" part is crucial--some are easy to master, while others are downright persnickity, and all of them cost around $80-$100 PER POUND. So this isn't a material you feel great just experimenting wildly with!

Top 2: Views of a Triton Bead; Bottom Left: Gold Fumed rose bead (the base started as off-white and turned pink!); Bottom Right: Cool reaction when silver glass is placed over a pale moss green transparent

The instructor was Sara Sally LaGrand. The name rung a very quiet bell--turns out she was President of the ISGB (International Society of Glass Beadmakers) a few years back, and has been working with glass for 17 years. I'd say she knows her stuff!

Sara was an incredibly patient and generous teacher. She showed us some very specific techniques to try, but also allowed us to experiment and play a bit. I learned so much just by watching her work in the flame that I was able to address some bad habits then and there.

My play bead: 2 different silver glass for the flower petals...Amazing range of colors with little effort!

My favorite bead is one only a mother could love, because, frankly, it's totally ridiculous! I'm not one into drawing...and we were attempting a bead with a fish "drawn" on the surface with glass. The thing on my bead? Not. A. Fish.

Not a fish. More like a newt in a bad toupee...

I started laughing when I picked up my beads, because the delightful little guy looks like some cartoonish representation of the fish that walked out of the primordial soup, trying to be a reptile! But I do love him, because he reminds me that there is delight in failure (and if you saw what we *had* been going for, you'd agree).

Playtime!

I have been unbelievably busy at work. So what do I do? I develop a myriad of interests in new techniques I want to try. Call it creative ADD, call it passion, call it crazy--I has it.

So over the past month or so, I haven't really made much to sell. I've made some pieces for Znet Shows, but that's about it for jewelry. I've made a few lampwork beads, but haven't managed to even eke out a full set!

Here's what I have been up to. I bought a huge spool of copper wire so I could make my own headpins. And I tried to enamel them:

Yummy firescale!

And, a bunch of enamel flaked off...that wasn't supposed to happen!

Then I find out that headpins are a pain to enamel, because they tend to flake. So I feel better, and have done my research to fix that problem.

Next, a wonderful friend of mine took time out of his busy schedule to teach me how to use a jewelry saw. I had already heard from others that I could expect to break blades, curse a lot, and basically, swear off cutting my own metal forever.

Well, he is a great teacher, because he was able to advise me of the pitfalls and correct my technique so that I was able to practice without breaking my blade once. Yes, I am impressed with myself. I still need to practice my straight lines, because I want them perfect, but I think I've got the curves down nicely.

Aluminum triangle and copper shapes

Finally, I have been itching to do more bead enameling ever since I took my class last August at Bead Fest. I am finding that a lot of the raw copper beads out there really aren't pure copper, because I have had a lot of issues. But I finally ordered some iron beads from Barbara Lewis, and had some great results.

Big, beautiful beads!

You can see that the small blue one has some parts around the hole where the enamel didn't adhere. There must be some zinc in that part of the bead, because this has been a consistent issue with that style. Thankfully, I bought the small copper beads at a bead store and only bought a few, so I'm going to just use them as regular copper beads in my jewelry instead.

Next on the agenda? Etching! My plan is to etch some copper, and then use my new sawing skills to make some funky earrings. Someday, maybe I'll settle on one thing...but not today!

Self-doubt and the single gal...

I've always wanted to do *something* creative--whether it be writing, drawing, painting when I was younger, or melting glass and putting together jewelry as I grew older. And for most of my life, I have been doing one or more of these things at any given time.

What I haven't done, and still struggle with, it my ability to believe.

Source

When I was young, my grandmother told me that an artist has a natural talent--a gift that is just given to them.

She didn't tell me anything about the hard work that goes into bring a vision to life. She didn't tell me that one must study a craft and know the rules in order to really break free of them and innovate. She didn't tell me that failure is to be expected on a daily basis; nor that this "failure" was the fun of experimentation as much as it was the frustration of defeat.

So, as a young girl, because I couldn't draw as well as she could, I declared the artist in me dead.

I gave up my ability to believe that I could be creative and talented. I allowed fear and self-doubt to undermine my creativity.

Source

 When I was in school, I was encouraged by some teachers that I was a good writer. So I latched onto that piece, and it came easily for me. So I thought my grandmother's words to be true: writing was my talent, it came easy, that's what I could do, and all I could do, in terms of creativity.

Sadly, the art teachers I had did little to recognize my enthusiasm and saved their effusive praise for those students who had the natural flair for reproducing what the eyes see. It never occurred to me, at any time, that if I worked harder, I would be able to produce something beautiful. I just assumed I couldn't.

Source

I still struggle with this false reality that was constructed when I was small. As an adult, I constantly find myself drawn to people who are artistic and creative. I feel like an outsider to their "world" but I can't stay away. I envy what appears to be their ability to live and breathe creativity, while I wonder if they will know that I don't belong in their mix.


Then last week, something happened. I was working on a simple necklace for a bead challenge. Nothing earth shattering in terms of artistic achievement, I know. But I had a vision for how I wanted the pendant to look...and it didn't work the first time I wrapped the wires.

But this time, I didn't give up.

I had an idea of what *might* work, and decided to give it a try.

And it worked.

So unbelievably modest of a design, so unbelievably powerful of a moment.

And I have rarely been so proud of myself as I was for not giving up on that silly little pendant. It finally clicked in my brain, really clicked, that if I push the fear and self-doubt that always creeps in when something doesn't work the first time, I get to try again. And that's OK. The fact that I have to try 5 different approaches to make an idea work doesn't mean that I am a talentless hack with no creativity. Instead, I'm a pretty damn creative chick who can come up with way more than one way to approach a problem.

I'm hoping my brain remains in this mode. It's so easy to doubt ourselves, especially when those seeds have had the ability to take root for years. But an attentive gardener can clean out the weeds that are choking out the beauty...so now, I will add "gardener" to the list of of my creative abilities.

Beads Only a Mother Could Love...

Art Jewelry Elements is hosting a mini-blog hop today...and I'm a little late to the party, as usual, but it was such a fun idea, I wanted to join in.

The blog hop is focusing on growth as an artist. It is serving as a good reminder of how far we have all come in terms of skill level, as well as a reminder that we were all beginners at one point!

So I dug into my stash of starter beads, and found the actual bag of beads I made at my first class. They are pretty sad, but when I made them, I was soooo awed by the fact that I created them, it was love at first sight!

Lots of blobs, undercut dots and sharp holes! What's not to love? :)

Want to hear something funny? The big pink blob on the left is supposed to be a heart! I haven't made many heart beads in my time, but thank goodness they don't still look like this! I tried to find a picture of a more recent heart, but I realized I only make them in this style when I am doing Beads of Courage purple hearts, and I don't have any made right now. Even funnier, you can't really see it, but on the right side of the heart is a little bump...have no idea what I was doing there. Maybe it's a pacemaker.

Even the Tin Man would say,"No thanks!"

Even though I have definitely gained a lot of skill since that first day, I have more to learn. In fact, I went to a one-on-one tutoring session today to help correct some of the bad habits I have developed over the years. As much information is out there on the internet, there is no substitute for having a teacher sit next to you and correct and guide you as you work in the flame.

So what can I do now? These days I like to make focals, and work in silver glasses. Here's some of my more recent pieces!

Hopefully, the more recent ones look a tad bit better! :) Please check out the other artists participating in this blog hop on the Art Jewelry Elements blog!

Soldering Silver Bead Fest Class!

SUCCESS! I did NOT solder any part of any component to myself. Actually, that would be impossible, but I was so tired, I could imagine it happening to me.

The first class I took at Bead Fest this year was on Soldering Silver Components. I have wanted to learn how to solder for a while, mainly to create some closed rings for use with my jewelry. When I saw the class, I signed up, even though it started at 8:00 AM. In my summer world, that is the equivalent of about 4:00 AM to the rest of the world that rises early.

So armed with a coffee that was so small it wouldn't satisfy a toddler, I stumbled my way in to the class.

It's as small as it looks. Actually, it's smaller.

The teacher of the class was Mark Lareau. I realized that I had a book of his on wire work (I'm a book junkie). All Wired Up was one of the first wire-working books I had purchased.

Mark was a great teacher. He had the rare ability to take some technical material and make it so easy to understand. I was able to quickly understand why soldering was a preferred method, versus the use of the "paste" used in many cheaper components. He was also very enthusiastic and open with his knowledge. If you ever have a chance to take a class from him, go for it.

The one thing he made us do that was painful was think. At 8:30 in the morning. Have a mentioned I'm not a morning person? But he charged us with the task of designing a piece that needed to be soldered in multiple places, so we could jump into the fire (no pun intended). This is what I came up with in my foggy brain.

Kind of reminds me of a health class poster...

But the exciting part is that all of the pieces stayed attached to each other! There is definitely a slight learning curve with soldering--it reminds me of lampworking in the sense that you have to *know* your material and at what point in it's heating cycle it's at.

The soldered piece; a few gaps, but not too bad!

So I got brave and tried to make a flower. Now I would do it totally different if I try one again, but it was good practice in making some shaped rings and trying to solder a lot of points in a small area. You can see that there are some chunks of solder still there. I was so concerned with overheating the silver that I didn't wait for the solder to flow.

The "flower", even though it didn't work out quite like I had planned, was the best learning tool of the day. This is what I like the most about good classes--they give you a chance to play and experiment and actually learn; sometimes learning what not to do is much more valuable.

My final piece was simple. I wanted to make a component I could use to make earrings. I just soldered together a couple of "S" shapes, and voila!

Not too fancy, but they will make a pretty pair of earrings for my personal collection!

When I have more energy, I will post about my other class, with Gail Crosman Moore!