Beading your Surroundings

I shared a post on Beading Daily today about how it's easy to go to the jeweler's troika (earrings, bracelet, necklace) when sitting down to bead. But why not look outward and bead your surroundings? I'm as guilty as anyone of leaning on the troika, but to make myself feel better I just ran around the house and took snaps of beady things I live with everyday.

Starting with my office...These good-luck medallions from Afghanistan sit on the windowsill. I think they help:


This milagro-centric piece hangs nearby. I placed a bit of my mom's Catholica in the center:


A bike seat cover from Pakistan along with one of my little kinetic sculptures sitting there on the right:


Amy Clarke's wonderful chair piece near a Czech beaded bike from Diane Fitzgerald:


A Huichol beaded bowl sits just down the same shelf:


This antique wall hanging from India was once used something like wallpaper in some rich person's house:


Oh, and my Carmen Miranda marionette...a tribute to some major obsessing in 1999:

Moving on to my bedroom where I made beaded finials...talk about obsessive!


I keep my dad's rosary wrapped around my nightstand lamp so he feels nearby:


The living area includes tassels on furniture...


...a Yoruban beaded cup gifted by Linda Ligon...


...and this beautiful Yoruban wall hanging that put a dent in the grocery budget. I adore it!


Here's a sweet photo album cover from a book called Beaded Gifts I wrote a million years ago:


And then there's the all-important pie server in the kitchen...this one is from Beaded Weddings.


What beady stuff is in your house? I'd love to know!

Back from Portland

Just back from Portland BeadFest, where I taught four classes, met lots of great new people, and got to hang out with old friends. I knew I was in the right place when I checked into my hotel. The pattern on the carpet in my room was a diagram for peyote stitch!


On Thursday night I had dinner with BeadCats Carol Perrenoud and Virginia Blakelock.


Aren't they just beautiful? These women have both done so much to mold and shape the bead community as we know it. I hope you send them good juju everyday as you, say, work herringbone stitch or handle tiny beads, both of which I feel they single-handedly popularized in the last decade or so. I was teasing Carol about having a deal with the devil...I've known her for a dozen years now and I swear she hasn't aged. Same with Virginia, who I think is actually doing a Benjamin Button on us.

I had lunch with Alice Scherer on Friday. Hadn't seen her in about 8 years, so it was good to catch up. We ate at Burgerville, which looks like a hamburger dive on the outside, but is something altogether different on the inside--I ate a smoked salmon salad with local produce wrapped in sustainable packaging for one thing.

In class on Saturday I met a new friend, Jan Calligan. She came all the way from Aberdeen, Scotland not only to take classes, but also to help out her friend, David Horste. They were so sweet to share a meal with me on Sunday.


David's a lapidary artist who made this fantastic bowlerite heart bead I couldn't pass up:


What's "bowlerite", you might ask? Well, it's mined from bowling ball, of course! I just had to add it to my collection (you know I used to have my very own emerald green ball with "Jean" engraved on the side, right? Dang, if I still had it I'd have David cut it up for me!).

I had the afternoon free on Saturday and wandered over to Mark Teresa's house. It was so nice to be outside in the sunshine, stretching my legs. That doesn't happen often when you go to a show, so I was really appreciative. Here's a sculpture I ran into on Broadway while I was on my way. Don't the faces just make you feel calm and happy?


Anyway, I finally got to Mark's house, where he and his daughter were waiting for me in their garden. Mark's a working artist who was associated with SMCDAA, but I'd never spent any time with him before. What a wonderful guy!


He gave me the full-on Portland tour by truck, showing me all the cool little neighborhoods and hotspots. Then we headed downtown and wandered all over, including this fabulous store called Cargo. This place is filled from floor to ceiling with the same kind of stuff that's tucked into every corner of my house...things I've searched high and low for...you know, Dios de los Muertos figurines, Balinese puppets, coasters from Shanghai bars, potato guns...the important stuff. Anyway, it's all jammed into one store and it gave me heart palpitations. I could have spent all day in there.


Even though this was a work trip, it ended up being incredibly rejuvenating. Getting away from my daily grind allowed me to gain some perspective on what's important and what I can (or can't/shouldn't attempt to) accomplish. It was also nice to have some contemplative time to consider the labels I've put on myself--writer, editor, artist, teacher, mother, spouse, friend, woman--and how these labels have affected me for the better or worse. Having that kind of thoughtful time was so precious and important, and I've decided I can't just save it for solo trips across the country; I need to do it everyday.

The trick, of course, is how to fit thoughtfulness into our daily lives. How do you do it?

Beading by the Bay!

I'm over the moon to announce that registrations are officially open for Beading by the Bay, a 3-day retreat (March 12-14, 2010)with me, Marcia Decoster, and Maggie Meister in beautiful San Francisco, my favorite city in the whole wide world!

The retreat works like a round-robin--you'll take a 1-day class with each of us over the weekend. We each came up with specially-for-this-retreat-never-taught-before classes that I think are just knock-out. Marcia's teaching Descending Night:


Maggie is teaching Laksmi:


And I'm teaching Lilium:


Wanna come? Just sign up on the Beading by the Bay website!

UMBS Anniversary

I attended the Upper Midwest Bead Society's 20th Anniversary on Sunday. It was a proper tea party and everyone was encouraged to wear their Sunday best, including a decorated tea bonnet that would be entered into a contest. Look at these beautiful entries! (The one on the mannequin head took first place--it's very lovely, isn't it?)

The party was a proper tea with sandwiches and cakes boxed up in this cute tin:


And I wasn't there for more than 10 minutes when I won this very cool kumihimo kit from The Satin Cord Store:


It was quite a lovely afternoon. There were about 70 attendees, and door prizes from local and not-so-local shops and businesses were being given away left and right. The Board of Directors really went all-out for this one. I know it must have been a lot of work, because the details, from the lace tablecloths to the hand-stickered tins to the beautiful flower vases on the tables, where just fantastic. What a beautiful example of volunteerism! I was lucky and ended up sitting at President Cindy Hlavka and Vice President Iris Von Bargen's table:


It was great to see so many friends there, including Nancy Burgett and Gina Crow (who is still in town! hurray!):


How lucky we are to have bead societies, you know? People from all walks of life who share a love of beading all in the same room, talking freely about something that most of us don't get to talk about in-depth to the other people in our lives. It's a really special community.

Speaking of communities and friends with like addictions, I heard from my buddy Andrew Thornton, who said he's doing a bit of an archeological dig in his studio. He's going to "lighten the load" by selling his cache on his new online shop. Says Andrew: "I'll be posting all kinds of stuff from vintage Avon bottles, to art beads, finished jewelry, collages, handmade fabric-covered sketchbooks, beads, baubles, and MORE. I'll be adding stuff daily!" Dang--that's going to be one cool sale. Check it out!

Visitor

We got a phone call earlier this week from my friend, John Grant. He said he was riding his Harley from L.A. to Boston and would like to stop by to see us. I got the house cleaned just in time for him to show up on Wednesday. He insisted on making us a peach and blueberry tart.


I made the GF crust and John did the rest. I love it when men know how to cook well! Oh man, did my family make quick work of this...


John was one of my teachers at SMCDAA, a now-defunct experimental art school in Santa Monica, California. John, along with Bob Ebendorf and Bob Wilhite, taught me not only how to use a table saw, planer, and torch, but also how to experiment with other materials in my work. The experience was invaluable and had a very deep influence on what I create now. John is primarily a woodworker, but he's also quite adept with tin, like this little portrait box he gave me years ago:


And this sweet tin truck he made for Dylan's first birthday:


I took John to the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. I thought he might like to see the beautiful building by Jacques Herzog. There was a pretty nice ceramics exhibit, but I always end up getting depressed by most of the exhibits in there. I'll be happy when we can start seeing less conceptual art in high-brow museums. There, I said it. The sculpture garden, however, is one of the nicest I've ever seen. Here's John in front of Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen's Spoonbridge with Cherry, which has become a Minneapolis icon.


Next up was a trip to Lakewood Cemetery. I know that sounds a bit creepy--bringing a friend to a cemetery--but the cemetery's chapel has the most stunning example of Byzantine mosaic in the country. I swear, this spot is the best-kept secret in town. If you're a beader and find yourself in Minneapolis, you need to go! Just picture each mosaic tile as a Delica bead, and it'll blow your mind. Plus, the architecture of the building is stellar, so non-beading significant others will be happy to get dragged along.


John took off early yesterday. I was so thankful to be able to spend some time catching up, laughing about the old days, and sharing my new life with him. A great break to remember my roots as an artist!

Beadblogger (belated) Sunday

Joe and I spent the weekend in Madison, Wisconsin, where he ran the Ironman triathlon. That's 2.4 miles swimming in a lake with 2700 of your closest buddies...


...112 miles riding through the surrounding rolling hills...(here are the bike racks--the place they started)


...and then a refreshing 26.2-mile run (this is Joe telling me "I'll be done in 3 more hours").


Yes, intense. Yes, insane. Yes, my hubbie. Yes, 13 hours later he finished!


I had a much more restful day, working on my upcoming book (here's a sneak peek of one of the projects)...


...walking around the local farmer's market...




...visiting with my old friends Disey and Rich, going out to dinner with Joe's triathlon buddy, Jeff, and cheering the racers at the finish line with my wonderful niece, Rachel. A lovely day that's much more my speed for a weekend away.

Now back to work and preparing for my classes at Bead Fest Portland next week. You going to be there?

Here's what my bead blogging buddies were up to while I was messing around in Madtown:

A Bead A Day
Design ideas wanted!! If you have an extra minute, please stop by to see if you can help Lisa out with a suggestion for her co-worker's designer Italian pendant.

About.com Jewelry Making
Copper is hot right now! Find out about a new book review just posted concerning copper.

Art Bead Scene
Art Bead Scene's September Challenge is Kandinsky's Improvisation No. 23.

Carmi's Art/Life World
Carmi uses chessboard crystals to create a floor for her ballerina necklace.

Cindy Gimbrone aka Lampwork Diva
Cindy's obsession with bronze metal clay continues. She shows off her new Art Nouveau floral charms.

Earthenwood Studio Chronicles
Melanie shares a sparkly crystal and brass pendant that she unearthed while cleaning her studio.

Jewelry & Beading
Cyndi has finished another CopprClay necklace and wants to share the instructions!

Lorelei's Blog: Inside the Studio
Lorelei is having fun using lots of Lynn Davis components in her designs this week!

Snap out of it, Jean! There's beading to be done!
Jean comes across her "Digg it" necklace--far out! She's like an archaeologist!

The Writing and Art of Andrew Thornton
Matcha green tea from Matcha Source defeats the doldrums and inspires Andrew to create a new bracelet!

9 Charms for 9/9/09!

I posted a blog on Beading Daily today about experimenting with surface texture. It was a fun blog to develop--Emma helped me chop up aluminum sheeting and we madly hammered, colored, scrubbed, sewed, and generally destroyed the little squares until we came up with several we liked.

But the question after we did the study was what to do with these little squares... I played around with the metal pieces this morning and put this funky little charm bracelet together in honor of the date today: 9/9/09.


I like it as a bracelet, but it would also work well connected to a simple chain necklace. Here's the skinny on the components, from left to right:

-I picked up the lobster clasp and chunky chain from The Bead Monkey.

-I used homemade jump rings made with Parawire to connect the components.


-For the TV charm, I chemically bonded (E-6000) part of one foil-square experiment to a nifty TV cab setting from Ornamentea.

-The next little round silver charm is a cut-out from the same foil experiment that's in the TV cab. I covered it with Lisa Pavelka's Magic-Glos to strengthen it.

-The praying man milagro is from Beadhive. I could always use more prayers.

-The two larger foil charms are done the same way the first one.


-The "J" tag is from Michael's. I used heavy-duty pliers wrapped in a hot pad to roast it on the stove.

-Ah, and the face charm...I love making these handmade cabs! I chemically bonded this one to a cab setting from Ornamentea.


-The "62" charm is one that Emma made from pounding the foil onto some steel numbers. Sorry, the numbers have no significance other than they're imprinted on the back of my steel block (an antique iron).

-The final charm is the sweetest heart pendant from Green Girl Studios. Thank you, Andrew!

-And the ring for the clasp is a funky sprocket gear element from Tim Holtz.

What do you think? I think I better quit messing around and get back to work. I've got editing to do!