Touch-Stones

"Touch-Stones" is definitely a statement necklace and is my latest beaded piece. Even better, it's actually for me, not for sale.

Each of the three pendants is a stone collected on significant journeys in my life: Isle Royale, Montreal and Gloucester.

I used several beading techniques, including twisted tubular herringbone, right-angle weave and peyote stitch.

In a Natural Vein - January 2014 Art Bead Scene Submission

"In a Natural Vein" is my submission for the January Art Bead Scene monthly challenge. Here's the inspiration piece:

It's a textile design for cretonne (a heavy unglazed cotton, linen, or rayon fabric, colorfully printed and used for draperies and slipcovers), circa approximately 1928. It's by Lois Mailou Jones, in tempera on paper.

Loïs Mailou Jones wanted to be remembered as an artist, not an African-American or woman artist. Her life spanned almost all of the twentieth century—a time of unprecedented changes in American history—and she was an active participant in the development of African-American influence in the arts. She was a trailblazer, a respected college professor, an artist ambassador, and an international expert on culture who documented everything she saw and did as a painter in the Harlem Renaissance, as an illustrator for Carter Woodson, a colleague of Alain Locke and Langston Hughes, an educator and mentor, and a champion of black artists in Africa and the Caribbean.
I was fortunate to have a perfect focal piece in my stash for this month - a porcelain cabochon by Nancy Schindler of Round Rabbit. It not only had the veined leaf motif, it also had the black and grey of the predominant design of the inspiration piece; I surrounded it with a beaded bezel in black and chartreuse. I used veined grey and black jasper beads and black stone nuggets for the bulk of this asymmetric piece. But it needed a bit more color...

And of course, I to find some more chartreuse!

The enamel over copper clasp and bead are from BeadSwedeSupplies and proved to exactly the punch of color this piece needed.

Available for purchase here.

Hidden in the Snow

If you look closely, snow isn't really white - those bits of crystallized water show every color possible!

"Hidden in the Snow" is my submission for the Art Bead Scene December monthly challenge. Here's the inspiration piece:

It's Winter Landscape by Wassily Kandinsky, circa 1909. He certainly understood that snow isn't white!

I've not been a very active participant in the monthly challenges - the time frame is a large difficulty for me, as I seldom seem to have an appropriate "art bead" in my stash (beaded beads are not allowed for some reason). With no local bead store - the closest is 3 hours away - I have to rely on online bead shops and by the time I order and actually receive my focal bead, there's not much time left to create a submission.

I've increased my stash and hopefully this will allow me to actively participate more in the coming year.

This necklace does use beads from my stash, combined with freeform peyote stitch and an Italian mesh wire base.

  

Available for purchase here.

Winter Berry

"Winter Berry" is my submission for the final 2012 Art Bead Scene monthly challenge. Here's the inspiration image,"Sleeping Beauty" by Erté, circa 1983:

Erté is perhaps most famous for his elegant fashion designs which capture the art deco period in which he worked. One of his earliest successes was designing apparel for the French dancer Gaby Deslys who died in 1920. His delicate figures and sophisticated, glamorous designs are instantly recognisable, and his ideas and art still influence fashion into the 21st century. 

This particular design reminded me of bright red berries, topped with snow, against a bright blue sky - a familiar winter scene here on Mackinac.

I was most inspired by Beauty's skirt - swirls of red, white, black and grey. I created a very long "beaded bead" in twisted tubular herringbone; the swirls are also present in the trio of hollow glass beads.

I found the clasp on Etsy, created by McDaddio. It's made of anodized aluminum and is the perfect complement to my beadwork - it's also very lightweight.

This is the second month in a row that I've ended up creating rather modern, somewhat stark (for me) necklaces - is it the start of a trend?

Available for purchase here.

Tri-Level

"Tri-Level" is my entry for the November Art Bead Scene challenge.... and it most definitely was a challenge!

Here's the inspiration image:

It's "Three Worlds", 1955 by M C Escher; "Three Worlds" depicts a large pool or lake during the autumn or winter months, the title referring to the three visible perspectives in the picture: the surface of the water on which leaves float, the world above the surface, observable by the water's reflection of the forest, and the world below the surface, observable in the large fish swimming just below the water's surface.

For me, the biggest challenge this month was the lack of color, for me, neutrals are just a necessary evil that I need to use to make my beloved colors pop.

I used three of my own images that fit the theme, taken as part of a photography challenge years ago, to create three pendents. I transferred portions of the images onto silk fabric, attached the fabric to thin metal and then finished the edges with beaded bezels, all in shades of grey and black.

I decided to join the pendents into one, large, over-sized pendent and mounted it on a simple Italian mesh base.

This is very different from my usual approach, very modern and stark, but I'm very pleased with the pendent technique - I'm sure I'll be using it more in the future.

Available for purchase here.

Teal Texture

I haven't participated in the Art Bead Scene monthly challenge in a long time, but I found that this months inspiration piece really spoke to me and I managed to squeeze it in to a very busy month!

"Revolving" by Kirt Schwitters dates to 1919 and is an assemblage of wood, metal, cord, cardboard, wool, wire, leather, and oil on canvas. Schwitters's use of fragments reflects a society shattered by World War I. "Out of parsimony I took whatever I found . . . because we were now an impoverished country," he wrote in 1919. "New things had to be made out of the fragments." This work reflects Schwitters's self-proclaimed "love for the wheel," and its title refers to a poem by the artist from the same year, in which he wrote, "Worlds turn the new machine to thee. To thee. Though, thine the new machine space."

My necklace is also a bit of an assemblage, consisting of a large variety of beading techniques, including three types of peyote stitch, twisted tubular herringbone and two kinds of fringing.

I found my main focal point in my "stash": a vintage handblown Venetian "bumpy" bead, as well as two smaller coordinating bumpy beads.

I'm particularly pleased with my clasp: it features a pair of ruffled art beads from mermaidglass on Etsy. So many women have short hair, which means the back of the necklace is on display nearly as much as the front and this clasp system gives a seamless look to the necklace.

I've many large projects to work on in the next few months; I'm probably not going to be able to participate every month, but I will be making an effort to whenever possible.

Available for purchase here.

Sunshine on the North Shore

Summer's nearly over, we're quickly moving toward fall. But the colors of summer linger here and there, especially within this clump of  black eyed susans growing along the north shore, like a bit of sunshine caught on earth.

I really enjoy creating these mixed media pieces; the challenge of finding just the right thread, stitch or bead to enhance the image is endlessly satisfying!

Available for purchase here.

Copper Leafing

"Copper Leafing" is my submission for the January Art Bead Scene monthly challenge. The inspiration for this challenge is a wallpaper, "Trellis" by William Morris.

The design dates to 1862, and is a dramatic departure from the typical designs of that period.

William Morris had trained as an architect and had early unfulfilled ambitions to be a painter. As a student at Oxford he met the artist Edward Burne-Jones, and through this friendship he came into contact with the Pre-Raphaelite painters, such as Rossetti, and others in their circle. In 1859 Morris married Jane Burden, an unconventional beauty and a favourite model for the Pre-Raphaelites. He immediately commissioned his friend, the architect Philip Webb, to build them a new home on land he had bought in Bexleyheath, Kent. Now a suburb of London, Bexleyheath was then a rural area. Morris wanted a modern home which would nevertheless be ‘very medieval in spirit'. This is exactly what Webb gave him.

Trellis was Morris’s first attempt at designing a wallpaper. Its pattern is said to have been inspired by the gardens at Red House, which were organised on a medieval plan with square flowerbeds enclosed by wattle trellises for roses. The birds were drawn by Philip Webb. The design itself certainly has a medieval character – the motifs are drawn in a slightly naïve style reminiscent of the woodcut images in 16th- and 17th-century herbals. Morris collected these early printed books and often took his inspiration from their simple stylised illustrations. Although his later wallpaper designs were more complex and sophisticated, his first efforts – Trellis, Daisy and Fruit – have had an enduring appeal. Trellis remained a personal favourite for Morris and he chose it for his bedroom at Kelmscott House, his London home for the last 18 years of this life.

I love the English Arts & Crafts style, in fact, it has greatly influenced the choices I've made in furnishing my own home - and I've used both orange and green extensively
.

I knew I wanted to incorporate the trellis pattern and right angle weave was the perfect stitch to form my base. Each side is different by yet complementary. One side picks up the browns in the focal pendent and the other side features copper beads that match the copper clasp.

I love the details in the pendent, which I purchased from Etsy artist JulesCeramics. I picked up a couple others at the same time; they're waiting for just the right project.

I think it's a modern, wearable interpretation of the Morris design - just right for the women comfortable with her style.

Available for purchase here.

Deco Skyline

"Deco Skyline" is my submission for the December "Art Bead Scene" monthly challenge. I've been experimenting with mixed media jewelry and this months inspiration image seemed a perfect subject.



The Art Bead Scene editors choose a building for this months inspiration - the Chrysler Building in New York.

What started as a small speculative office building has became one of New York's most admired landmarks. Chrysler took over the lease of the office building when it was in construction, hired William Van Alen to create a monument to his growing company and, allegedly, asked the architect to build the highest building constructed to date. To beat out his competitors who were also trying to build the world's tallest building, Van Alen erected a 185-foot spire on the top of the tower which was secretly delivered to the site in sections and raised to the top in a mere 90 minutes. Only a few months later, the Empire State Building surpassed the building in height, but the Art Deco skyscraper remains an unparalleled monument to industry.

A particularly beautiful example of the Art Deco style, it was one of the first large buildings to use metal extensively on the exterior, the building's ornament makes reference to the automobile, the quintessential symbol of the machine age. Metal hubcaps, gargoyles in the form of radiator caps, car fenders and hood ornaments decorate shaft and setbacks of the white and black brick building. This aluminum trim culminates in a beautiful, tapered stainless steel crown that supports the famous spire.

For my oversized mixed media pendent or neck piece, I found a frontal view of the spire and transferred the image to silk:

I removed one of the crescent shapes:

 

I used a "found object" as my central accent - a vintage hatpin topper that was unfortunately broken from it's stem. I created a beaded bezel to attach it to the silk. I picked out details of the architecture with hand embroidery and beads.

The chain portion is chandelier beaded chain and the closure is a simple toggle clasp. It's backed with heavy wool felt. 

It's easy to wear, very light weight and a great accessory for jeans or a cocktail dress - I think the experiment was successful!

Available for purchase here.

Around the Bend

"Around the Bend" is my submission for the September Art Bead Scene monthly challenge.

I love this months inspiration piece, a quilt entitled "Housetop", created by Lillie Mae Pettway, a Gee's Bend quilter.

Gee’s Bend is a small rural community nestled into a curve in the Alabama River southwest of Selma, Alabama. Founded in antebellum times, it was the site of cotton plantations, primarily the lands of Joseph Gee and his relative Mark Pettway, who bought the Gee estate in 1850.

After the Civil War, the freed slaves took the name Pettway, became tenant farmers for the Pettway family, and founded an all-black community nearly isolated from the surrounding world. During the Great Depression, the federal government stepped in to purchase land and homes for the community, bringing strange renown — as an "Alabama Africa" — to this sleepy hamlet.

The town’s women developed a distinctive, bold, and sophisticated quilting style based on traditional American (and African American) quilts, but with a geometric simplicity reminiscent of Amish quilts and modern art. The women of Gee’s Bend passed their skills and aesthetic down through at least six generations to the present. In 2002, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, in partnership with the nonprofit Tinwood Alliance, of Atlanta, presented an exhibition of seventy quilt masterpieces from the Bend. The exhibition, entitled "The Quilts of Gee’s Bend," is accompanied by two companion books, The Quilts of Gee’s Bend, and the larger Gee’s Bend: The Women and Their Quilts, both published by Tinwood Media, as well as a documentary video on the Gee’s Bend quilters and a double-CD of Gee’s Bend gospel music from 1941 and 2002.

For my piece, I drafted several rectangles and squares using the colors and proportions from the quilt.

I formed the "banners" using square stitch and size 11/0 seed beads. The spacers are formed of peyote stitch bands and it's all strung together on a freeform base.

I'm especially pleased with my clasp, a art bead created by Etsy artist, blueseraphim. It's design mimics the shape of a log cabin quilt block and in addition, red is the color of the center block of a traditional log cabin block.

I'm currently working on a bracelet to accompany this necklace and have an idea for an additional necklace utilizing the "banners" in a completely different way - more to come!

Medieval Twist

"Medieval Twist" was intended to be my submission for the July Art Bead Scene monthly challenge - obviously, I'm a bit late!

The inspiration piece was this beautiful painting, Morning in the Garden at Vaucresson, by Edouard Vuillard.

I choose to emphasize the cool blue/grey and the brilliant chartreuse present in the painting.

The pendent bead is from my stash and pulls in the blue sky just barely visible amongst the garden abundance.

I tried a new technique - twisted tubular herringbone - and it was a great choice, the tube is completely self supporting and quite strong.

The bangle bracelet is form I've not tried before, not my favorite style to wear personally, but works nicely as a part of this pair.

Finally finished - yeah!!!

Orange Sherbet

Do you remember orange push up pops?

They were my favorite purchase as a kid when the ice cream truck made it's way through the neighborhood - are ice cream trucks still around? Certainly not on Mackinac!

The cool sweetness or orange push ups was what I kept in mind as I worked on my latest beading project, "Orange Sherbet" a coordinating necklace and bracelet.

They were a bit of an experiment: I used just a single beading technique, tubular herringbone, and a single type of bead, seed beads only.

The visual interest comes in the interplay between the differing sizes, colors and finishes of the seed beads themselves - no flashy focal bead needed!

I worked with tight tension, resulting in a tube that will support itself.

I think they're a success - simple but visually interesting.

What do you think?