Sylviebead Journal

COLDER Wednesday!

I said I was cold yesterday... I spoke too soon. It's much colder today. It's 15 degrees outside!

BRRRRRRR!!!!!!! At least my feet are toasty warm inside my UGGs. They are my best purchase EVER. They are probably my ugliest shoes, but they do their job and keep my feet WARM!!!

I didn't make beads last night. I really thought I was going to, but I still felt lousy and not being able to breathe and making beads just don't mix. I have no idea how people who wear glasses can manage having something sitting on their nose when it's stuffed up!! Drives me CRAZY.... so no bead making for me. I did spend some time working on bead stuff, but not much. I just couldn't concentrate while feeling icky and being on cold meds.

In facebook world, there are a gazillion "lists" going around and my lack of beadmaking and having things to share here that are bead-oriented have made me decide to do a "25 things" list about glass. Some of it I've said here before... some I haven't.... so excuse any re-runs... live with it... and remember it's my blog and I really can do whatever I want here. :)

So... 25 Random Things, in no particular order about beads, glass, and beadwork....
1. I've been making glass beads since January 1996 and although I kept moving from one medium to another before that... since then I've never felt like stopping doing glass to do something else instead.

2. I got into glass beads through making polymer-clay beads. My polymer clay beads were very cutesy and my goal in making glass beads was to have some spacer beads to go with my polymer clay faces.

3. The first bead I made was on a hot head torch. Ceille W___(?) who worked with me at Beadazzles in Atlanta showed me how to make a bead one night at her home. She was taking a class at the arts center in Atlanta.

4. My first bead was kelly green and red and actually pretty decently shaped.

5. I bought a hot-head torch and a mix of glass from Frantz with my Christmas money from that year and made lots of NOT decently shaped beads. :)

6. I took my first beadmaking class from Kim Osibin and Leah Fairbanks at the embellishment show in Houston in 1996. I've also taken classes with: Kristina Logan, Heather Trimlett, Laurie Copeland, Kate Fowle, Sharon Peters, Michael Barley, Brad Pearson, and Loren Stump (and I'm sure I'm forgetting others). I have a long wish-list of people I want to take classes with... Janice Peacock and Caitlyn Hyde are a couple of them.

7. Donna Milliron was very nice and complimented one of my absolutely HORRIBLE beads that I made in that Embellishment class. (it was an encased bead with pixie dust inside... because I had been told that you can't encase pixie dust. Don't tell me I "can't'" do something because I'll try. What they SHOULD have said is that it's a waste of time and pixie dust because it dissipates and you don't really see its effect.) ANYWAYS... Donna was kind because it was an UGLY bead.

8. Most of my first beads were destroyed in our housefire in 2002. This is a good and bad thing. They were pretty much truly tragic beads, BUT examples of "before" that were a nice reference for how you can get better with practice.

9. My first mermaid was a complete fluke. It was supposed to be a glass candy...then a fish... then I added pink "cousin-it" hair to try to rescue it. It became a mermaid.

10. I decided to pursue the whole fairy-tale motif for my beads. I never thought of them as goddess beads. I still don't. I make girly girl stuff and am proud of it!

11. Apparently everyone else DID think I was making goddess beads and there was a lot of talk about me being a knock-off at my first show (I didn't know this until MUCH later and I'm really glad. I'm really sensitive and probably would have cried right then and there and then quit doing shows...maybe quit making beads.)

12. Editors of 2 major bead magazines have said really AWFUL things to my face about my beads. It hurt, but they were SO mean that it almost made it comical. ("Everyone likes boobs" was the ending of one of their statements. Nice, huh?)

13. Because I had an ad in a magazine, it made people at several shows call me a "famous" beadmaker which I thought was pretty funny considering I PAID for my name to be in the magazines (that the 2 editors mentioned above would have never put me in editorily.... is that a word??). There was never an article about me in a magazine till LONG LONG LONG past that and it wasn't a big-time thing.

14. I probably wouldn't have been bold enough to become a full-time beadmaker if my then-husband hadn't suddenly left his job. It was kind of like a ok... I guess I'm doing this... kind of thing.

15. I love lime green glass and beads. 431 is my favorite seed bead color... Opaque pea green is my favorite Moretti/Effetre glass color. If I'm out of either of those colors I'm in trouble!!

16. My favorite and most used glass tools are a pair of bent/beat-up ridgy tweezers, a brass stump-shaper, a utility blade tool and some glass shears. I can't live without my torch-mounted marver and don't realize how dependent I am on it until I work somewhere that doesn't have one. I have a huge arsenal of tools that I never use, as well as a wish list for lots of tools I'll probably never use, but want!

17. I clean most of my beads just using the mandrel they were made on. I learned that trick from Kristina Logan and I've stuck with it.

18. My seed bead work was sort of a fluke. I never intended to really DO seed bead work. I just wanted a piece of jewelry by Cynthia Rutledge that featured my glass beads... she refused to make it for me, so I took her class and learned to make it myself... and loved off-loom beadweaving. I went on to take classes with Jeanette Cook and NanC Meinhardt, but there are many others I wish I could take classes with (Marcia you're one of them).

19. My Head Over Heels project was an escape from stuff that was going on in my personal life at the time. It was an entry for a contest at a bead store in Atlanta and I spent more time working on it than I should have. I'm glad I did. I needed to change focus back to something artistic and less production oriented.

20. I've taught 2 classes in my life that I wish I could re-teach for different reasons. Both groups deserved better than I gave them. :( I hate that.

21. My first beadmaking class was taught in Maine to a group of women who had no idea at the time that they were my first class. They were SO wonderful and was a funny experience since it was in the middle of a restaurant at a ski-lodge. The whole thing was something that I'll never forget. (or stop laughing about)

22. NanC Meinhardt told me, when I didn't know her, that I would be teaching Head Over Heels and selling kits/patterns for it. I laughed and thought she was crazy. She was right. I think she "gets" me and did even before I knew her.... which probably makes her a little crazy. :)

23. I miss teaching.... a LOT. I miss teaching glass for the "I'm a rockstar" moments (I'm being honest) and I miss teaching beading workshops for the overall "girl-time" atmosphere. I really really really miss it. (but I don't know if anyone would even sign up for a class with me nowadays. I've spent enough time away that I've lost any name recognition. I'm working to rebuild that.)

24. I'm afraid to apply to teach places like Bead and Button, Glass-stock etc.. I'm also afraid to apply to anything juried. The application process as well as the big potential for rejection scares me into paralyzation. I need to fix this.

25. I am not my customer. I figured out who my demographic is several years ago and I am not her. It's really funny to me that I love the stuff I create, but it's not the stuff I tend to buy or wear. (unless I'm at a show, where I MUST wear my own stuff). I hardly ever wear jewelry.... but wish I did.

26. I am the queen of color and pixie dust. I love making new colors out of the same old glass. The new glasses that are out intrigue me, but I'm trying to be good and stay away from them.... too many possibilities still exist in my "old" palette. (but look out when I DO try those new ones!! I'll tweak them and make them MINE!)

27. I remember hardly anything from the year I spoke at the Gathering. I wish I could have a do-over for that one too. It was bad timing in my life personally and I really hate that I had the opportunity to talk about something I'm so passionate about and didn't have my whole self together when I had that podium.

28. My favorite glass quote is by Stephanie Sersich who said in her presentation at the same Gathering in Lowell - "Less is Less" love that.

29. I stopped making beads in 1996 because my hands were shaking. They didn't know why at the time. I know now. The cause of the shaking is no longer a part of my day-to-day life, so it has virtually disappeared (but comes back from time to time making even more evident what the cause of the shaking is). Even after I stopped shaking, I was afraid to make beads again... it was fear and nothing more. Fear that I wouldn't be as good as I was before... fear that my work wouldn't sell... fear of not being the best at something. It was paralyzing. I forced myself to go to the local beadstore that had torch-time to meet a friend and make beads...that way I couldn't back out of it like I could avoid going to my home studio.

30. I started making beads again out of fear. Financial fear. That same thing that made me make beads for a living when that hadn't really been my goal, was again forcing me to make beads for extra money again. I hated that. Especially since I was JUST starting to think about making beads again for the ART not the money. I quickly made a personal stance, however that money would NOT be what brought me back into beadmaking again and focused my attention on nurturing creativity in others... waiting for my own muse to return. I didn't want to end up in the same place I had been before, where my worth as a beadmaker was tied to my ability to make money. That's when I started teaching my Finding Your Voice workshop on Facebook.... for free (ok... for the occasional cup of coffee) :)

31. I am SO SO SO SO SO proud of my Finding Your Voice workshop. I have no idea if the participants are really finding their voices, but the work I see is so different than what is out there in "glass bead world" that I can't help but be proud. I think THAT was the catalyst for me finding my muse again.... helping to fuel the creative fires in other people.


ok... that was more than 25, but Stephanie said "less is less" right???? :)

I could go on, but I won't. I love making beads again. I'm going to love beading again too.... and I have a FABULOUS project brewing that I can't WAIT to get started on!!!!


tiny blah blah blah...

coffee - no sponsor today. Just me. I bought my coffee (although I totally welcome you to buy it next time!!!) :) Today's brew - Cinnamon Dolce Latte which got cold too fast because it's so cold here

music - I'm listening to my "most recently played" list off of my ipod. I thought it would be a good mix of stuff I already listen to off of all my playlists. It's a bit random. Ok... it's a bit like a DJ on crack.... Taylor Swift, Al Green, T-Pain, Gorillaz, Green Day, Christmas Music.... I forgot that my kids use my ipod in the car sometimes and that I haven't moved the Christmas music back off of it!