New Beginnings....

Herroooo 2011, when did you sneak up on us?

Did you all have an amazing holiday season?

I hope so!

I did.


and now for 2011....

2010 was a good year for me. Nothing huge and earth shattering happened but it was all the little things adding up to make the year feel full, accomplished, fun, and amazing. As I reflect about 2010 and I look forward to 2011. I wanted to THANK ALL OF YOU for your support. For coming here to read my little thoughts and ramblings, for taking the time to comment, for patronizing my shop and for following me along in my journey. It really means so very much to me. It makes my heart feel so full of joy that times I don't know what to say except,

THANK YOU.

Looking forward to the coming year, I hope to continue on my current path, plodding along, however clumsily. I've redesigned the blog a bit, and I hope to post even more. You can expect to see:

*more tutorials.

*more bits from my life.



*more about my creative process.




*more of all my work, not just beads and jewelry but my sketchbooks, painting, cool finds as a lover of all things old and rusty.

Do you see a thread here? My word for 2011 is more.



more doing.

more sharing.

What are your plans for 2011??

Measuring...

a little craftiness that Santa's elves are making


Hello Friends... I've been absent once again...but here I am!


Thinking about gifting and giving and receiving at this Christmas time (or your own holiday)....


This year, I am crafting all of my gifts. Which isn't any different from the last 5 years but there were times in the past, several years, when many of the gifts given and received have been handmade. But this year, probably not. My family has been busy in their own right; new babe, new jobs, new moves and different lives so I think I will be the only one Crafting Christmas this year. and that's okay, because I understand the BUSY.

But I start to fret in the realm of my craftiness,

will my gifts be well received?

Should I just pony up and buy a gift card?

Aaaacccck! It sucks....

I don't want to be the CRAZY AUNT BETHANY who brings jello with cat food and boxes up her cat in pretty ribbons....

Do you question your own craft?

Do you undermine your own creativity to a $50 Macy's gift card???

Home-ly....

books always sustain me along my journey, here are a few favorites that I return to again and again....


I would like to thank all of you who left such encouraging and empathetic comments on my last post. They are so special to me and really went a long way....

So, I've been doing a little here and there type of stuff. Experimenting, making a few things for small orders, getting household stuff in order too. Had to take an impromptu trip to get a tag for a new-to-us car. Since we spend a lot of time around and about, hop on pop type short trips all over the place, I feel like I'm constantly packing, unpacking, cleaning, straightening, organizing. It is actually sort of soothing and methodical, in a way, and lends some grounding to this sort of helter skelter type existence.

I've still been experimenting with projects from Stephanie Lee's Semiprecious Salvage, along with a few other ideas using materials I have on hand like the bezel set marble pendant with the french text. I used to be fluent in French, now I just dabble with a lot of effort and a dictionary. This one reads, un autre or another.

However, it is difficult on my creative process. While I get lots of new ideas from coming and going, my process is usually long and difficult and to fit in these long creative jags amidst the constant flux of my life is even more difficult. It always has been. I don't really see it changing. I just always have to evaluate the process and try to make it smarter. Work smarter, not harder...that's what one particular professor always told me....

How do you fit your creative process into the time your alloted? How do you streamline your process?

Working on a post for tomorrow with a little something home-ly to give away for my 32nd birthday ;)

Erudite Collection....

erudite er′yo̵̅o̅ dīt′adj
having or showing extensive scholarship; learned
[from Latin ērudītus, from ērudīre to polish, from ex-1 + rudis unpolished, rough]

The new Erudite Collection is a collection of rough hand-faceted polymer clay pieces fashioned into wearables. I was really inspired by Diane Hawkey's faceted ceramic nuggets that she sent me in the Bead Soup Party and before that time, I had already been contemplating a new ready to wear jewelry line that incorporated faceted pieces of some kind. I'm getting ready for Indie Craft Parade and I wanted to have a bunch of one of a kind affordable pieces on hand to sell there.

Part of my love affair with polymer clay is taking standard items like tribal fetishes, stones, netsuke and translating them into polymer clay. Polymer clay is such a versatile medium and I leave the mokume gane and canework and complicated things to the polymer clay masters. I am, by my own admission, not a polymer clay master. I couldn't make a cane to save my life and I don't really care to!

I use polymer clay as an extension of my creative process. I could be using any medium, so long as I achieve the aesthetic I set out to get. For me, I have developed a process which I like to follow. For polymer clay, it is sculpting, carving, painting, sanding, polishing.... It is focused and therapeutic to an extent. I use these same process over and over but often the work speaks to me and asks me to change.... Sometimes it asks me to stop and think and reexamine. Should you carve after you paint? Should you carve after the baking/firing?

I've come to realize that I'm very much a process oriented artist. I think that process art gets a bad name sometimes. Sometimes, people associate that those who make process oriented art do not care about its outcome. I think that is untrue. The outcome IS important to me and through the process, I reach this state, where the process is finished and the outcome is apparent. It is very similar to Wabi-Sabi. One accepts the impermanence of all creation or that this piece is finished for this maker.....

What is your aesthetic? How do you work?

The above pieces are currently available for purchase in the shop.

Wedding Sketches...

Just thought I would show you what I've been working on lately... a WEDDING!
I made an initial inspiration sketch-up of the photos the bride sent to me of her dress, potential floral scheme and some other inspiration...


in the initial sketch up there was a wedding dress, but I can't put that out there, you know!


I will tell you...it's a beach wedding. The groom and his party will be wearing baby blue casual beach shirts, the bridesmaids will be wearing black dresses of their choosing and pretty ornamented slaps( that's flip-flops, for all you non-florida people!) -that's black silk flowers in the photos, I think!

And I'm making gorgeous jewelry to match!


initial design sketches



We're still in the final design phases, shooting ideas back and forth and discussing details!

It is really quite fun! I'm enjoying the creative process of working with a client on such a momentous occasion and making such crucial decisions that will make everything perfect on such a special day!






The difficulty with doing everything online in a short time span is I don't have fabric samples in person and the local shops here, while lovely and accommodating do not have the inventory I'm seeking.

With the constraints of matching color, I'm left to guessing with stuff on the internet (again matching color on the screen to what I need), then 2nd and 3rd guessing color choices....Very frustrating. I'm pairing it all together though and it is all working out.

I'm finding it very valuable to follow my instincts with certain purchases and letting it all fall into place. I'm very confident that it will be beautiful and perfect for the ladies of the wedding party!

Keri Smith

feldman by keri smith on Flickr

I really don't know why I haven't visited Keri Smith's blog and website until now...I just never made it there. All you artsy-fartsy peeps out there will probably recognize Keri as the author behind such paradigm shifting work such as Wreck this Journal and How to be an Explorer of the World.

As an honest review, I find her books to be sort of a novelty to me. I've never bought one but I love them. I pull them off the shelf at B&N sometimes when I'm there. It is what I strive to do on a daily basis, to think about things in a different manner. They are the epitome of out of the box thinking. That being said, I might get to a point someday where I need more of that thrust in my work than I have within me and they would all be handy little workbooks.

But I love her blog and her website. It is just so refreshing. I was having a moment last week....

OKAY....

A DAY.

I was having a DAY. or a DAY and A HALF.

One of those days where you just feel like you SUCK. And nothing on the earth is going to change your mind.

And THAT is the day I found Keri Smith's blog. and suddenly I didn't feel like I sucked anymore. I felt normal.

YAY!

What made me feel better? It was this post. And the little free PDF's that she gives you and specifically, the page that has "HOW TO FEEL MISERABLE AS AN ARTIST"

GO THERE.
NOW.
FEEL BETTER.
OR BOOKMARK FOR A DAY WHEN YOU FEEL REALLY SUCKY AS AN ARTIST.