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From the category archives:
Creativity
I recently wrote about the “search for inner peace” and incorporating it into my beads over on Watch Me Create. I wrote about part of where I’m coming from but I’d like to share more with you here. I’ve been busy, and that’s probably not the best way to search for inner peace, right? But, like I always say…ANYONE can find peace by meditating on top of a mountain…doing it in everyday life is the true challenge.
You might remember that I’ve dabbled in Venus beads. Not your traditional Venus de Milo goddess forms but a cross between venus flytraps and another, not-so-subtle, female representation.
I only dabbled in them because, well, I’ve had this mindset that, if they sell, I make more. And these haven’t sold like hotcakes. I’m on the edge of changing that mindset because I absolutely LOVE these beads and am convinced that people just don’t appreciate the true impact of them yet. They’re ahead of their time. Yeah. That’s it.
I feel silly admitting it but I pondered why they weren’t selling…like that should matter with art. But it does if you’re trying to make a living at it. Maybe they are too bulky? Too bright and bold? Just too darn funky? Offensive? So I tried a smaller rendition and they were ok. They sold. Hm. But I, as the artist, didn’t like them as much. So that’s a dilemma.
I decided it was time to get serious and I broke out the sketchbook. Well, not really. I got my sharpies and some shiny paper. You know it’s bad when I start to consider designing on paper.
If you can read my notes you can see that I’m reasoning with myself that I should be making what I like and stop trying to fit into something else. I guess this is the crazy artist version of talking to yourself and answering back. It worked, some. I made some neato beads and a few already sold to a regular customer who sometimes makes studio visits. These two:
It was interesting to me that these more earthy beads weren’t as appealing to me as the previous, brighter venus beads. What has happened to me? So, naturally, I tried to incorporate some brighter colors into this new rendition and yuckity yuck yuck. Here’s just one that resulted from that little educational detour:
So, I decided to leave the bright colors to the original venus beads.
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Here are the new, smaller gray and orange beads. They’re at the stage of ‘organic-ness’ where I’m still in the experimental phase and they haven’t gotten into that uniform, I-can-do-these-in-my-sleep look yet.
They’re ok. I love cube beads. But they hadn’t struck exactly what I was feeling. For some reason I moved onto something completely different in design. I wasn’t ready to abandon the gray and orange theme even though I was feeling a bit over it for the session. But, I know that if you want to develop something and it’s not coming easily, you must push through and make a bunch of cr@p to get to the good stuff. So I went way organic.
This is a pendant that was built on a button-like glass bail on the back. I really really enjoyed the process and it gave me an idea and opened up my world of presses again. This one was made using the lentil cavity to press into. Why not use other shapes? And a heart was born.
I don’t know if you can tell from the picture but the heart is raised about 1/4″ from the surface. I really really like the feel of it.
This whole process led me into two different directions too and I will have to show you those in a future post.
And. The whole gray and orange experience is not complete. In fact, I think it has only begun. I don’t feel complete with it and wonder if maybe it’s just a vehicle that I keep feeling drawn back to ride around once in a while so that I may be led into new territories. To that I say, thank you gray and orange…I will follow where you lead me.
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