Art Bead Scene - October - December 2009

Whew! What a journey this has been!


October - The Folk Art of Ruby C. Williams

I enjoy folk art and I especially enjoy folk art that incorporates words into the piece. And the necklace I envisioned was elaborate in a whole different direction... this is a case of what an artist envisions vs. what I feel capable of when sitting in front of that big ol' torch.

Since religious imagery is a large part of many pieces of folk art including that of Ms. Williams, I "thought" I would create a necklace made of five tabular beads, each with one word / symbol which when strung together would read:

I ♥ Jesus ♥ ME


But when I sat down to torch, I felt shakey and just wasn't up for that much stringer work. Still struck by the concept of love....love = xoxoxo.... so that's the direction I went in. In the end, the beads were not as elaborate but the necklace really was!

The story of this necklace and process is HERE.

November - The Fairy Fellers' Master Stroke by Richard Dadd

I found this piece so dark and disturbing...nothing I wanted to duplicate. I almost didn't enter this month...with the fires and the disturbed person calling me and many of my friends and other fabulous artists frauds. It was a trying month.

Determined not to be whipped, I decided to pick one element and do some free form thinking. Fairies... magical...hopeful... flying...wings. WINGS! I will do a wing! I had been playing with some silver rich glass but hated that when it was reduced, the layers of glass underneath became irrelevant. Even the surface texture was not as prominent.

So I started experimenting with twisting the silver glass into a mix of transparent and non-reactive opaque glasses so that when the twistie was used and reduced, the whole piece wouldn't go all shiny! And it worked.



And so the Fairy Fellers necklace came to be.


December - Lee (Lenore) Krasner's Untitled (1948)

OK! I'll admit it! I was so stressed about leaving town for the holidays, I don't think my beads really "go" with the painting. But I tried... and succeeded the whole year! So give me a tiny break, please!!!

I rarely think of earrings for the Art Bead Scene entries.... and I don't know why. They are really nice bits of jewelry and they're quick to make. Maybe it's the thought of having to make two of something!



The original post on the earrings is here.

And the Art Bead Scene has kicked off this year's competition with a lovely Winter White Scene. Hope you'll stop in to check out what I'm up to this year!

See you Monday on HollysFollyBeads!