Musing #5 The Art of Beading and thebeadedlily

I believe that beading is incredibly difficult to do well. I prefer making pendants and bead when a pendant tells me it needs a fancy place to hang. I find beading tedious and challenging. I marvel at the time, skill and artistry that go into making beaded jewelry.

On Etsy, there is an amazing bead artist whose work I admire. I love her designs and craftsmanship. The beads literally sing in her work. I wanted to share her work with you. Meet the beadedlily. Check out her work at http://www.thebeadedlily.etsy.com/





Here is her amazing description of her work as a beaded jewelry artist."I think just like it takes a special kind of person be a teacher, or a nurse, or to turn trash into fashion, it takes a special kind of person to bead. Yes, some think beading is easy, but I'd say beading well isn't.

Beading well involves many things, including: talent, patience, practice, skill and a sense of style; not only having a style, but knowing, and owning that style. Some of us “beaders” have a style and work within it to great variation and effect. Some of us have a weird sense of style and we never know what we'll wear, but we know what we WON'T wear. That's good enough.

Beading well also takes a bit of respect for your materials, knowing what makes something special, maybe where it comes from, or some of its lore. Beading well includes actively seeking new techniques so that your work is dynamic, developing and moving. Therefore, you, as a person and an artist are growing.

My latest thing is making my own findings. Although more time consuming, it gives so much more control over the finished product.

I love to find beautiful things, glass or stone or metal or whatever--something that someone has had their hands on and loved. I like to combine it with other beautiful things, preferably surprising things, and make it into something someone else will wear and love.

Creating beaded jewelry is like poetry. The pieces together should surprise you, but they should also be so right that you wouldn't have it any other way.

Lastly, those who bead well remember that wearing a piece of jewelry is collaborative. That piece of jewelry becomes part of the wearer—- and part of the artist and designer, and part of the people who shaped the materials and part of the people who first wore those materials or that style.

Wearing and making jewelry is partly speaking to our individuality and partly speaking to our collectivity, our humanity . . . kind of like writing or reading a blog."

Musing #4 Entropy

According to scientific theory, entropy is defined as "a measure of the disorder of a system."

If "a system" is my household, then the "measure of disorder" would be high. Everything becomes disorganized despite my best efforts. Other contributing factors to disorder: my children's summer break, my husband's working from home and (OK, fine)....me. We are marinating in our little enclosed "system."

The only organized space is my "studio." (The room formally known as the guest's). My apologies, out of town loved ones, you may need to book a hotel.

My house used to be a study of immaculateness and organization. Tidy, everything in its place, a suburban dream. I marvel at my past efforts. How did I do that? I guess I was just going through the motions. My life is much more relaxed and enriched though a bit more visually chaotic.

I must admit that the this higher level of entropy is annoying to me. I've got to get organized before school begins.

I'll begin tomorrow.....

Musing #3 Raising My Hand

Okay, so I've told you about the trashion I create and my store. I've probably sounded a bit mechanical and stiff. Bear with a new blogger who is new to raising her hand.

Here is a little about me, Annie, the person--I'm a creative soul who is also a wife, and a mother of 2 children who are elementary school age. I call my store Annie's Obsessive Compulsive Designs because I want everyone to own a piece of my OCD. Fortunately, I don't really suffer from this painful disorder in the clinical sense; I suffer from a warped sense of humor and a love of word play. You will see lots of words sprinkled throughout my creations.

I'm dreading the start of school. I've enjoyed the lack of schedule and my ability to devote my spare time to creating more and marketing my mixed media jewelry. Back to the reality of multi-tasking.

A realist I am not. I had a vision when I first began that all I needed to do was to upload my pictures to my site and...Voila success would arrive with arms wide open. (Sort of how I thought my baby would sleep through the night right away and I could fit back into my jeans days after birth). Wouldn't you know realism reared its ugly head and I found had to promote myself. Ewww.

Promote myself? I had flashbacks to tedious in-home parties of women selling their wares-well housewares to their "guests". The guests feeling pressured into buying unwanted wares. Icky. I envisioned an entire class with hands outstretched, fingers waggling, bodies straining, voices shouting "OOH ! OOH! Pick Me! Pick Me!"

After getting over the initial horror of the concept I thought-- Hm mm......well why not raise your hand if you want to contribute? You don't need to be obnoxious about it. At 38 years of age it was time for me to redefine the word "self promotion."

So calmly, confidently, kindly, supportively I raise my hand to promote what I, and other artists, have to contribute. (See the photo above-this is my photoshopped version of the porcelain hand I use in all my photos).

Thanks for reading my ramblings for today.

Annie

Musing #2 Trashion is Funky

I just listed this funky pendant in my Etsy Shop. It is made from trash--plastic labels from 2-Liter soda Bottles and an old game piece.

Making trash into treasure is has many different monikers: repurposing, recycling, upcycling and trashion. I love the word trashion.

Trash when repurposed into fashionable objects becomes trashion.

Trashion is a great movement in which designers, artists, craftspeople, turn materials that would have been trash into usable, fashionable objects. I am a proud member of the Etsy Trashion Team. Check out our Etsy shop at www.etsytrashion.etsy.com.

Musing #1 Taking Form out of Function

Hello. Pardon my tardiness in entering my first post in my blog. I have been suffering from blogger's block. I've decided the only way to roto-root through the block was to write something, anything. Here it goes....

My name is Annie and I create mixed media wearable art that I sell on Etsy, a really cool website for all things handmade.

My store is called Annie's Obsessive Compulsive Designs, or obsessivedesigns for short. I make pendants primarily from unexpected materials. I spend my time obsessing on what odd material I can make into jewelry. You are welcome to wander into my obsession any old time at http://obsessivedesigns.etsy.com/. Or, click on the link on my site http://www.obsessivedesigns.com/.

My latest obsession is turning aluminum cans, labels, and candy wrappers into miniature collages. Sometimes I sink them into biodegradable paper clay (like the one above), sometimes I adhere them to old game pieces. I wish I could tell you something brilliant about strategies, implementation, composition, but, alack and alas, I cannot. I wait for the materials to tell me what they should be. A Fresca can morphs into the iris of an eye, a cherry cola can morphs into a butterfly. It just happens.

Scientists, archetechts and designers debate that form follows function. In my obsessive world, I strive to take function out of form.

The End. (My first blog. Hmmm that wasn't so bad....)