Excited About a Challenge

I have started reading a lot of jewelry blogs recently. It is so interesting reading what other people write about their passion; jewelry making, beads, bead making, etc., ad it is all related to art. It is inspiring and really pushes me to want to create, which is good. For awhile there I was in a funk and I didn't want to do anything at all.

I think what made me really realize that I loved what I was doing was when I went into the ceramic studio in December. I was having a really bad day at work and when I went to ceramic class everything was better. The minute I walked into the studio I felt calm. Just being there, and this may sound corny, totally enhanced my Chi. I feel that same calm when I am throwing on the wheel or I am sawing or enameling or making beads. The world just disappears and it is just me creating something.

Currently I am really excited about doing a project. On the Blog Art Bead Scene they are having a January Monthly Challenge. The inspiration is Claude Monet's painting, The Magpie.

The artist must create something using an art bead that fits within their monthly theme. The challenge is to inspire those who use art beads and to see all the different ways art beads can be incorporated into your handiwork.

I told mom, yesterday, I really wanted to do this challenge and I felt I really had to do it. I must have been stewing about ideas all day long because last night, as I was about to fall asleep, the ideas for the beads came to me, my pink and grey Fishscale necklace. I made this necklace in 2008 and the necklace finally sold in 2009 at the Salt Fork River Art Festival at Sleepy Creek. I loved that necklace, but I know it went to a very deserving daughter because her father spent a long time looking at that necklace. He left, after we talked, and later came back and purchased the necklace for her.

Instead of pink and grey I want to use greys, purple's and some white which are the colors that are in the painting. I also want to try and acid wash the beads because I don't want the shiny look of the beads; I want more muted tones. I want to use silver links, but I need to see how much silver we have left. I might have to rethink the necklace and instead make the beads into a bracelet.

I really hope that the garage is warm enough to work in there this weekend.