MANDINGO

This morning I posted a picture on Geometric Dimensional Beadweaving with Seedbeads, a group moderated by Teresa Keygirl, whose work I have been following for a while now.

man-dingle bird ascendant

   I want discuss the origins of this particular bit of of beadweaving. Lately I have been making what I am calling bead tapestries, although I am not sure that is the right name for them. They aren't quite three dimensional but neither are they one dimensional. I build them with a potpourri of pieces that I arrange around an idea, This one in the picture is the first one I have put together. It was made for a friend with a strong interest in psychedelia and the use of psychotropic plants among  Aztec and Mayan peoples.This piece has so many things going on with it. I bought the beads originally as a set of Miyuki luminous neon beads sold by a Chippewa woman on Facebook; and for a long time I did not know what to make with them. All the bits and pieces were made for another bead tapestry but somehow they didn't fit in so I took them out and while looking at them,  I realized I have ended up with what looks like a thunderbird dreamcatcher, the bird ascendent. It could also be seen as the Airlines who today refused to carry Trump's separated immigrant children, one of the things that might have forced him to change his policy. Although, being Trump, he has only changed it for the worse.

     Here are some thoughts I've had about my beading  I'm not the fastest beader and I'm bad at anticipating patterns. All I am is ambitious. I have more ideas for the tapestries. I would like to go more three dimensional in my work. Some of the older UFO's cry out to be finished. And lately I've been having the urge to blog about what I've been doing. Not because I expect people to read my blog, they seldom do. But just because I have the urge to express myself and I want to blog about bead weaving because that is my passion.

harnessing my literalness, or, what is my art

AS always, this is the way I question myself; do I have any art in me. Recently I ran across a whole new way of doing things, the maker movement. I went to visit a friend and found her in a makerspace; Artistic Amnesty, over in Somerville. Now what was interesting to me was that  there was much  that was useful to me. I ended up signing up for a class and I have high hopes because for some reason, I am in a creative mode.
Unfortunately, being creative scares the hell out of me because I get manic around art. Today, this morning I was in full mania for a while. The reason I am so scared was that my last real episode of mania ended up with me trying to kill myself. While I enjoy the creative part of the mania, the intensity worries me.
I repeat myself:
 I worked myself up into a manic episode around making my charms. My fingers were dancing on the keyboard, I was typing so fast. I have an observation I want to make but suddenly the real observation is that  ART makes me manic. And I don’t mean it in a completely good way, yes I am creating at a rate I normally do not function at, but I am functioning in a not good way. I start to scare myself.
As I make my charms, I think about how literally I have portrayed the Beads. I have actually incorporated tiny Beads Of courage necklaces in my charms. as I make each little charm, I make up a story for the child my charm represents; blue beads for the doctors visits, red beads at each corner. I decide the yellows will symbolize chemotherapy and the green ones nausea. But why am I always so literal. In this case I was able to harness my literalness and turn it symbolic. Maybe thats it. Thats how I can harness my literalness.
At least I have finally found my art. I went looking it everywhere I was and didn't find it until i was almost too old to appreciate it. Perhaps mania is my way of making up for lost ti

Just Crazy and a Lot of Excuses

Today is the day for a Blog Hop for which I am singularly unprepared. But knowing how annoying it is to come to the website  of a participant in the Blogshop who has not bothered to post anything at all, I feel I must offer both a Apology to the other Participants and something of san explanation for my dereliction of duty.
I am moving. Not only am I moving, my cat is moving with me and we are moving to Tucson Arizona, a town which is a leaders dream destination, filled with lots of crafty older women such as I come to escape the winters and to hopefully be in a more creative state of mind. I have been singularly lacking in creativity lately.
Instead my mind is filled with packing lists, lists of things I will need, considerations of the best way to move my cat. Will he fit under a seat in front of me? Probably but Tucson is not a one stop flight from Boston, which makes it harder to plan.
I have done a crazy thing and bought a house(condo, really) that I have never seen. Have I made the most expensive mistake of my life. I will find out. Anyway, if anyone is in Tucson Arizona this year , give me a call and we can get together and bead.But message me for my phone #, I don't want to put it up for public use

BEADWORK THROWDOWN!

Well, its done. I conceived and executed a fine piece of jewelry, inspired by the generous helping of beads and the gorgeous large lace agate cabochon that Catherine King, my Swap Angel(and doesn't it sound like the title of a song;Swap Angel, I love you so much) I chose to take inspiration from Maggie Meister's book "Classical Elegance" and attempted another bead embroidery because Catherine King is so accomplished in it and I wanted this piece to have a lot of her influence and I wanted to try again a technique that had always foiled me in the past. I think I this time I did a creditable job, finally my needle started to find the right places to go and I really enjoyed doing the bead and pearl edging on it. I did make a mistake, I cut my first piece of suede backing the wrong way. Luckily I had some more. As for the retable, whose design I took from "classical Elegance;
the Lakshmi Pendant, while I used the basic design, I also used the techniques I have learned from Kate McKinnon's Contemporary Geometric Beadwork. Her new techniques are capable of changing the way beadwork is done, making complex pieces that might be beyond the skill of a beader or that might take a much longer time, very accessible.  More people should look into her techniques, the new peyote starts, the exploding round and the elegant guide round being three of the most useful. So new beadwork techniques meet old style beadwork to make what I think is one classy piece
However I wasn't able to post on swap day since I was at a beach hotel with a sick grandchild.  Now, today I am going to put this up and put the link on Bead Peeps and hopefully some hoppers will find me anyway.

my beadwork in a topsy-turvey way

The almost swap and hop post

its almost time to swap and hop and I'd like to post a bit about what I've done and haven't done with the beads Catherine King, my swap angel, sent. I did actually come up with two ideas and drew them out. Having the ability to draw out what you want to make is helpful in many ways. You are then able to visualise your ideas more clearly. That I've actually made one of these designs is a big accomplishment in itself, and the other, unmade, is still pregnant with possibility

ideas for swap work

In which similar beads are sent to different people

When I originally signed up for Bead Peeps Swap and Hop I was quite pleased to be matched with Blanchy Medina. From both New York City and Peru, she promised to be a superb swap partner( she works at Micheal's) However, due to health problems she had to bow out.

Catherine as her cat Callie

 Thats when my Angel, Catherine King stepped up.  Linda introduced us and left us to get at it. While we have completely different styles of beading, I find much to admire in her; the confidence she has, her ability to tackle any  bead weaving project; her color choices, so accomplished yet so very different from my own; the way she fits her animals and children into her busy life; having a job; participating in the Society for Creative Anachronism, and her interest in historic costuming, plus actually finishing her ambitious projects.And, dear to my own heart as well, the love of fantasy. 
  Each time I join a swap and blog hop, I hope for a challenge beyond the ordinary, and the chance to learn something new. and so far, that hasn't really happened. Perhaps I'm expecting too much from a little package of beads. Yet this time I think I will learn and be challenged. I have already learned about Operation Tackle That Bead Stash,  and did that Facebook group  instantly call my name . And  my wonderful Bead Swap box is fulfilling this, coming with Stiff Stuff and rivolis, as well as gold seed beads, a wicked good piece of jasper and ivory jasper beads to match, as well as a book of romantic designs by Lisa Kan, non of which I've ever tried. So far I feel extremely challenged. Perhaps too challenged! Will I be able to do this? Return for the reveal: May 15, 2016

The Morrigan, Catherine's Battle of the Beadsmith entry, in progress 

What I sent Catherine, crystals and jasper and seed beads

What Catherine sent me, my little package of beads,crystal and jasper and seed beads

DISCOVERIES!

the elegant guide hinge drawing

I have just been brave and posted a picture of the drawing I made of the new kind of beadwork connection, a joining of two pieces of peyote fabric that I am calling the Elegant Guide Hinge because it is based on the thread path of the Elegant Guide Round from the Contemporary Geometric Beading Universe. This Hinge can bend 360 degrees and also combines two separate pieces of peyote fabric into a whole, where if you made both pieces the same color, you wouldn't be able to discern the hinge, but it would still be there!

Another discovery I've made in the Contemporary Geometric Beading universe is that you can use MRAW(modified right angle weave) to make the increases previously made with herringbone, as in the work of Diane FitzGerald and Kate McKinnon. You can use this new increase stitch in triangles and warped squares and I am now making samples with horns and wings, to see if it can be used there. So far, it works. This discovering is very exciting, although it requires a lot of thinking, and sample making. When I have more samples I will post again

a triangle with a MRAW increase