Figs, two ways

Posted on December 2, 2013 by betsybeadhead | Leave a comment

I had an afternoon snack of figs, dates, and a leftover pancake not long ago. There was probably some green tea involved too. It was very tasty, and beautiful. I decided that it was so beautiful that I had to capture the image.

Then I realized after taking the picture that I should draw this with my watercolor pencils. They are kind of like regular colored pencils, but when you add water to the image after you’ve drawn it, it becomes a watercolor. Pretty magic.

I’m not that good with them yet, and I figured I’d get overwhelmed with all that “stuff” so I decided to draw just the figs. I took a few pictures of the fig first just in case I wanted to refer to it later. I was getting hungry.

I drew the fig twice, partly because I wanted to understand it, and partly because I had a hard time getting the shape right.

Here is what the result is, in two different lights. I’ve adjusted the image a little so it looks more like here what it looks like there.

Inside –

And outside.

One day I’ll remember to take pictures of the art before I add the water so you can see the difference.

Winter sunset

Posted on November 24, 2013 by betsybeadhead | Leave a comment

There are some colors that are impossible to name. They are beautiful and elusive and fragile.

I seem to be enamored of colors that aren’t really solid. They shift from one to another. If you wait ten minutes they change. If you take a picture it will never look like what your eyes saw. Yet, you still try.

I’ve tried to paint these colors, knowing all the while that they can’t be nailed down. That is part of their beauty. They don’t exist on a paint sample card from Lowe’s. They are several colors at once, and nothing in particular.

The winter sunset is one such example.

Special orders

Posted on October 22, 2013 by betsybeadhead | Leave a comment

I’m not a fan of special orders. I’d rather people buy what I have created. But I understand the need for special orders. People want something they have in mind, but they don’t know how to do it themselves.
Special orders are hard because people don’t really know how to ask for what they want. They don’t know the range of beads that are available, and the range that isn’t. I’ve been making jewelry for over 20 years and there are many beads I’ve only seen once. If I buy them and use them, I can’t find them again. They may exist, but I don’t know where. Going back to the same store doesn’t help. They may be sold out and their supplier can’t get any more.
That is part of what makes beading exciting. It is fun to find something that other people will love and is unique. It is also part of what makes it frustrating.
It is sometimes very hard to understand exactly what someone wants when they ask for something special. When Sally asks for a green necklace – what does she mean? Opaque? Translucent? What shade of green – olive, emerald, avocado, mint…? There are hundreds of shades of color. And then what shape? Round, faceted, tube, flat…? Then what size – tiny, medium, large?
The best is when a customer sets some parameters and trusts me with the rest, and are willing to pay for whatever I make. The worst is when they say “surprise me” and really they mean “read my mind”. Once a necklace is created, it can’t be easily modified. Sure, beads aren’t like paint. I can take the whole thing apart and reuse the beads. I haven’t wasted my money on the beads. But I still have to take the thing apart. If it is too long or too short, or the pattern isn’t what they expected, then what was wasted is my time, and that is very valuable to me.
I’ve made necklaces for people I’ve not met. I’ve not even talked to them. There was a lady who I knew over the phone. She wanted a necklace for her Mom. She described her Mom and I made a necklace and she was thrilled. Rarely is it this simple.
Sometimes I’ll pull together beads that are in the neighborhood of what the person wants, and let them look at them first. This seems to save a lot of frustration. I get a better idea of what they mean. The problem is that sometimes that doesn’t work, because the beads they have in mind aren’t ones that I have access to. I’ve got a lot of beads, and there are some pretty amazing bead stores here, but they don’t have everything.
Ideally, people would buy what I made. Barring that, in the second best situation they’d say something like “I’d like a red necklace that is 22 inches long” and let me figure out the rest. Otherwise, it isn’t worth it. The joy of making is the joy of discovering. It is hard to discover with a lot of limitations. When that starts happening, it would be easier to just teach them how to make their own jewelry.
I do teach people how to make jewelry, but not a lot. Nobody taught me. I took apart old necklaces from thrift stores and figured it out. I tried stuff and learned what worked and what didn’t. Bead books didn’t exist when I started making jewelry, and bead stores were few and far between. Now anybody can figure it out easily with YouTube and beading books from the library, but they still ask me. I can teach the mechanics of it, but I can’t teach design. That is something I just know, and I’m not sure how to teach it.

Art-spiration

Posted on October 13, 2013 by betsybeadhead | Leave a comment

Feeling the art blues? Haven’t made anything in a while? What do you do when you need to get your creative juices flowing?

Inspiration comes from many places. Try something different.

Go to a museum.

Go for a walk. Look at the colors. Look at your neighbor’s houses. Look at your neighbor’s dog. Take pictures to remind yourself later when you get home.

Read a book and make something the main character would wear.

Look at a magazine that has nothing to do with art. I find a lot of inspiration from architecture magazines.

Watch a movie and try to replicate something you see there with the supplies you have. Don’t replicate it literally, replicate how it makes you feel.

Try limiting yourself. Some of the most amazing pieces were ones I made from using just two (of the 14) bead bins I have. I decided I could not get any other beads – I had to use just those.

Make up a rule – only two colors, or only two textures.

Only use beads that were purchased from the same store, or the same state.

Use only one kind of art supply.

Use all the beads you can’t stand and put them together and see what happens.

Set a deadline – five things must be made by a week from now.

Have an art-date with a crafty friend. You both get together to make something, and you’ll be inspired seeing what the other person makes.

Buy more art supplies. Nothing inspires me more than getting new beads or a new tool.

Buy art supplies in places that don’t sell art supplies – like the grocery or the hardware store.

Only use materials that you found, or were given.

Have an art-swap, where your fellow crafty friends bring all the art supplies they don’t want or use. Trade. Make something.

Organize the supplies you have – you’ll find stuff you’ve forgotten and see combinations you’ve never noticed.

And just make. Make something, even if you don’t feel it. Sometimes the stuff that people are most impressed by is the stuff that I made in 10 minutes without thinking about it. Put something together, then put something else together.

Hide the bad stuff.

Posted on October 7, 2013 by betsybeadhead | Leave a comment

Smart artists hide the bad stuff, like how smart criminals hide the dead bodies. Part of being a good artist (or writer, or musician) is not showing people your false starts. And there are a lot of false starts in being an artist. There is a lot of “I wonder what this does” or “I wonder how this looks”. Those questions are the same as “Hey, watch this” and result in the same number of skinned knees and broken bones. But they also lead to amazing discoveries.
Part of being an artist is trying out new things. Part of it is just being willing to try. Part of being an artist is being willing to make really amazing mistakes. Part of being an artist is learning from those mistakes and not doing them again. Part of being an artist is discovering something entirely new and amazing and wonderful from those mistakes.
Sometimes I’ll show off something that I think is “eh” and others think is “oh yeah!” And other times I’ll put out something that I think is “wow” and others think is “meh”. You really never know. The audience always brings itself to your art.
What you meant to say is never what they hear. Ever. Get used to it. Even of you go out of your way to make what you mean to say as crystal clear as a lake on a still summer’s day, it still won’t mean that to the audience. Because the audience brings its own past and impressions and feelings to the table and sees your art through different eyes.
So just create. Learn to edit. Try. Show off the good stuff. Realize that some of what you think is the bad stuff isn’t that bad. Show it off too.
Artists just make creativity look easy. It isn’t. What the audience sees is the result of many years of work and refining. The audience sees the tip of the iceberg, while the artist sees all that ice. The artist scaled that ice, clawing and scraping to the top, step by agonizing step.
Consider Bruce Lee. He made martial arts look so easy and effortless. It wasn’t effortless or easy. He practiced all day. When he broke his back and was immobile he thought about his practice and had his wife write down his ideas. He was constantly working on his art.
So go make stuff. Make more stuff. Show it off. Make more stuff. But keep practicing your art, no matter what.

On art – collage, time, and audience.

Posted on October 1, 2013 by betsybeadhead | Leave a comment

I’m working on a new art style. I’m trying to do collage and it is testing my patience. I love the art of Nick Bantock, of the “Griffin and Sabine” series. I don’t want to replicate his work but I do want to try to approach its emotion and depth. The problem is that it takes a long time and you can’t erase.
When making jewelry using beads, if the pattern doesn’t work out you can always take it apart and redo it. Even years later you can always try again if the design gets old. Not so with collage. Once you paint something or glue it down it is done. You can’t go backwards and change things if it looks weird later. You can’t reposition it. You are stuck. You’ve used up the materials too – you are out that money. It also takes a long time. If you have multiple layers, you have to let each one dry for hours. I’m not really that patient, but I have to be to make this work.
This has stopped me from even trying this style for a long time. I’ve got lots of art materials that I’ve not used at all for fear of doing it wrong. So I’m wasting them even more so. It would be better to use them and figure out what works and what doesn’t work than to not use them at all.
Boats are safe in the harbor, but that isn’t what boats are made for. The same is true of collage. The same is true of life.
I’ve decided with collage the best thing is to just get over my “need” to start something and finish it in the same sitting. I certainly don’t feel that I have to do that with beads or with writing, so I don’t know why I think my painting has to be the same way. Maybe I want to see results fast. Maybe it is because I don’t have a lot of time to work on my art.
I think part of it might be that I resent the amount of time my job takes from me having time to do what I want. I just don’t seem to have a lot of time to do “me” things. I know I’m not alone in this thought. Nobody gets up and says “Yeah! I get to go be a cube-farmer today!” Don’t get me wrong – I like my job. I like the people I help. I just don’t think it requires 40 hours a week to do it. After 40 hours of work and the time required for sleep, there isn’t a lot of time for “me” stuff.
I’d rather work 30 hours than 40. I’ve asked if it is possible and they don’t think so. So I shoehorn in my “me” things – writing, exercise, art. I love the space I go to in my head when I create, and it is hard to wrestle myself back to a clock and a schedule and go to work after being in that space.
I’m starting to see collage as a good middle ground. Since I simply can’t do it all in one sitting, it works well with not having much time. I’ll do a layer, wait, do another layer, wait, and do another layer. I can’t work on it for hours at a time, and that works because I don’t have hours to work on it.
Collage is strange to work with because I don’t know how it is going to look until I’m done. I have some general idea but then when I add another element it changes everything. I can get an idea of where things are going before I glue a piece down but then sometimes when the glue dries it changes the effect. It is always a surprise. Sometimes it isn’t a welcome surprise.
But then I remember that with writing and with beads, the stuff that I really planned out and really love how meticulous and amazing it turned out happens to be the stuff that nobody “gets”. Nobody likes it or appreciates the work involved except me. Conversely, the stuff that I really don’t care about much – the stuff that I worked on and just don’t like as much is the stuff that people rave over. That is the stuff that I think is OK enough for others to see, but it just doesn’t get my idea across the way I meant to.
There are plenty of pieces of writing and pieces of jewelry and other artwork that I’ve created that nobody has ever seen. I feel like I show a lot of what I make, but what people see is just half of what I’ve produced. Some things I feel are just warm-ups, just stretching. Some things are simply exercises that help strengthen me for something better later.
I don’t feel like this about my art at the time. I want everything to be a marathon win, but some things just peter out about the three-mile mark. Or maybe that is just me. Maybe I need to show it anyway. Following the usual trend, they will be the things that people will really “get”. But for now, I don’t want to show them because I don’t want to put my name on them.
When you show any art – be it writing or visual art, you put your name on it. You say “this is me”. For good or for bad, you are showing off what you have made. People will judge you by it, for good or for bad. So you have to be careful what you show. You want to be known for good work so people will seek you out and buy what you have made. You want to get a reputation as a maker of good things. Do you keep with one motif, or do you have a range? Do you create for an audience, or create for yourself? Whatever you decide, you have to be mindful of who is going to see it and what they are going to think. Does this cause you fear, so you edit? Does this cause you excitement, so you embellish? Your relationship with the audience will influence your work.
Art isn’t yours anymore when you let other people see it. It changes. The meaning changes. What you thought it meant doesn’t matter anymore. When another person sees it, she brings herself to it. She brings what she loves and hates to it and sees that in it. Art is a mirror. It isn’t something that stands on its own and speaks for itself. It would be great if it was, but it isn’t.

Watercolor shaman

Posted on September 7, 2013 by betsybeadhead | Leave a comment

I was drawing this morning. I’m trying to get into the habit of drawing a little every morning. Watch out – I have watercolor pencils and I know how to use them.
Well, sort of. I know how they work. I’m not quite patient enough to draw real things. I make up excuses for myself, saying that the real things are there, and I can’t improve upon them. Why draw them when I could just take a picture? But I know that is a cop-out. I know that is me trying to not do the work required to learn how to translate something three-dimensional into something two-dimensional.
There is something to drawing what is there. It slows you down. You have to really look at things if you are going to draw them. Does this angle go straight up, or slightly to the right? Oh, look, there’s a crack there. I thought that spot was flawless.
Sometimes I learn things when I’m drawing. I’ve learned that figs aren’t just purple. There is a little green in the skin too. And they have really interesting spots, tiny ones. But sometimes what I learn isn’t right in front of me. I learn things while I’m drawing that have to do with how I draw, and have to do with where my head is at the time.
I’m trying a technique called “Praying in Color”. I saw this book by Sybil MacBeth at the library and have decided to incorporate its ideas into my morning routine. I like to draw, and I like to pray – and I don’t have a lot of spare time. So why not do both at the same time? I’m not sure that I do it exactly the way it is in the book. I think I have put my own spin on it. I offer this idea to you, if you are trying to find a new way to pray.
I take a piece of paper and I write today’s date and my prayer intention on the back of it, towards the bottom. Then I turn it over and start drawing. I doodle. I pick up whatever color that comes to mind, and I draw whatever shape that I’m feeling at the moment. I think that is important. I’m not trying to draw something real. Then, while I’m in that space where I’m not controlling what is happening, I get answers to my prayer intention. Quite often it isn’t what I thought it would be, and I’m surprised. It is a bit like being a shaman, but using watercolor pencils.

Egyptian Steampunk

Posted on September 3, 2013 by betsybeadhead | Leave a comment

What I made on Monday. Steampunk meets Egyptian. Copper, peridot, Peruvian opal, ocean jasper, rhyolite in both, with unakite and glass as well in the smaller one. The larger one was made first, then the smaller one was made to use up the rest of the materials. I’d planned on using them all up in the first one but the pattern wouldn’t allow it. So the second one was a real bear.

I made four necklaces in the past weekend. Two of them I had to take apart and redesign. If I’d had enough beads I would have kept all of these patterns. They were all beautiful. But if I’d had enough beads I wouldn’t have had to take them apart so often, so I wouldn’t have discovered all these other patterns.

The numbers didn’t work out. I had 5 where I needed 9. Or I had 12 but I discovered 3 were broken when I got into it. I couldn’t go get more. Some of the beads I bought twenty years ago, God knows where. Some I bought at a bead show and the vendor is long gone, like with a traveling carnival.

Part of the deal, the nature of making jewelry, is you need only half the strand but you have to buy the whole thing. So you have leftovers. Recently I’ve started teaching beading classes in part to use up these beads. But sometimes I’ll make limitations on myself to force myself to think differently. Sometimes that means I can only use beads from two random bead bins my husband picks out for me. Sometimes I’ll use an assortment of “leftover” beads. I have to work it so I use all of them up in one strand. I end up with some amazing things this way, but getting there is a real pain.

I could have a really awesome pattern at the front of the necklace, and then use filler beads to finish it out. Sometimes this looks like I forgot something, or I made two necklaces and put them together. This weekend it was going that way. I decided to redesign and adapt, and it took four times to get a good working pattern that would extend the whole length of the necklace.

I’m very pleased with how it turned out. It looks Egyptian, yet it also looks Steampunk. It reminds me of the jewels in old pocketwatches. It is intricate and delicate. And in the meantime I learned something about working with limitations.

Apples, or how to get quality through focus.

Posted on July 28, 2013 by betsybeadhead | Leave a comment

I read once about how the Japanese grow such amazing apples. They look at the small apples when they are just beginning to grow and they pull off the ones that they don’t need. All the ones that look a little scraggly or misshapen they pull off. Because of this, the other fruit gets the energy that was going to them. So instead of having 10 good apples and 10 ok apples, they get 10 amazing apples. Quality over quantity.

I think it would be a good idea for us to apply that concept to all of our activities. In this, I’m specifically thinking about hobbies, or things we do for fun that we would like to get better at.

Rather than getting scattered trying to do too many things, select the ones that look the most promising. Pick those that look fruitful, if you will.

What do you enjoy doing most? What do you think you would like to spend more time on and get better at?

We have only so much time in our days and in our lives. It is wiser to pare down and do two things amazingly well than 10 things only ok.

I’ve read that the difference between an average artist and an amazing one is practice. The main difference is time – specifically 10,000 hours of time – spent honing your craft. This applies to music, to writing, drawing. It is the same for a seamstress or a surgeon. Want to get better at it? Do it. A lot. Make a regular habit of it.

Some natural aptitude is helpful, but the real difference is work.

Nobody starts off an expert. Of course your first attempts look wonky. Don’t compare yourself to anyone else – they aren’t you. What is important is that you hone your craft, your skill.

There is a Chinese saying that the best time to plant a tree was 100 years ago. The second best time is today.

Get going.

First you have to see the box.

Posted on July 27, 2013 by betsybeadhead | Leave a comment

Sometimes there are ways to say things that don’t say anything at all. You can write a review of something and never really say if it is good or not. If you are really clever, you can spend your whole life doing this.

Or is it actually clever to not really say anything? Who are you fooling? Yourself, or your audience? Is it that you don’t know how you feel about your topic, or you are afraid of offending someone? It is all too common that someone will get offended by what you say, and if you say nothing offensive, they will continue to read what you have to say.

But both of you are wasting your time.

You could say that something is indescribable. Does that mean that you simply don’t have the words to describe it? Does it mean that you haven’t had the life experience necessary yet to describe it? Or does that mean that you aren’t brave enough to describe it? That to tell someone what you really think might make them angry at you? Might make them think differently of you?

You could say that something is incomparable, and you’d also be hedging your bets. Everything is comparable. You can compare everything to something else, if nothing else to say how much not like it the item is.

But both these words are used to make people think that something is really amazing, when it might be really nothing at all. It might be that it is so bland and boring that the author really couldn’t come up with words that were worthwhile.

The phrase “Think outside of the box” is getting cliché. It was cool for a while, but somebody needs to apply that thinking to the phrase itself and come up with something else.

We all need to think this way. We all need to take the box and tear it up and find a bucket. We need to see the box for what it is – we need to see how our language, our words, our culture, our society creates a box for us. We need to see the invisible walls that have been put on our understanding and our ways of doing things. We are taught from a very young age how to think and see and act, and those rules help us all live in community. But those rules and the overgeneralizations that occur from those rules always prevent us from seeing what really is there, and what can be there.

Artists challenge the status quo all the time. The only way you can create is to tap in to the great well of “what if?” and “why not?” You don’t have to paint to be an artist. I’m using “artist” in the biggest way possible. “Artist” means anyone who is creative – anyone who makes something different, brings some idea to life that wasn’t there before. You can be a musician or a writer or a dancer or in business or medicine. Your “art” doesn’t have to be physical. It can be a different way of thinking, of doing things.

Anais Nin said “We don’t see the world as it is. We see it as we are.”

Change yourself. Challenge yourself. Create.

And when I say “create” it isn’t as difficult as it sounds. Often when I create I have no idea what is going to happen. I start off with some vague idea, some seed, and I give it a little bit of time and attention and it grows into something I didn’t expect. But that is the trick – be open to the idea. Be available to it. And give it time – work on it. Welcome it. You and the world will both be better because of it.