pondering

I wasn't sure if I was going to write about this, but I've had some time to process things and  I have decided to share it. 

This past week I have been getting ready for Bead and Button. Mostly through a benadryl induced fog, after I broke out in mystery hives. 

I had to get work done for the show, but it was slow going and thank goodness a lot of what I do doesn't require much more skill then a helper monkey, so I plodded through. 

It was perhaps this time spent focusing on specific things I needed to accomplish that made me able to  move forward. 

A few weeks ago, it was brought to my attention that someone was selling a type of beads on Etsy that looked like mine. So much like mine that at first I wondered if they were perhaps mine, but they were not.  They just looked so incredibly close to mine that I could have been fooled. 

That was not the only thing that threw me. I have known this bead maker for years. I like her, she is a good person and someone I  would call a friend. 

So  I sent her a email about it, I was not angry, I was more confused and knocked off kilter more then anything. She sent a thoughtful response.  We did not see eye to eye on this particular issue and things were left as they had stood before. And I thought about it for a long time.  I thought about energy I have and how I wanted to spend it. I decided that I would move on and not dwell.  I can't control what other people do and for better or worse I am responsible only for what I do. 

So I am focused on moving forward, moving my work forward and finding new ways to do what I do. 

It so  much more exciting  and liberating then worrying about what other people do

 

Tick Tock

There are about 20 days before I head out to Bead and Button. It reminds me of the line from A Tale Of Two Cities, "It was the worst of times, it was the best of times."I am always a complete basket case in days leading up to it. There is always so much I need to get done and never enough hours. I dread the stress and I tend to crumble and get stabby. I have to remember not to let my prescriptions run out or  things around here won't be pretty.

  On the other hand, the show is so much more then just a bead show. It is still exciting after all these years.  I get to see friends and colleagues and people I have crushes on when I am there. It is like no other event that I go to. Not to mention the BEADS, no I haven't forgotten about the beads, those sparkly balls that drive otherwise rational people to do mad things. There are always the beads. More beads then a person can imagine in one place.

I am trying to manage my time (shut up) and be organized (shut up and remember what I said about getting stabby). I do try to make every year better then the one before in terms of my stock and display and always new items.

And just to add a little fun to my life, I have also been working for a show at the Michigan Artists Gallery in Suttons Bay, MI. Its called "The Mighty Miniature Show" with no work over 7" tall. 

I have 8 pieces in this show and I am very excited about it. It is one of the nicest galleries in Michigan, and I'm not just saying that.

These are some of the pieces I made for the miniature show. They are 4 1/2" X 3" and I am very pleased with my work.  Its always exciting to work within a challenge and stretch your inspirational bones a little further then you think you can.

It will be interesting to see how and where this direction creeps in to my beads, as I'm sure it will. Everything is connected, you just don't always know where the connections are until you trip over them. I'm hoping it will be a direction that surprises me. You never really know how these things will turn out. The universe has always been a trickster. I never can tell what it has up its sleeve.

Arlo has a blocky head