Its been a while...

I realize I haven't updated my blog for an entire month.

I have  good excuse. I was busy. 

July means one thing in my household, Ann Arbor!

My husband and I both have booths in the Ann Arbor Art Fair and between getting ready for the event and then recovering, the month is pretty well shot.

Besides my beads, I have jewelry and my sculptural work. It is a lot to wrap my head around.

It is strange how things come together sometimes and the universe lines them up in front of you.

Remember my last post about wanting to live in my bead house village?  (That is assuming you even read my last post) I had a notion about living in my clay houses. That would require a kiln large enough to fire a dwelling... details! Details!

I did make houses large enough for a fairy or a leprechaun community. Well, I assume they are big enough, not ever seeing either one while I was sober. I can only surmise. Unfortunately this inspiration came a week before the show and I had to work like a crazy person to get them finished. I was very impressed with myself when I opened the kiln. It made me almost slaphappy to see that things actually came out of the kiln better then I had imagined in my head when I was making them.

Along with the houses I was happy overall with my sculptures. I only wish I had more time to explore some ideas. Every little bit I do pushes me forward a little bit and I like the path I'm headed down.  If there were only more hours in a day or if  had a personal assistant, I could do so much more.

Does anybody want to work for beads? 

Utopia

I lined up the latest batch of my house beads to photograph and I liked the picture so much I thought I would like to live there.

In a tiny town made up of tiny houses in all kinds of mad color, none of them too straight but all of them happy places.

I would have artist neighbors with happy studios  and a liquor store. Dogs would poop out flowers and flowers would grow even if you forgot to water them.

All the animals would be well cared for and loved. There would be no scary people and no crime.  Everything would be solar powered and the water would be pure and clean. Having roomfuls of beads would not count as hoarding. And you could shout out VAGINA and no one would care.

The "V" Word

I  just had to do it.  I had to. In Michigan, my home state, women lawmakers were told they could not speak in the Michigan House floor  because one  of them, Lisa Brown,  said the word "VAGINA" in a discussion of a proposed law on women's healthcare. 

Yes, Lady lawmakers can't mention lady parts when discussing laws about Ladies Biznis!

Of course there was an immediate backlash and everyone saw this for what it really was, a ridiculous attempt to silence women in a debate about women's health, because the men are in charge of it. They men want to control it and keep women out of the discussion.

So I had to add another word bead to my repertoire.  VAGINA!  VAGINA!  VAGINA!   VAGINA! 

There I said it and you can't make me shut up!

If you would like to read more about this absurdity there is a very good article  HERE by Lisa Brown herself, along with video of the event.


Or You can watch this Funny or Die  Video that says it all!

More Bead and Button Bizniss

I didn't get around to all the booths at Bead and Button this year. I was pretty busy and could only step away for a few minutes at a time. Its a HUGE show and it can be daunting even for me. One of my favorite booths was Bead Paradise/Ebrima Sallah African Imports. It's what I imagine  bead bizarres in exotic countries. 

I bought some beautiful recycled glass beads there to go with my Koi and Mermaids, along with some metal spacers.

My friends Lorelei Eurto and Erin Siegal, co authors of Bohemian Inspired Jewelry  were visiting this year. They shared a booth with Melanie Brooks from Earthenwood studios.

These are my booth neighbors Wayne Robbins and Judy Mountain. They are the best both neighbors ever. They are both such kind and generous people and they have a great sense of humor. We have a lot of fun during the show.

Wayne made this fabulous frog bead I bought for my daughter. Judy makes  wonderful bronze charms. I have a few of her things somewhere in one of my unpacked bags. Yes  know, a week later & still not all together un packed! Oh shock and horror!

I have lots more pictures to show, but thats all for this time. Hope you enjoyed the Bead and Button mini tour.

looking forward, or shit I have to do when i get home from bead and button

I'm on my way home from bead and button , tired but happy . It was a good show and the energy there was so awesome. I got to reconnect with old friends and beadie buddies and met  many new people. 

I am especially grateful for Lori Anderson and Lisa Peters for organizing a great dinner for us and grateful for Heather Powers for organizing a bead breakfast for all us beady peeps. The kindness and generosity of this community never fails to amaze me. They hold a very high standard for me to live up to. They are the  people that I know "online" through blogs and meeting them in person doesn't disappoint. They are kind and generous and supportive. Many  have approached me and gone out of their way to offer their sympathy and support regarding my situation with the knock off beads that I blogged about a short while ago.  I really feel loved by this amazing community. 

Customers have been sweet and supportive too. Its very exciting to me to see people who are excited and connect with my work. They tell me how they have used my beads in the past and its a real thrill to be part of someone else's creative process. If it were not for my customers I couldn't do this, o matter how much fun  have.

When I get home there is something waiting for mw besides my family,  whom I miss  dearly, especially my " special " dog Arlo who has been watching out the window and waiting for me to return  since I left on Weds. 

Special helper monkey/studio assistant  Arlo

I have a huge pile of beads waiting to be glazed.

These are things I was hoping to finish for the show but ran out of time.

On the upside, its always been hard to get my butt back in gear after a big show, but now I have something waiting for me to finish and I don't have to think to hard. Thats a good thing my brain needs rest. 

These big bead shows kind of make you stupid for a few days and you are less then astute  while your cerebral cortex tries to gel itself together. Its sort of like a big beady hang over.

Glazing will be like therapy for the disturbed  mind.

I'll have lots more bead and button news later this week!

Earring Swap!

The best thing about doing an earring swap is not the fact that you get new earrings, even though that is pretty cool, especially for an earring ho  like me. The really great thing is the connections  you  make to other artists out there in the interweb bloggospere. I'm not that is a real word, so don't quote me please.

This time I was hooked up with Shelby Foxwell and Lori Bowring Michaud. 

Shelby is a fabulously talented  jewelry maker. And she also makes silver findings to die for.

Very cool stuff. Check out her Etsy shop. There is a pietersite ring  that made my heart to skip a beat.

The earrings she made for me are brilliant. They feature bold lampwork discs made by outwest  They are modern and tribal at the same time.I love them.

 

My other "hook up" Lori Bowring Michaud, is actually like an old friend. We were paired together in a previous earring swap.  I was happy to see she was paired with me again. She made me a beautiful pair of earrings with red-orange, ceramic rounds made by Keith O'Conner and navy blue glass drops that had an added resin embellishment on top. 

She ceated them from an image  that was in an article in an issue of Where Women Create  about Luana Rubin of www.equilter.com. 

 Lori's earrings always have unexpected meaningful  touches like that. I an lucky I get to add another pair to my collection.

be sure to check out the rest of the earrings in this hop:

Diana Ptaszynski     http://www.suburbangirlstudio.com

Jan Onipenco    http://moltenmayhem.typepad.com/

Patti Vanderbloemen        http://myaddictionshandcrafted.blogspot.com/

Mary Harding   http://www.maryhardingjewelrybeadblog.blogspot.com

Diane Hawkey    http://dianehawkey.blogspot.com/

Lesley Watt        http://www.thegossipinggoddess.blogspot.com

Jenny Davies Reazor      http://www.jdaviesreazor.com/blog

Melinda Orr      http://www.orrtec.blogspot.com

Cilla Watkins      http://www.tellyourgirlfriends.com

Stephanie Haussler       http://www.pixybugdesigns.blogspot.com

Sally Russick     http://www.thestudiosublime.com

Susan Kennedy       http://www.suebeads.blogspot.com

Amy Freeland  http://www.copperdiem.blogspot.com/

Marla James     http://marlasmudmoments.blogspot.com/

Pam Sears http://crazycreativecorner.blogspot.com/

Tania Spivey http://www.moobiegracedesigns.blogspot.com/

Kathleen Lange Klik http://www.modernnaturestudio.blogspot.com/

Lori Bowring Michaud  http://artfullyornamental.blogspot.com/

Erin Prais-Hintz  http://www.treasures-found.blogspot.com/

Gail Barnett http://www.atlastanewyearsresolution.blogspot.com/

Linda Landig  http://www.lindasbeadblog.com/

Sharleen Newland http://www.shaterraclaystudio.blogspot.com/

Dee Elgie  http://cherryobsidia.blogspot.co.uk/

Mary Shannon Hicks  http://uptwnsh-fallingintothesky.blogspot.com/

Lisa Johnson  http://whimsyswonders.blogspot.com/

Shelby Foxwell  http://sundownbeaddesigns.blogspot.com/

Keri Lee Sereika  http://www.pinklemonade.typepad.com/

Cheryl Brown    www.dragonflybeads.ca

Linda Younkman http://www.lindysdesigns.blogspot.com/

Kari Asbury http://hippiechickdesign.blogspot.com/

Fay Wolfenden http://www.torchfairy.blogspot.com/

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