Butterfly Pendants

I recently have been exploring new techniques to add to my work. I was interested in creating some of my own cabochons. After doing a little searching, I decided I wanted to try my hand at creating cabochons with specialized paper and glass. I'll describe how I made these cabochons in another post, but I wanted to share some of the first pieces I completed with these new cabochons.

Here are two butterflies I created with paper, glass, and bead embroidery. They are wonderfully simple, but the pictures under glass are incredibly detailed.

Over the next few days, I'll share other pieces I've completed with these hand made cabochons. I have some more photos to take so that I can prepare these for my etsy shop.

Spider Earrings

I realized the other day that many of my items in my ETSY shop had expired. Since Halloween is just around the corner, I decided I would relist my bead embroidered Spider Earrings. When I purchased these beads, I instantly thought they looked like spiders. The beads have a beautiful metallic quality to them. They seem to change color depending on the light.

On a somewhat related note, I was shopping at Jo Ann Fabrics the other day with my youngest daughter and all the Halloween stuff is already on sale. And the Christmas items are already out. I had to take a double take. It is still September, right? I guess Valentine's items will be appearing around December 1 at this rate.

My Artist Statement

I've been in the process of applying to some juried art shows. As part of that process, I've had to tackle the writing of an artist statement. I, of course, put this part of the application process off until last. I found it daunting to convey what I do into 3 short paragraphs. It is hard to put into words why I create the pieces I do. Fortunately, I have a very supportive husband, who helped me pull something together. The other good thing is that artist statements are supposed to evolve throughout an artists career. I feel confident that this is a good starting point and it can change as I change.

So here it is...

I work in bead embroidery, which is the art of taking beads and artifacts and sewing them into one-of-a-kind pieces of jewelry. Taking inspiration from nature, I seek to incorporate a variety of textures and colors into the work, while attempting to arrange the materials in a way that creates a sense of movement and light.

As an artist and family farmer, I find that the changing seasons impact my work. When the fields are green or the sunflowers are blooming, my palette reflects that landscape. When the dogs have an encounter with a porcupine, the quills sometimes find their way into a piece.

These native elements, along with fossils, abalone and gems tie the work to our natural lives and history.

So have you written an artist statement? Was it hard for you too? Please share a link to your artist statement, if you have one. I'm curious to see how others describe themselves and their work.

Now that this is done, I'm getting back to beading.

I'm FINALLY Back

Okay, I know it's been more than a month since I posted here on my blog. Life has been a little crazy and I needed to get my family life in order. Well, not that it is ever really in order, but I needed to feel like I had some control over it.

My kids went back to school and it always takes us a couple of weeks to get back into the swing of things. We've now got a few weeks under our belts and I think we all feel a bit more settled.

I have been beading in what little time I've had. I've actually got a number of new pieces to share. I've been trying some new techniques and want to share that too. I'm also preparing for some upcoming shows. I've had to spend time taking a lot of pictures, which is not my favorite thing to do.

Yesterday, I decided that it was time to start tackling my workspace. I actually should call it the dumping ground. I've taken over our dining room. This wasn't a big deal because we don't ever dine in there anyways. Unfortunately, I tend to just dump everything on the table. When it gets bad, I organize. Well, for the last month I have been dumping and dumping and dumping. I think my kids actually started putting their stuff on the table too.

So here it is. Not good. My mission - GET ORGANIZED. I'm good at organizing, but not good at keeping it up. So I'm sure that the dining room will look like this again at some point.

When I start new projects, there is a flurry of activity, then I get interrupted and the project is placed on the table. By the time I get back to it, I might have a new idea rolling around in my head and another new project is started. Again an interruption and another project is added to the mountain. It is a terrible cycle, but a reality for me and I suspect others.

Finally, I'm adding a picture of my constant companion. This is Argus. He's my shadow. While I was taking pictures of the table, he was right there at my feet. I'll talk about Argus more another day, but I will say this. He never adds anything to the table and he never complains about what it looks like. So I love him.