We've had a lot of discussion lately about copying and copywriting, skill and professionalism, encouragement and discouragement as it relates to the creative process.
Sometimes we get so involved in the details and ends, we forget why we fool around with beads in the first place.
So I was thinking maybe we should back up and bit and think about what motivates us to bead or make beads. I've always had an urge to create, to make things with my hands, and haven't always been patient with the learning process. My first effort at beading a cab turned into a heart, and I'm still not sure how that happened.
Sometimes I get frustrated when I'm not selling and fell like "what's the use?" I even began an inventory at the end of summer (which I never finished hahahahaha) with the thought of selling the whole business. Happily as I handled my beads and jewelry I remembered why I started it all in the first place and realized it wasn't something I wanted to give up.
Practically most of us need to make money to some extent to keep buying more baubles, but the real reason, as least to me, to bead, is to create something beautiful or at least interesting. For me it's therapy, it sooths my soul, it takes my mind off the all-too-real day to day problems that crop up.
How about you? Karleen Page/Vibrant Jewels JustBead Auctions
vj found this in rec.crafts.beads, from "Karleen/Vibrant Jewels" :
]Practically most of us need to make money to some extent to keep buying more ]baubles, but the real reason, as least to me, to bead, is to create ]something beautiful or at least interesting. For me it's therapy, it sooths ]my soul, it takes my mind off the all-too-real day to day problems that crop ]up. ] ]How about you?
that's it for me!
----------- @vicki [SnuggleWench] (Books)
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----------- The measure of the menace of a man is not what hardware he carries, but what ideas he believes.-- Jeff Jordan
With me I'm still trying to find my calling. I've tried so many different things that I could scream sometimes. I try and try but the things don't go from my head to my hands properly. Not sure if that sounds right.
I've tried crocheting, knitting, cross stitching, petit point, embroidery, painting, woodworking, quilting, gardening, writing (romance novels), sewing, and probably a few I'm missing. It never turns out how I want it.
Today is one of those days when I want to pack it up and put it on Ebay. I get almost done with something and then it gets messed up. Usually just a little thing, but then I would have to tear it all apart and that's not an option. So I have to figure out how to hide the mistake. After this happening alot with different craftings, I'm not sure why I do it.
Let me share my most favorite story. I used to spend summers with my Grandmother. She did a lot of arts and crafts projects, including beading. When she would bead, I would notice a sense of peace that would come over her. She would be so calm. When I asked her once why she felt that way, her reply to me was: "See that little hole in the bead? When I am beading, I climb inside that little hole. There is no room in there for anything else but me. No worries, no cares".
The same holds true for me. It is my meditative time...to create, to arrange, to view the colors and textures, the sparkle and the contours. The feel of the beads in my hands, on my fingers. The sound of them tinkling in a bowl. To hold them up to the light and watch it play off of them, creating a life all their own. I am inside that little hole, and there is no room for anything to bother me.
I know EXACTLY what you mean, Debbie. That's why I'm a craftaholic. But you know what, i think i've found a handful of things i'm really good at, and i'm gonna stick with it.
Beading is therapy for me, too. One thing that i sorta have control over in my weird life. I only say sorta, because the beads talk, you know..lol.
This is such a great thread. I started out beading so I could have some sort of 3D art experience. Before beading I only painting and did photography. While I still love my 2D art, it's the texture and colors that call me to beading.
It's the same with lampworking with a twist. I can paint in glass and that really blows my mind. I can combine the two loves of my life together. Who would have ever thought of painting with glass? I also love working with my hands and the glass art makes my brain think things through. With a brush and oil my brain is on auto. I can do a painting with my eyes closed sometimes because I know the processes so well and I've been at it for 24+ years. Glass is different.
What do I mean by glass is different? For one safety is a higher concern. I have to worry about the torch flame, the fumes, hot glass...and the list goes on. Glass is cool to the touch once formed and cooled down. How many of us touch a pretty glass vase or bauble? Glass can have bumps, ridges, and all sorts of textures or it can be smooth to the touch.
Although I have only been at this for a few months, it is my way to relax. I get into my own little zone when I am beading. There is no frustration like with other crafts I do.
I love to hold the finished product in my hands, feeling the cool beads slip through my fingers. I love the weight of a strand of stone beads. Most of all, I love wearing something that I did, something that I thought of, put together and know it is one of a kind. Like me.
That makes me feel good and makes me want to go on learning, improving and creating. And, most of all, it's fun!
That's easy! It's all about color for me. Before beads and glass there was fiber.....I loved mixing my own dyes, blending dyed fibers into "heather" mixed, and playing with color in various weaves (some get violently eye-popping). I just adore messing with colors. With glass, the bar is raised because it's not as easy and obvious as mixing dyes or paints. Half the time you get mud. But there's the fun of layering, raking, and OMG all the surprises with boro.
Several things motivate me and inspire me to make beads. Colors and light and blending....shading. The feel of the glass in my hands. The mesmerizing way it melts and forms. Nature - orderly symmetrics in nature. Flowers, color, shape. The feeling I get when I create something small, intricate and pretty out of several rods of plain glass. When I make beads I almost go into a trance. It's very calming and therapeutic. There's rhythm and ritual in it that's irresistable.
As several others have mention, I love beads and glass because of the light and colors. And also the feel. I am almost abnormally kinetic. The one visual thing I have the same sensation of merging with is color.
Colors are alive to me. As some materials, especially wood, are alive to me and are full partners in the creation that flows from them. Eskimo carvers refer to their art, or their job or usefulness, as freeing that which is inside the stone or other material. They don't make or build something, they un-cover or dis-cover the art within the element.
I love very simple beads for their exposed color and form. I also love beads for the details of expression the have. And I love beads for how they can be frozen in time through bead weaving.
Color, touch and light.
Tina
"Karleen/Vibrant Jewels" wrote in message news:Tg90c.26085$ snipped-for-privacy@newsread3.news.atl.earthlink.net...
In all the craft/art forms the payoff is the same. When it works out close to my minds eye's vision, or even better, there is a feeling of great pride to know that my hands were responsible for bringing that thing to life. With beads that joy is multiplied with the feeling of the fringe when I run my fingers through them. With dolls, its that hug moment, with quilts, the ahhh of seeing it on a bed. Its the joy of creating, making something that before I started didnt exist before. The process of making is usually frustrating to me. Im not naturally graceful, and my eyesite is not great. Its the done moments that bring me joy, and its worth all the frustration to get there. Diana
I've been on a quest for about five years to find arts/crafts I enjoy doing.
-Writing fiction. I like it, but it's emotionally draining, and I can only do it in small amounts, not enough to satisfy my creative urges.
-Collage. I like it because it's cheap (the way I do it) and I like putting incongruous images together. But the gluing/finishing part is messy, and there are only so many decoupaged AOL CDs that I can give away. ;-)
-Crochet. I like it because I can carry it around and the finished product is practical. I have a huge project right now, and I'm doing finishing stuff that isn't challenging at this point, so I do it when I am watching TV or doing something else that doesn't take my full attention. I don't like that the finished product (unless I'm doing thread crochet) tends to be big and warm - my house is already too full of stuff, and I live in a warm climate already. I will probably do some more thread crochet at some point.
-Lampworking. I've always liked the way hot glass flows, and I wanted to work with it, but I thought glass blowing would be too strenuous for me. I took one class in lampworking and I loved it - it was addictive the way video games are addictive, and I even had pretty beads to show for it! I haven't done more because the classes are expensive and the equipment setup / fireproofing for doing it at home is expensive. At some point I'll probably do more.
-Beading. This is my current favorite craft because it's challenging - so many new techniques to learn; it can be done without spending a lot of money; beads are so much fun to collect and handle; the finished product is small and everybody loves it as a gift; I've been able to make stuff I've always wanted but been too cheap to buy.
I am motivated to bead by who knows what. The beauty in something so small, the fact that I can spend hours beadweaving if I choose, or just get a small dose of it by stringing something simple and fast. But, beadmaking is another story...with bead making all I want to do is "bottle" the beauty I see in life and form it into that one perfect bead. I find a lot of my inspiration from nature and to me, it's hard to wear a sunset because my neck or wrist just isn't that big. But to bottle it into this one tiny bead is...incredible. I think it all started with photography and I was able to capture the beauty of the world, but wasn't satisfied with just a picture. I had to make it more, and make it into something different. And well, beads and beading is *always* different, no matter what you do or what beads you use.
Valerie
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Actually, it goes pretty deep; I have always loved beads. When I was a small child, I picked up a "reject" bl;ue-glazed ceramic bead from the junk pile outside of the Oregon School of Arts and Crafts, and that was the "aha" moment for me, the moment I knew beads were treasure and inherently of value. It was "garbage", but I kept it for many years. Eventually I lost it... I wish I still had it! I still remember it intimately. As an older child, I started buying beads and even stringing simple necklaces. I started seed-beading onto leather, just improvising with no real idea of what I was doing, and beaded a medicine bag and a hair tie this way. I still have the medicine bag. I made soe earrings. Mostly I just bought beads to HAVE them. I always have done that; I don't necessarily want to wear them, I just want to touch them. I was also fascinated with glass, and used to melt chunks of colored glass in the wood stove, (yes, it gts that hot) so I could have interestingly-shaped glass nuggets to play with. I yearned to make glass beads the way the Africans did,(and still do) but never figured out how.
When I was 20, I learned from a friend that it was possible to make my own beads out of glass. I had never heard of this before, and when I saw some examples... her uncle's rejects, actually... I was instantly hooked. Unfortunately, I had not developed enough discipline to save $60 for the class, so another year went by before I learned. I never did take the class, though, and there were no books, so I was making beads in a total vaccuum. I am so grateful for the beadmaking community there is now, because my skills have increased tremendously as a direct result of feedback and support from other beadmakers. I keep making beads because I have to. Period. I need to make beads as much as I need to eat, breathe, make love, and excercise. I need to have beads that I didn't make (the ones I make are gone as soon as I make them, for the most part; I love them, but I let them go) and I need to be aroud people who love beads. I think that there is something about beads that goes so far back in human history that it has become a need, something that speaks to our primal natures. It speaks to everyone to one degree or another... that instinct that causes us to bend down and pick something shiny up off the sidewalk... but to some of us, it shouts.
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