Ebay: The Bone Report

Isn't it really weird? I have been messing with the idea of trying some with little flowers on them (since I have to put flowers on everything) but I can't decide if that's too weird or not. And everyone's doing bones, so it's kind of getting to be overdone. But it looks like fun. :) I have no idea how this little mini-fad started, but it's kinda cool in a morbid, creepy kinda way.

I really wanted these:

Kandice -- those made me want to jump off a bridge. The prices, I mean. I really don't get it. The times have passed me by -- this is obviously a new lampwork trend and I just don't get it.

I'm officially old.

Becki

Then I'm old, too, 'cause I don't get it either.

Linda2

Me3. These bones remind me of those old, black & white movies, the ones where everyone was wearing those animal bone spike necklaces and grass skirts. I just can't see buying these, no design possibilities for me.I'm glad to see Lampworkers getting higher prices on Ebay, but I just don't understand this trend. Patti

I don't see how these are any more weird or morbid than beads carved out of real bone. They're like anything else, really..some people like floral beads. some people like unusual beads. I can see how the bones would make good talisman style jewelry, or amulets. Skull beads have been around forever, carved out of wood or bone or gemstones or cast in silver and pewter. I remember seeing an issue of art jewelry that had a necklace whose centerpiece was an animal jawbone made from polyclay. I've seen people make jewelry out of human or animal teeth. I have a book (the big book of beautiful beads) with a necklace in it that's made out of a child's baby teeth.

A lot of people have been saying that they don't see the design possibilities with them. Why not? They're beads. Some of them are actually beautifully designed, like the ones Kandice posted. What is it about them that makes them impossible to design with? They have nice colors. Some of them are highly decorative. I could think of several things to do with them. Just because they're in the shape of bones doesn't mean they're any less valid than lentils or tubes or bicones.

Personally, I like the bones. If I could afford them, I'd buy a handful for an idea I've had for ages. But now they're so highly priced that there's no way I could buy even one, let alone the eight or nine I would need.

-Amber.

I don't want to be rude, and, God, I hope the artist isn't in here or at least won't take offense TOO MUCH*, but my cat yakked up a bone that looked just like that -- dried tendon meat and all.

THAT being said, as a glass bead, it's done really well. But that "meat still on the bone" look sort of makes me queasy.

Kandice -- don't do it. It is just money, and it could come back to haunt you. As in, 10 years from now when a famous magazine interviews you, puts a bone bead in front of you and says to you, "What were you thinking of when you made THIS?"

LOLOLOLOL

Becki

She could say she was on a diet and she was hungry. (As I discovered when I found myself making chocolate candy beads. :)

ROFL - this artist routinely gets high prices. She's very popular, and I love her work. :)

How could making art come back to haunt me? It's something I would do for fun - not only for money. Art is so subjective.

I have Mike's first bead ever. But that's the closest to something that will 'haunt' him!

-Su

I saw a set today that were designed for use as a divining tool. Maybe that's the fascination?

-Su

Kandice -- I meant that "jumping on the bandwagon" phenonemon (good god how do you spell that) that happens when an auction shoots through the roof, and the next thing you know, everyone is doing it. I couldn't imagine explaining how a bone bead was art that just HAD to be made - "It was in me, and it just had to come out." "I saw it in a dream." -- or the other types of inspiration that come with the truly inspiring works. It looks more to me like -- "I ran out of things to make, so I made this. Then I decorated it with flowers."

I love BOTH of the artists that are doing well with these designs, and appreciate that they made the darned things look good!!! Both Bluff Beads and Pati Walton could sell me just about anything. And, I could sell the heck out of those beads (which is an issue for someone like me

-- if I can't sell it when I get it home, then it is a collection item, and collection items don't do me any good in terms of doing business). It brings up, in me, the whole "Singing with the Bones" issues raised in Women Who Run With The Wolves. A book I have been quoting for years on end now, and a lot of it here.

Sometimes art does this -- takes something out of its element and trys to make it "art." When the item works so well IN its element. Bone beads are great with other natural beads, and crystals, and there is a lot you can do with them. These just stumped me, LOL. And still do.

I'll quit trying to make jokes now.

Becki

I think I am gonna faint

the prices are just soooo unrealistic. Man did those beadmakers "strike while the iron it hot"! Good for them. Cheryl

You guys crack me up :p Seriously though, I think the bones are pretty neat, but then I don't find things like that morbid at all, I like weird and unusual. I thought about making some and then thought better...there are way too many out there now and it is definitely being overdone, so...I made teeth instead..lol.

Teresa

Personally, I like the bones. If I could afford them, I'd buy a handful

for an idea I've had for ages. But now they're so highly priced that there's no way I could buy even one, let alone the eight or nine I would need.

-Amber.

So - if some of our "bead group" lampworkers made some - and since we aren't "big names" that drive the prices nutty - you'd be willing to bid on ones that went for a lower price? I'm game to try some... LOL

Cheryl

I agree with you, Teresa. I'm really enjoying the bone bead craze. I find bones and skulls fascinating. My bedroom is decorated in a southwestern theme, and I have cow skulls, that I painted and decorated with leather and feathers hanging on my walls. But I guess some might consider the skull of an 800 pound grizzly bear on my nightstand a tad bit weird. It sure is awesome to look at though and try to imagine his life in the wild.