New Beading Project Book

is she also Katherine McKinnon, the "feminist" fanatic? Sarajane

Sarajane's Polymer Clay Gallery

If I may ask...why?

Valerie Website:

Ewww... I don't think so.

Thank you for clearing that up. I'm glad to hear that you and she are no connection---I could not imagine that person doing anything aesthetic or having to do with the senses.

I looked at your site--Is your workbook about stringing techniques then, and not about making the beads themselves? Sarajane

Sarajane's Polymer Clay Gallery

the workbook covers everything that I do- stringing, beadweaving, metal clay, mixed media contstruction, and in general is a good basic handbook on engineering your pieces so that they will hold up to wear, drape and move like you want them to, and be original creations.

there are tons of photos (90 pages, as it turned out), and there is a section on lampworking but no tutorials on glass beadmaking. I consider myself a novice beadmaker, really, and have no business teaching it. but I do have about ten pages of beautiful photographs of glass beads (ones that aren't in the other bead books) and two long articles about the history of glass beads and how to buy lampwork.

there is also a resource section, with a lot of great suppliers, and many of the articles that I have written for Lapidary Journal and Bead and Button are reprinted inside. It's essentially a summary of all of the work that I have done in the past seven years, along with everything that I know about making jewelry.

kate

well, people can decide for themselves about me. I feel good about the way that I run my business and my work life, and try in all cases to treat other people the way that I would like to be treated. I think that I am pretty much exactly what I seem to be. Live and let live, divaocean.

as I said, I no longer shop on EBay, because of that experience. proxy bidding is perfectly fine, though- you just put in the price that you are willing to pay, walk away, and if you win them, great, if not, then someone was willing to pay more than you were. I don't know why this is a wrong-headed approach in your mind, but it doesn't really matter.

were you by any chance the person who arrived at the trunk show at A Place to Bead, forgot your medication and returned, and stayed until the end of the day?

kate mckinnon

FWIW, I've gotten a few nastygrams from Sooz too. I don't know why she acts like that.

No, you didn't, especially coming out of left-ad-hominem-field like that.

Mary T. 8-)

Aunt Molly's Bead Street

It's even sadder when women try to keep other women down by judging successful, confident women as snobs.

Mary T. 8-)

Aunt Molly's Bead Street

Mary, it was very kind of you to post in my defense. thank you.

I'll try to do as was suggested to me in many private emails from this forum and just look the other way on the negative postings from Dr. Sooz. as far as I know she and I have never had any personal interaction other than the intimidating emails that I received over the Ebay purchase of Carolyn Driver's beads, and this thread here.

I see from reviewing this forum that she also posted an unfriendly remark about me after I had a trunk show at A Place To Bead, but it turns out that she wasn't even thinking of the right bead store. I was at a small place outside of Chicago, not the store in San Ramon. so who knows.

I try in all cases to be thoughtful and helpful to others, and anyone who has ever emailed or contacted me with a question has been answered at the speed of light to the best of my ability. It's a shame about the mean stuff, but I guess it's to be expected from time to time when you are visible in a field. As far as I know this was the first Internet trashing I have received. It didn't feel very nice!

Thanks again, very much, for the kind and thoughtful emails that I received and to Mary for posting here. I appreciate it, and hope to see you all out there in the beady world. best wishes, and peace, Kate

kate is a good friend of mine. i think her website is an accurate representation of the kind of person she truly is.

i've never known kate to be an elitist. she is one of the hardest working professional artists i know.

she is a kind, generous, superfine human. i'm glad to know her.

In response to Kate's comment...(I don't know if it's a good thing or a bad thing)...As our "DIVA FRIEND" Martha Stewart would say..."Kate McKinnon... IT'S A GOOD THING!!" And with that said...In response to all the "Negative comments from Sooz"...Don't you realize that there are enough people to "Not Like" in this world already without your putting in so much effort to give us another????????? ROCK ON DIVA KATE!! We're Proud of you and us tooo! XX Jacqui B

Kate, I love your work...you mention that there are enough hints and techniques in the book to keep the advanced beader happy, but the only sample page shown is a very basic tutorial on crimping. I need more to whet my appetite...

I wish you would put out a book on marketing beadwork. You seem to have mastered how to sell beaded jewelry as art rather than mere costume jewelry.

--Mary

I met Kate after friends saw her work at a show and told me about her. I looked at her website and sent her an email. Among other things, I loved a clasp on one of her bracelets and asked if she would divulge her source. I got an immediate response and she generously told me where she got it. No big deal to her. I later went to a weekend workshop in St. Louis to learn with her and although I had been making and selling jewelry for a few years, I became a much better architect and engineer of pieces. I learned tons. Her weekends are confidence building and enlightening. She packs an enormous amounts of learning into two days. Later, I took a one-day workshop with her near my home. Learned more. Her classes are salon-like and enlivening. One noteworthy aspect of her workshops is that she encourages people to take risks. She does this primarily by discussing her own failures with relish and asserts that we can't do well if we're not in the game. We'll fail sometimes if we're players.

Kate is an inspirer, a leader and very much her own person. Not everyone likes everyone, but why this public bashing? What's up with you, Sooz?

Jan

Hi mary- Now that the dang thing is finished, I will update the sample pages. While it has been in production, I wasn't really trying to sell it. I was just taking pre-orders from people who already knew that they wanted to get it. I will shift into a different gear now and actually market the book.

I'll post sections of the book on my web site, and in other forums and in handouts, too, and include it with every class that I teach. So there will be plenty of ways to get hold of the information without ordering the book. The great thing about having a hard copy of the color book is all of the amazing photos- 90 pages of them, tons of unusual and high end lampwork and lots of extreme closeups of my pieces so that you can see exactly what is going on.

I'm going to do a Studio Annual every year, too, which will be almost entirely photographs, and those will be hardbound and include all manner of pictures- my work, other people's work, beautiful patterns in nature, whatever I see during the year that I'd like to be able to pull down and look at again. I really liked the process of making the collection and just want to keep doing it. Those will be more affordable (probably about $30 a book). The workbook is supposed to be a stand-in for actual classes, and contains absolutely everything that I know (as of last week!)

As far as marketing goes- I think the bottom line is that I do make pieces that are original, and are coming from a desire to create art, not sell a high volume of jewelry, so it really isn't much of a stretch to market them that way. you know? and I am a really hard worker- if I didn't work 10 hour days, well then I wouldn't have the marketing campaign that I do because there would be no time to do my web site myself, or post to web forums, or answer email. I'm a one woman band and don't want to get bigger. so whatever I do I have to do it myself.

best wishes, kate

Well damn, I didn't know my question to Sooz would open up this can of worms! Jeez! Sooz is basically replying to a question I asked her. Maybe I shouldn't have done that, or maybe she shouldn't have posted it to the group...who knows. But this is the end result. Once again I'll reiterated that everyone is entitled to their opinions. No where in this thread has Sooz been nasty or mean. She truthfully answered a question I asked her. I don't think this is what you call a "public bashing". Nobody else has joined in what you call "bashing" have they? If Sooz doesn't like someone who cares? You aren't going to please the entire world no matter who you are. And Sooz has a right to say who she likes and doesn't. Just as you have a right to come in here and stick up for Kate.

Valerie Website:

Valerie - I guess I see a fine line being skated along between "opinions" and name-calling. I expect many of us express our opinions re: individuals in private e-mails from time to time, but this is a public venue with many readers and I do find it distressing when someone, anyone, gets called names "in public". I believe it has the potential to harm both the person being called names, and the person doing the name-calling. And it's all there archived for future readers, unlike a personal comment between friends via e-mail. It's difficult to erase that kind of attack with an apology, once the cat is out of the bag. JMHO.

susan in canada

I won't buy it new. I do not want to send any money into this woman's pockets, so I will buy it used someday...... ~~

She has a real sense of elitism, of entitlement. She thinks she is more worthy than other beaders, by a long shot. ~~ Sooz

Valerie,

Anybody that posts a leading comment like the one Sooz first did about putting money in "this woman's pockets" is begging to be asked, and you obliged. Kinda' like name calling. We're grown women. It doesn't appear that Sooz knows Kate, although I could be wrong. Putting it out there generates some bad feeling about Kate that is appropriately Sooz's; does she need a following to support her?

I think what I think, she thinks what she thinks, that's ok with me, but she sure seemed eager to say it. Something bothers me about taking the opportunity, creating the opportunity, to do that publicly. Feels suspiciously like jealousy. I could be wrong, of course, but if that's it, or anything like it, it doesn't belong here. My opinion. I agree with you that not everyone has to like everyone, as I said before, but this feels personal. Again, my opinion. Kate's work and her character will far outlive this little hiccup, so there's really no need for me to have posted. But the experience posted by Sooz is so much different than mine, I wanted to say it.

Jan

Your joking, right?

Quotes from Sooz: "I won't buy it new. I do not want to send any money into this woman's pockets, so I will buy it used someday......"

An opinion yes, but obviously leading into something.....

"She has a real sense of elitism, of entitlement. She thinks she is more worthy than other beaders, by a long shot. "

Hum. You might be able to argue this as being just an opinion in some circles. But when it is followed by more negative comments, it now reads as a personal slam. The interesting thing about the above quote is that she is saying this woman has a sense of elitism, of entitlement, yet she follows that up in a future post by defending herself for contacting another bidder to both scare them away from bidding on a public auction and also proclaiming that she hates a certain way of bidding. This therefor gives you the right to tell others how, why and what they can bid on? A bit of the pot and the kettle here.

More quotes from Sooz: "I stand by my statement -- your persona is not the warm, generous person your picture and website try to present you as being."

To whom? Have you met Kate? Have you corresponded with her more than to just try to make her back off an auction you wanted? Your judgments of this woman are based on what? Now the meanness is beginning to show. Am I now entitled to blather all over a public forum that I think you are a snarky bitch? I don't know you. I have never met you. This is the first time I have addressed you, but hey! It doesn't seem to matter much does it.

And now comes the nasty to go with the mean... "I just think you're a snob, and you think you're all that."

A snob? Again, based on what? Are you seriously holding a grudge for this length of time over a lost auction?

Are you feeling you have some sense of entitlement that you can verbally bash this woman on a public forum? Call her names? Assert your own sense of elitism because she did not respond as you had wished at your attempt to call her off that auction? Post leading statements about someone you don't even really know about why money should not be spent with her?

Lily A 9 year reader of rec.crafts.beads in case you are wondering where I came from.