New Bracelets and New Toggles

Right Angle Weave bracelet with my handmade tumbled stoneware beads.  The seed  beads are compliments of Auntie's Beads. They were sent to me as a promotional gift as part of their Blogger Program.  They are a size 6 Japanese seed bead.  Great color.  I got to choose the colors.

Another view of the bracelet.  All of the ceramic beads are my handmade stoneware tumbled beads.  I think they go particularly well with the the Auntie's Beads seed beads that I picked out.

This is one of my new stoneware toggles.  The toggle bar has been customed designed for me by MissFicklemedia.  I love it.  And I have many more.  What a color match.  And I can hang a dangle from it.

Another bracelet using my handmade tumbled stoneware beads.   In this bracelet I have added a couple of copper stamped rings and a copper toggle bar that I stamped with the word ART.

Here you get an overview of the whole bracelet.

And a closeup of the seed beads and the stoneware beads.

Both of these bracelets are chunky statement bracelets.   

Pretty Harvest Color Inspiration

Fresh picked from my garden      Green beans, raspberries and cucumber.

Beautiful comes in small amounts.  I love the color combination of the greens and the raspberry.

The beans are part of my second planting and are coming in in abundance.  These raspberries are a surprise. Have a great Sunday.

SunFlower

I love the way sunflowers grow

 and cascade

and make beautiful patterns with their seeds

and wear the most intense color yellow

                                                 and shades of brown and rust and burgundy


                             They are my favorite flower in my garden and the only one I planted this year.

Shopping Maine

When we were in Maine this summer I visited some important shopping sites and took this great pic of the well known boot.

And visited the other great store in Freeport--Beadin' Path

And bought these beauties to keep my memories of summer warm during the cold months ahead.  Patchy frost predicted tonight.  It seems that summer just stopped from one day to the next around here.

How about where you live?

But wait, I just hear the newest weather report.  We are getting a reprieve this week with temps in the 60's and 70's.  Maybe I can get in one last swim.

Two Thistles Two Treasuries

My two new stoneware Thistle pendants have been showcased in two different Etsy Treasuries in the last few days.  This Teal and Beige piece is currently in the Etsy Treasury called Whistle for the Thistle put together by dancingwired. 

My  beige and turquoise stoneware pendant has been in a Treasury put together by Etsy seller glistenbyerin called from Sand to Sky.  It sold on Sunday and now my Teal one is in its place making it in two Treasuries at the same time.  WOW. 
Thank you so much including me in these Treasuries ladies.

Looking into My Studio Today

I took this picture today so I could participate in the 2nd Saturday State of Your Studio event on the Beads-of-Clay blog.  It shows my glazing area in the front and on the long counter with the green rolling pin, my wet clay working area.  I make sure to keep the two areas separated.  Some folks even have a separate room for glazing to be sure that there are no clay particles floating around that might land in the wet glaze.  My studio is almost below ground level so it is very damp which is good in a way.  The clay doesn't dry out too fast and air may be too heavy for little particles to travel very far.  As you can see I use coffee cans with skewers to suspend the beads while I am glazing them.  In the tray are some bisqued pendants that I will be hand painting and then glazing. 
Thanks for stopping in.

New Toggle Clasps in my Etsy Shop

Stoneware, Tomato Flower

stoneware, brass hand stamped bar

I have been listing quite a  few new toggle clasps in my Etsy Shop today.  Hope you will take a look

stamped copper

     

                                                             Stoneware  tumbled

                                                            earthenware clay, copper bar

                                                         earthenware clay, hand painted

Photos From Labor Day Weekend Trip

Early morning sunrise  

More sunrise

Sunrise over wave breaking

The beach in full sunlight

View from a bluff of Prouts Neck

Close up of a breaking wave

Footprints

Me very happy to be at the ocean

Art Museums: Renewal for the Mind's Eye

When I think about renewal, I think of what I can do to give me energy and creative ideas.  In a perfect world, I would live near the beach and go for long walks and look for seashells and interesting stones.  I did that tirelessly as a child and it was an important part of my development as a person  and artist.   Now that I live quite far from the ocean, I have found other means of renewal.  I go to art museums and look at paintings, mostly paintings since the  1850's.  Living as I do, closer to Canadian cultural centers than ones in the US, I often go to the National Gallery in Ottawa or the Museum of Fine Arts in Montreal.  Once you enter these great centers you meet the most wonderful Canadian artists, painters especially.  Would I have ever heard of the Canadian Group of Seven, otherwise ?

                                                     Tom Thompson  Autumn Leaves

 Would I have ever seen paintings by the incredible Mark Aurele Fortin?

And how do I turn renewal into art beads?   I find color combinations I had not thought of before 

and paintings of trees that I feast on with my eyes.

I have found that these renewal experiences began working their way into my art work.

 I began carving tree pendant molds

And most recently I made two new molds from carvings and pressed them into stoneware clay, fired them, stained them, fired them again and tumbled them smooth.

I have always liked the expression, "the eye sees before the mind knows."  It seems that leaves, flowers, plants and trees have become my seashells of renewal in adulthood.

Art Bead Scene August Challenge

At the beginning of the month, when ArtBeadScene posted this wonderful painting by Jack Savitski, I was immediately inspired to make a piece of jewelry.  My first thought and one I carried with me until it came time to actually make the piece was to use one of my toggle clasps, the one in the pic below.  The sun in this painting made me think of it.

What I like about this painting, and many primitive artists' work, is the way it makes my mind think in universals.  I felt the sphere of the earth and the many trials and joys of life when I looked at Jack Savitski's painting.  And I felt I could make a piece that reflected that sentiment.  But I wanted my piece to be happier than Jack's.  It sounds as if he had a very hard life, with little to look forward to.   He had his art and that must have been wonderful for him.  But....

I decided to use words in place of the people in his painting.  I chose words that I thought I would like to have represent my life.  I chose to focus on a life span as the time frame instead of a day. 

When it came time to put the bracelet together, I had sold the toggle clasp that was my original inspiration for the piece.  I had another one sort of similar but the colors were not quite right.   

Then I happened upon the one I ended up using and it was great for the color scheme that was developing. 

 I found those rust gold jump rings when I was at the Bead show in Montreal.  I just thought they might go well with copper.  And in the end they went super well with the copper, I think.

This is one of the few pieces I have ever made a drawing of before hand.  The words were helpful to refer back to as I made the stampings over a period of several weeks. 

Again, when it came time to put all these ideas together into a piece of jewelry, things did not happen as planned.   I found that my piece  was not a bracelet at all-- it was uncomfortable and the words were not really readable.  So a necklace was born.  I decided to name it Life Rise to refer back to the inspiration title, Sunrise.

I have really enjoyed the process of making and creating this necklace.  It has been exciting to feel so inspired.  Thank you ArtBeadScene.  And thank YOU for reading my post about it.