I want to tell you all a little story that I bet some of you can identify with. When I first started making beads, I struggled. Inspiration wasn’t really difficult for me, but communicating my ideas in glass was. I just didn’t have the skill, experience or knowledge of the more difficult techniques. Sometimes, I surfed the fora galleries for inspiration, looking for beautiful work by veteran bead makers. If I saw a set of beads that really touched me, I would print the picture and take it to the torch so that I could copy them and learn the techniques that they used. I promise, no harm was done to the artists! The beads that I made were never sold by me in any venue and I only did this during my first year at the torch as hobby bead maker. My sole purpose was education and had I not done this, I’d never have learned many of the techniques that I use today. Ultimately, my intent was to harvest and master as many techniques as I could so that I could better communicate my personal sources of inspiration.
Ya know, we artist tend to get pretty touchy about where our inspiration or ideas actually come from. . .We’d like to think that all of our ideas are totally original and all our own. I try very hard to be original in my work, but without the influence of others, my work would be BORING and much less creative. This statement leads me to the purpose of this post. Catherine Howard was an artist that gave me much, although she never knew it. I saw her work a couple of years ago on Beadartists.org when she was doing business under the name “Valentine Beads”. I absolutely ADORED her work. I couldn’t afford to buy it, but I sure did enjoy looking at it because it touched my soul and made me feel a sort of kindredness to her. . .It was as though I could see myself in her work. As a matter of fact, she was actually the artist that inspired me to use goldstone for the first time. I printed and copied one set of her beads. Boy, they sure didn’t look as good as hers. Mine were SO bad, but that day I learned several things. I learned that intricate work takes a long time and lots of patience. I also learned that Catherine was one hell of a master and that I would be in her debt for the things that she unknowingly taught me.
I am not really one to randomly send emails to people that I don’t know, but I did want to email Ms. Valentine Beads to let her know how much she had inspired me. By the time I got around to doing it, she was no longer selling and I had no way of contacting her. Later, I found out that her name was Catherine Howard. I wrote it down, remembered it and have always hoped that I would see her back on Ebay, selling her gorgeous creations. I am thrilled to now realize that her gorgeous work is available again. Because her business name has changed, I think a lot of people don’t realize she is back. . .Here is a link to her current auctions .
Catherine, thank you and welcome back to the wonderful world of lampwork!
