Inspirational Ideas Friday, May 22 2009

My husband, Mark comes to this blog each day because he wants to see if I’ve actually taken the time to write something. He’s challenged me to write something every single day, even if it’s a short and silly two line entry of text. . . So, I’m taking this challenge, even if I don’t post something every single day, I WILL post much more often.

Classical Rome No. 1

Today, I’ve chosen to talk about inspiration. I’ll start with my new “Classical Rome” series. As I mentioned in another blog entry, I’ve been watching the HBO “Rome” series on DVD. I think I more so watch it for it’s artistic set than any other reason. The villas on Palatine Hill are so beautifully decorated with very authentic looking classical murals and home decor. Of course the rich fabrics and elegantly hand crafted jewelry worn by the Patrician women tends to inspire me a great deal too. I love the scenery and I think the people that built the set for “Rome” did a fantastic job.

Classical Rome No. 2

I have been inspired by the Classical since I was a little girl. My homemade Barbie doll dresses looked like togas. I have no clue why that is, perhaps maybe I watched some historical fiction movie with my parents or something, and thought the togas were cool. I also drew all over my walls and bordered some of my artwork with scrolling motifs. Again, have no clue why or where I got the idea. Perhaps I carry some weird sort of classical design gene? lol Well, my point is that with or without the “Rome” HBO series, this need to create things of a classical nature is very much a part of who I am as an artist. In fact, it’s this style of work that granted me notice during my second year as a lampworker. I feel most alive when I communicate my ideas of the classical, so why did I seemingly leave the look behind and move on to other works? Well, as an artist, it’s necessary to spread your wings and fly outside of the coup from time to time. I needed to evolve and build upon the skills that I had and the only way to do so was to develop and practice new techniques ad nauseum.  The cased beads and murrini work that I have been doing over the past six months have been fueled by my need for evolution. Never can you sit still and become comfortable in your skill in this business. You must always push to the next level, and that involves a great deal of soul searching for means of inspiration. 

Getting back to the “Classical Rome” beads series, I plan to make this series full of different bead sets in the classical style. I’m very excited about it because I know how much I am going to enjoy exploring my ideas. For example, what where the colors, fabrics, murals like in the bed chamber of Caesar’s wife? I bet they were far beyond fabulous! See, with that one little question, I now have an idea of what my next bead set, “Her Bed Chamber” will look like and I even have a name for the set. Really, it IS this easy when your inspiration comes from the heart. My heart is tied to the ideas of ancient Rome. Not the bad part of ancient Rome, (division of the classes, the brutality), just the romantic part of it, (fabric, decor, cobblestone, jewelry, shiny armor, men in kilts).

At this point, I’m sounding a bit contradictory by telling you to evolve your skill and not get too comfortable, while also telling you to stay true to your heart’s inspiration. Confusing? You bet it is and that is exactly why you must dig really REALLY deep within your own soul to find new sources of inspiration. It is there, but often times a sort of dust covers the inspirational layers of your mind. When you begin to dig, you’ll find that those layers are infused with nostalgia and that nostalgia yields a creative fuel that can’t be found elsewhere. For example, grandma’s copper kettle. . . It wasn’t all that beautiful but there was something so incredibly graceful about the handle and even the dings and decades of patina lent one the idea that it was indeed a real treasure. Try it for yourself.  Think of that lost loved one and watch for the icons that pop up around them. Often times the things that they cherished are very closely associated with their memory. The copper kettle used by my grandmother was one of many things that pops up in my mind when I think of her standing in her kitchen, using that kettle to warm the water for her morning tea as she made my breakfast. This particular memory is so filled with nostalgic fuel that it almost brings me to tears.

I’d love to hear the inspirational ideas that some of you come up with when you envision that lost loved one. Please do feel free to share here, whether you are a jewelry designer, lampworker or both. Mark will be helping to ensure that your posts are moderated and published so you won’t have to wait a day or two for me to screen and publish them myself. lol

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Please help, I am new to lampworking! Thursday, May 21 2009

Lately, I have been receiving an influx of emails from advice-seeking new lampworkers. First, I’d like to say, “Welcome to the wonderful world of glass!” Now, I’ll move on to the ”meat” of what this post is all about. I’m writing this as a point of reference to the new lampworkers, based on the questions that I am most often asked.

1. What is your torch setup?/Which torch do your recommend for new beadmakers?

I can’t really recommend a torch. Instead, what I can do is tell you how I learned to lampwork. I started on a hothead and used Cindy Jenkin’s book, ”Making Glass Beads”. It’s a wonderful resource for any new beadmaker. I also searched the technical advice areas of Wetcanvas and Lampworketc, as those sections have a great deal of information to offer to all levels of beadmakers. 

The hothead is fantastic torch for beginners because it will allow you to dip your toes in the water before making huge equipment purchases that you may find yourself later regretting if for some reason you lose the desire to work in glass. It is not uncommon for a person to get into lampworking only to find out that the time and money investment is a bit too demanding. Of course the investment dollars are far outweighed by the time that it actually takes to learn to make “good” beads, much less the ornate/artistic/masterful ones.  

As I said earlier, I began on hothead. Back in those days, I had a regular day job so I was only using it as a hobby torch.  A year after I started, I upgraded to a Nortel Midrange. I didn’t like it because the flame was too large and detail work was difficult, so I sold the Nortel and purchased a Mini CC. Today, I still work on my Mini CC. It is powered by propane and an M-15 oxyconn. I also have a Cheetah for large work and it’s powered by my M-15 with an oxy holding tank. Because my experience with other torches is very limited, I can’t really make a torch recommendation other than to say that the ones I use are pretty awesome. I can’t tell you though how they compare to other torches on the market because I simply don’t know.

2. What books do you recommend?/Should I take a class?

I only used one book as I was learning, as mentioned in my answer to question number one, Cindy Jenkin’s “making glass beads”. I recommend it because it starts at a very basic level and the basic level is where all new lampworkers need to begin. If you have a nearby resource for classes, I highly recommend a beginner’s level class. It will save you TONS of time in terms of trial and error. I didn’t choose not to take classes. None were available to me in my area.

3. What type of glass should I buy and which colors?

I would start with 104 Effetre. Get a half a pound of white opaque, half a pound of black and half a pound of clear. I’ll go into why I suggest these colorless colors in the next section of text.

Humble beginnings. . .

At this point, most of you are bursting with ideas and inspiration and just can’t wait to get that torch set up so that you can sit down and make pretty, ornate little baubles to give to your friends and family. I’ve been there so I know the feeling. Now that I have experienced many moments of extreme frustration that resulted from my personal failures due to over expectation of my skill and ability, please allow me to give you some very sound advice. . . SLOW DOWN. Pretty baubles shouldn’t be your goal at this point. Making round, proportioned beads with even holes is where you need to start because it the very foundation of a “good” glass bead. Decorative beads will need to come later, once you’ve mastered the round and donut form. I mention this as a result of many conversations that I’ve had with new beadmakers who want to sit down at their new torches and start pumping out beads that have lovely scrolls, dots, plunges, and even ornate designs. It simply does NOT work this way. Glass is NOT an easy craft to learn. It commands a great deal of respect, disapline and dedication. It will never EVER be YOUR slave and you will never be it’s master. You can manipulate it into doing what you want it to do, once you’ve really gotten to know it, but you’ll always remain it’s slave.

As a slave to glass, it’s necessary that you start off in your journey very slowly. Be respectful to the medium. Pay attention to how the glass flows as you wrap each mandrel. My suggestion is to start with clear glass and make a bunch of spacers until your skill at making spacers yields a set of five that are uniform and consistent in size. Generally speaking, clear is stiffer than opaque glass and is therefore easier to control. Once you have your five, try to do the same with black opaque. It’s softer than the clear and is most consistent with how most Effetre opaques tend to melt. After you have five good black spacers, try the same exercise with opaque white. This will be harder because white can become quite soupy. Still, it be a great way for you to learn a bit about heat control. Melting the white requires more patience and alertness as you make the spacers.

So, you’ve learned to make the white spacers. . .Now what? LOL! Oh my, I may have stepped in “it” here. I could go on and on but that would unfortunately leave me with no torch time. So, I’ll promise to build on this at some point next week. I PROMISE. (I know I make these empty promises from time to time, but if I don’t update this little lesson next week, you have my permission to nag me via email until I do.)

Here’s another thing that I thought about as I was preparing to write this . . .Not to be redundant here but, so often I see new lampworkers putting the cart before the horse and wanting to fast track their experience. I know, I wanted the same when I started but it didn’t take me long to realize that glass is not a medium that EVER accommodates shortcuts. There is no way to fast track experience. You can learn all kinds of crazy new techniques written in tutorials but those are only helpful if you’re willing to sit your fanny down at the torch and sacrifice your time to the proverbial “torch gods”. That’s what they want and if you’re not willing to give it to them, they won’t grant your wishes.

Many times I’ve seen this comment in the lampwork forums, “I just don’t have time for all of practice! Can someone tell me how to. . . ?” Well, I hate to burst your bubble, but you will only be as good as the time that you are willing to put into the craft. I began to get a great deal of attention during my second year as a lampworker. The progress during my first year at the torch was quite lack-luster as I had little torch time. I came home at night, fed my family and then torched till bedtime. Basically, as soon as I warmed up, it was time for bed. Year number two, I began to blossom as a new lampworker. I didn’t have that full time job anymore, my daughter had moved out and my husband worked during the day. I was able to work in my studio from early in the morning until early evening. I did this for six to seven days each week (STILL DO). I mention this because so often I have been asked how I got so good at this so quickly. This is how I did it. . .I torched until I could barely hold my head up. I did exercises at the torch that I absolutely LOATHED. I practiced until I was at the point of tears. I sacrificed my family time to the ”torch gods”.

If you are a hobbyist, don’t worry so much about what I just wrote. Have fun, work at your own pace and enjoy the ride. However, if you are someone who’s long term goal is to sell your work and hopefully gain notoriety in this business, follow my advice to the letter. Be prepared to sacrifice your very precious time and remember that there ARE NO SHORTCUTS to experience. They simply don’t exist. Once can show or teach you a technique, but it won’t be retained without repetition. Melt . . .Wrap. . .Repeat. Melt. . .Wrap. . .Repeat. Do this another 100 times and you’ll remember what you learned. lol

I would apologize for taking the wind from your sales, but it would be disingenuous of me. The advice that I just gave you is worth it’s weight in gold so please take it as it was intended. Now go melt that glass and send me questions if you have them. I’ll answer. I may not answer quickly, but I WILL ANSWER.

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Gaffer Chalcedony (G109) Saturday, May 16 2009

Before I begin talking about Chalcedony, I just wanted to say that there is nothing like a refreshing sugar-free margarita to put you right again on warm Saturday afternoon. My neck and shoulders were screaming in pain before I even begin my hour long treadmill adventure. Now, I’m relaxed, freshly showered and ready to talk about my experience with Gaffer Chalcedony. I know I promised I would like, forever ago, but really I’m just now beginning to give it the attention that I think it deserves.  

Chalcedony is like Raku on steroids. One of things that I appreciate most about it is that when used for layering,  the glass doesn’t bleed, nor does it pit. It’s a bit darker than Raku too and holds it’s color a lot longer. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate Raku also and still use it. It’s especially great for leaves and it makes beautiful opal-like encased florals. Chalcedony doesn’t seem to be good for those applications, as once it strikes, it holds a very low tonal value. However, if you are looking for a dark colored glass that has the ability to shift in dark earth tones, this glass is pretty awesome.

Both of these beads were capped with Chalcedony. I applied the Chalcedony layers last, as I knew the longer I worked the glass, the less color I would have. Still, the bead was in and out of the flame for a good 45 minutes after the Chalcedony layer was applied to it. The second bead, “Never-Never Land 2″ was in the flame a bit longer but as you can see it still held it’s color fairly well.

Never-Never Land No. 1 Never-Never Land No. 2

 

Last weekend I started watching the “Rome” series again, and being the classical gal that I am, I was overwhelmed by inspiration. I chose to give it over to Chalcedony again and boy was she up for the test drive. These beads were  inspired by the studio sets that were created to be used as the Roman villas. The florals are Raku but the base glass is Chalcedony. As you can see in the below photograph, the pallet of color ranges in quite an awesome pallet of earth tone color. These beads were in the flame for a pretty long time so the colors a bit muted. Worked for me though, as I wanted them to be less rich. So, way to go Gaffer! I love this glass!

Roman Villa

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Almost May. . .!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Tuesday, Apr 21 2009

Goodness, how time flies when you’re having fun. . .I have been working, working, WORKING and have had very little time for blogging lately. So funny, it seems when business is bad, I work harder than when it is booming. I guess it seems necessary to discover something that will make business a little better. Normally this time of year, things are beginning to pick up and launch full speed ahead but this year is not just any year, is it? With this said, I guess I’m trying to learn some new things. I’m working on some PMC stuff, doing a little painting, working on my torch A LOT and trying to get better at blowing glass. I desperately want to make beautiful perfume bottles and it’s a painful and time consuming learning experience.

 Perhaps I should take a few irons out of the fire and chill for a bit, but I’m no good at sitting still. I am lucky that I love my job so much because what I’m doing doesn’t feel like dreaded work at all. I look forward to waking up each morning, having my coffee and firing up the studio. I think it’s true that if you love you’re job, you’ll never really “work”.  I’m saying this out loud so if anyone ever hears me say, “I’m so tired of working!!!!”, they can politely remind me of how lucky I am.

Okay, so on to a bit of personal news. . .My daughter, Ashley and her husband, Zack are expecting their first baby! I am going to be a grandmother!!!!! I have already picked my granny name. I’ll be either Nana or Yaya. (I like Yaya best. I know lots of Nanas but I can’t say I know even one “Yaya”.

Well, with my over-post now posted, I am heading to the torch to make more beads. . .Hope you all are enjoying this gorgeous spring time weather!!

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Gaffer Glass USA Sunday, Mar 29 2009

Hi all! I’m still here. . .Kicking, breathing and looking forward to Spring’s arrival. It’s here, but all I’ve seen for weeks is RAIN. Today is supposed to be sunny, but kind of on the chilly side. I won’t complain though. I’m just excited to see the sun.

Over the past couple of weeks, I have been in the studio most of my waking hours. When I think about it, it’s kind of funny because I don’t many beads to show for it. I purchased a nice assortment of Gaffer Glass colors to test and that’s basically all I’ve been doing for over a week. This glass is fantastic! The clear is so clean and crystal clear. The opals are beautiful and the dense furnace cane doesn’t pit when used on the surface of glass. Recently I took a custom order for a trio of rose beads and I used Gaffer to make them. The roses were made using Gold Ruby (a rich pink rubino) and Pale Rose (a pastel pink that is far superior to moretti 256).  The base glass is Gaffer Clear or Gaffer Celadon. The leaves are Reichenbach Olive over Reichenbach Raku. The little flowers are made of Gaffer Primrose (a lovely striking pastel yellow) . .This is the look that I had been after a year ago when I was trying to make these beads with Reichenbach color.  I had major issues with pitting so I had to move over to moretti, which was nice but didn’t have quite the crispness of color that I was really wanted. Thanks to be to Gaffer for making these incredible pinks.  . .

"Painted Rose" Trio

"Painted Rose" Earrings

 As I continue to test Gaffer’s glasses, I’ll try to update with pictures. . .Hope you all have a wonderful week!

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Painted Rose Tutorial Monday, Mar 9 2009

The Painted Rose Bead

Good morning everyone! Finally, the ”Painted Rose” Tutorial is available. (Actually it has been for a couple of days now. . .I’m just catching up this morning!) If you haven’t already seen it, you can check out the preview here.  When I started writing it, I had planned to include a section in this tutorial that would show you how to change the design for the roses, should you want to encase them. I ended up changing my mind about doing that because the encased rose beads that I make are made with furnace glass, which is a whole new ”can of worms”. Since the processes and required glasses are different, I didn’t feel like it would be a good fit for the “Painted Rose” tutorial.

Normally, I would have blogged about this by now but by the time I finished writing, I was WIPED OUT!  Of course this is my very own fault. As I’ve expressed before, I’m not one of those people that work on writing projects a little bit at a time. I really had to “dig in” and completely lose myself in the process.  Yesterday was a lovely day, so I took the day off and caught up on some terribly neglected household chores. The weather was beautiful and it actually felt good to spend my day cleaning. With all of the windows open, the warm almost springtime breezes were refreshing and they reminded me of how stagnant a home can become after it’s been closed up all winter long.  No more snow, please! I’m ready to clean my gardens and plant some flowers!

In closing my post for the day, I want to thank those of you have purchased this tutorial. I hope that you all find it to be a fun and challenging learning experience! I’m off to my own torch now. . .It’s been awhile and I’m itching to light that baby up!

A special note to my husband/editor: Thank you, my darling, for giving me so much of your free time over the last month. Thank you for picking up my domestic “slack”. Thank you for your patience and understanding and thank you for catching the one thousand errors that I’d have otherwise missed.

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Me and Willie finally got some SNOW!!! Monday, Mar 2 2009

I have LOTS of work to do today. . .Photos to edit for this tutorial and much writing that needs to be finished. The last think I needed was the distraction that is brought on by the promise of a really good snow. Since I’ve been begging for it since December, it would be ungrateful of me not to enjoy a little play time in the five inch blanket of powdery white snow that greeted my day.

I let the dogs out this morning and my female, Tori, ran under the deck. She didn’t like it all and was far from cooperative with me as I tried to take her photo. She took refuge under the deck for a few minutes, then quickly ran back over to my feet in the hopes that I’d pick her up and bring her back inside. Willie, on the other hand had a fantastic time! At first, he was a bit confused so he had to do a lengthy inspection. When he realized that he could eat the snow, his excited began to escalate. Watching him run all over the back yard was a hoot!!! Even though his hair is a mess and he needs to be groomed, he said that I could share these pictures with all of you. He’s manly like that. . .Willie’s far from “Metro”.

MMMMMMMMM!!! SNOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

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Suspended until further notice, but I’ll still give you roses. Thursday, Feb 26 2009

It is with a heavy heart and broken mind that I make this announcement in regards to the book “The Glass Symphony”.  Last time I spoke about this in my blog, I explained some of the unforeseen issues that I came to realize as I was finishing it.  One of the main reasons is because we, as glass bead artist are working with many constraints in how we achieve design elements within a piece of work. For example, there are many ways in which we create the actual or implied element of “line”.  Our ability to use it effectively, depends on the experience and lessons learned through trial and error because we MUST understand how glass behaves in order to create lines in our work. Stringer control is the most obvious, but personally, I don’t rely on it much as a noticeable element, the way a contemporary artist does. Rather, I depend on tonal value, natural light and shadow cast created by layering opaque and transparent glasses. In traditional painting, we are trying to create an illusion of depth quality by the use of perspective. When creating surface applied roses, I am trying to create the illusion of two dimensional work.

Color is a whole different evil. We are either limited to the multitude of glass colors that are available on the market, many of which do not like each other due to the metal oxides that are used to color glass. This leaves us relying a lot on filtered color if we want to expand our color pallets because conventional color mixing doesn’t work in glass. This is a huge  source of trouble for so many bead makers and I wanted to really peel the union back to find some sort of methodology that would make it easier. Well, it’s impossible to do that without knowing exactly WHAT metallic oxide is in each glass that we use.

See what I mean? I THOUGHT two weeks ago that this book was almost done, but upon reading my own material, realized that I had left MANY things out or loose ends that might confuse my reader. This led me on a goose chase that I know realize I will continue to chase for quite some time. The good news is that I am STILL writing this book. The bad news is that it may take me a year to do it in a manner that allows me to be confident in how you, the potential reader, will be influenced by it’s content. I think too that I am going to do this in hard copy only format because it’s going to be too big for PDF.

Another good piece of news is that if you were looking forward to the rose tutorial that I had planned to put in the back of the book, it will be available soon as a step-by-step PDF tutorial for the cost of $22.00. The tutorial will cover how to create roses, rose buds and leaves that look somewhat 2 dimensional on the surface of mandrel wound glass. It will also have a section for how they need to be applied if you want to encase them, thus creating roses, rose buds and leaves that can be viewed in the 3rd dimension.  We will use different color pallets for each excersize.

Again, I’m apologize if I have come across in a fickle manner in regards to the Glass Symphony. I had no idea that I would shift gears on you like this.

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Still writing. . . Saturday, Feb 21 2009

It seems that I am writing the never ending story. I started working on this book months ago. I knew in order to get it done, I would have isolate myself from everyone and everything. That is unfortunately the only way that I can keep my grove going. When I am working on a writing project, I start as soon as I’ve seen Mark off to work in the morning and I don’t stop until around midnight. I eat, sleep, shower and write and drink lots of coffee. So, I have emails from some of you that I need to respond to. I apologize for not having done so yet. All business related correspondence is being answered in timely manner, everything else is simmering on the back burner until I’m finished with this project. If you’ve sent me an email and I haven’t answered, you WILL hear from me as soon as I’m done. I promise, I’m not snubbing you! I do love hearing from those of you that take the time to reach out to me. I don’t just love it, I REALLY love it!

As for my progress on “The Glass Symphony”, it is coming along. One of the biggest issues that I’ve had to deal with is getting to know Photoshop for more than just editing photographs. When I announced that this book was going to be ready last weekend, I had no clue what I was in for in terms of the graphics that would be needed for this book. For more than a week, all I did was graphics. . .graphics. . .GRAPHICS. Finally, I was back to writing again. In the color section, I wanted to give a good explanation for what color is and how the human eye sees color. I thought I had a pretty good understanding but the more research I did, the more intrigued I became with the phenomenon of the visual spectrum. This is not good because I spent four days doing research that I really didn’t need to do. The more I learned, the more I wanted to know. That’s when I realized. . . Doh!!! I’m not writing a book on the science of color!!!! Why do I do this to myself? It’s maddening. 

I also want to let you all know that I’ve decided to include a standard step by step style tutorial on how to create surface applied and encased roses in this book. I had planned to include a section on this, but I wanted it to be more of series of exercises than a step by step tutorial. Some of the email responses that I’ve received helped me change my mind about the format.

Okay, back to work I go. . .I just wanted to let you all know that I’m still here and working. Hope you are all enjoying your weekend!

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The Glass Symphony Wednesday, Feb 11 2009

Hi you all! This time, I have a legitimate excuse for a week long blog silence. I’ve been writing that e-book that I wasn’t sure I wanted to write. I knew that I wanted to officially announce it today and since I tend to get a little gun shy about forum posts, I just needed to get it done and over with. Here’s what I wrote. . . 

For quite awhile now, I’ve been working on a new ebook, called “The Glass Symphony”. I had been asked by several lovely folks to do a surface applied rose tutorial. Given all of the bad vibes going on within the community in terms of tutorials and issues that I was having with the concept all by myself, I had almost become convinced that I’d not write anything again. I stated I wouldn’t. Stated I would. Then did that all over again a couple more times. Now since I’ve actually been writing it, I guess I’m back to my final stance. . .I have written something and this time, I feel great about it.

One of the biggest issues that I had was WHAT I wanted to write and whether or not it would be well received. Writing another step by step design tutorial just isn’t what I wanted to do. The last two that I wrote didn’t sit well with me because there was so much that I wanted to say in them, but I didn’t want my written work to be considered to “wordy”. You know what I mean, too much talkie, not enough action? I can’t write another piece like that although I’m extremely grateful to those who purchase and use my tutorials. Were it not for you, I wouldn’t be interested in writing something new.

When I sat down to begin writing this book, I thought a lot about my own struggles as an artist. I jotted those struggles down on a piece of paper and began to approach each one and how I overcame them. I had forgotten how much anxiety I had as a new artist. The brand of anxiety that I feel today is a bit different and is there for different reasons, so it was nice to reflect back on the years that were exciting, yet troubling for me. I think somehow as I was writing this book I was able to connect with my muse again. Hopefully, if you are struggling, it will help you connect or reconnect with yours as well.

The book is called, “The Glass Symphony” and here’s a little info on it’s contents. . .

Introduction – What the book is about and why I chose to write it.

The Glass Symphony -A piece written as an inspirational tool. It’s goal is to inspire you to be the composer and conductor of your own designs.

The Fundamentals of Design – This chapter covers theoretical principles and elements of design by using common elements within glass beads for the purpose of illustrating the theories. Some of you are already familiar with the fundamentals of design but I think it will be extremely helpful for those who are not.

Color Theory – This chapter will be all about color. I’ll also use beads and rods to help explain color relationships and schemes, color distance and temperature as well as a list of color related definitions and how to use the color wheel.

The remainder of the chapters are dedicated to using the elements and principles of design to create your own version of a rose bead. I’ll show you several different methods of applying a blooming rose design and a rose bud to the surface of your bead. I’ll also make several color suggestions for the roses. Once you’ve practiced the rose design, we’ll move on to the leaves and smaller floral elements. Then we’ll experiment with the composition’s form, textures, ect.

The reason that I chose to express the exercises in this manner, rather than doing a conventional tutorial, is because I personally think it’s a better value than what I gave you in the past.

Some of the exercises in this book will be better executed by the advanced lampworker, but that doesn’t mean that you new bead makers shouldn’t give it a try. I think it will inspire those of all bead making levels. At least, that is my hope. In writing this, one of the most difficult things I dealt with was my own insecurities. . .Who died and made me the boss of what is and isn’t art? What makes me the expert on this subject? Well, no one died and I’m not. I do know what worked for me throughout my journey and the theories that I use to compose visual art and that’s what I want to share with you.

I am hoping to have this “thang” wrapped up by the weekend but it’s been a project to say the least. If it’s not ready by then, I should at least have a preview available for those that are interested.

Now that my head is back on straight, I realize that I won’t actually have this book done by the weekend. There are a few sections that I want to add, so this book won’t be released for at least another week. Plus, I wasn’t thinking about the fact that I need to take tomorrow off from writing so that I can make some focal beads to sell in the mean time. Still hoping to have the preview ready sometime this weekend though. . .

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