My Palette

I'm often asked how I come up with the colours I do. The answer is I have a vast collection of beads and vintage elements, collected over many years. I can't mix my colours from a tube in order to create subtle tones and unusual colour mixes, so a lot of beads are needed. Essentially, my bead collection is my artist's palette. Here's a small-ish selection of the things I'm currently working with. These boxes of treasure were used to create my latest  asymmetric earrings with vintage jewelry elements.

You can see them in my store by clicking here.

Flowers After the Quake

On a corner of our inner city where several buildings have been demolished, where once there was only the small detritus from the demolition, someone has seeded the entire block with flowers.

I’m amazed by the human capacity to celebrate life in the midst of chaos.  I finally have my earthquake project, I haven’t been able to write about it, but maybe I can design something.

I like the rough edges contrasted with the delicate flowers. I have a ton of broken china, maybe I can incorporate that, other found objects, metal.  There are so many demolition sites for inspiration for the broken stuff. The flowers give me hope for the future.

Happy New Year 2012

I'm well and truly launched for 2012. Seven poems accepted for publishing, my manuscript off to AUP shortly to be considered for publication  and my Etsy store back up and running.

The 23 December quakes were horrible. I was making a cheesecake for Christmas day when they struck and I simply lost heart, sat in a chair and didn't want to move. In the end I have myself a good talking to, "Self", I said, "Get on with it or you'll have a lousy Christmas." After a stern lecture, and against all my instincts which were telling me to sit tight and hang onto something, I got up and kept going.

I figure I have it easy. My house is ok, I didn't lose anyone in the Christchurch quakes. A few broken ornaments and a sense of the impermanence of things are things I can learn to live with. After all:

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Emotions are messy, you can't put them in neat little jars.

If we're lucky we acquire the tools we need to cope. 

That's a pretty corny attempt to segue into a few pics of my studio. So it's time to get to work making jewelry and writing. Happy new year one and all and look forward to sharing my journey with you.

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A new design series for me. I've been wanting to bring more recycled materials into my work. The central motif and leaves are cut from a biscuit tin. I formed the flower, doming it and making a large cab shape. The beaded beads are my design. the neck ring is neoprene. The end caps, sterling silver, again, my own silver work.

I'm planning to upcycle more materials. It's important to me.

The pictures to follow are my explorations in making beaded beads based on polyhedron templates. I'm fascinated with self-supporting beaded beads. It's not easy to achieve as woven beads tend to articulate and attempts to make a hollow structure usually collapse. By placing crystals at certain points in the design, I achieved a self supporting structure. They're also light, making them good for earring designs. I plan on making a necklace from the red and black beads. I found that by using beads a size down, I created a smaller accent bead which will act as spacers between the larger ornamental beads. The outcome of my experiments is very pleasing.

Top view of the 5 sided beaded bead.

My favourite beaded bead, the 5 sided polyhedron. Made with size 11 seed beads and 4mm fire polished crystals.