BEAD AND BUTTON: DAY 1

Fine silver and Faux Bone pendant by Robert Dancik and Louise Duhamel

Today was the first day of the Bead and Button Show in Milwaukee.  I am taking a 2 day workshop from Robert Dancik and Louise Duhamel.  We had a fun day in the class.  The project looks really complex, but is actually a series of simple techniques that when combined makes an impressive looking pendant.  I'll have a photo of my piece tomorrow.

I had dinner tonight with Paul, Gail, Anne, Terri, Henriette, and Karen in a great Italian restaurant across the street from the Hyatt.  Paul was mightily out numbered, and I don't think he could have been happier.  I haven't laughed so hard in a really long time.  It's such a strange thing to have friends like these, that you see so infrequently and yet who mean so much to you.

BEAD AND BUTTON AND BEAD STAR

I'm off to Milwaukee for a week full of classes and to see many of my friends that are scattered across the country.  It will be fun and exhausting and I hope to blog about it every day.  

I also wanted to remind everyone that today (May 30th) at midnight, is the last chance to vote in the Bead Star competition.  Both Cindi Slater and Jeanne Craine from Bead Haven have pieces that are finalists in the competition.  Please see my post about it here to vote.  Bead Haven also has a link to the Bead Star website, as well.  Please take a second to go to the site and vote for whatever pieces you think are best, but of course I'm partial to Cindi and Jeanne's!  Thanks!

SAMARA

Have you ever really looked at these Maple seed helicopter thingies up close before?  Every year at this time I curse these crazy things.  They're everywhere.  Even now, that my big tree is gone, another Maple in my yard is still sending these spinning earthward by the thousand.  The other day I was outside sitting on my front steps watching them rain down.  I picked one up and studied it like it was for the first time and they are really beautiful things.  They even have a beautiful name, Samara.  They are also amazingly engineered.  Most mature Maple trees are fairly large shade trees, so in order for the seeds to have any chance at germination, they have to be able to travel far enough from the tree's canopy into the sunshine.  Thus, the whirly-bird design.  Pretty cool, huh?  

Last year, I had a feeling that my tree was in trouble, so when it dropped all of it's seeds, I collected a few dozen of the prettiest ones that I could find.  I was sitting the other day thinking of my Canadian friend, Karen and I remembered the seeds that I had saved.  Karen made me think of them, as the maple is the national tree of her homeland.  Anyway, I got the seeds out and made molds of several of them.  I riveted the silver pods to some pendants that I made and then layered 22 karat gold onto them.  I enjoyed making them and they'll always make me think of my tree and of my friend, Karen.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MOM

I wanted to wish my Mom a Happy Birthday.  I hope she had a great day and I hope she knows how much that she's loved.  Most of the good things about me are because of my Mom and Dad.  Happy Birthday , Mom!  I'll see you soon.

THE SANDS OF TIME

Sands of coral, shell and volcanic material.

A spiral sand grain and sponge spicules (internal skeletons).

Sand grains form the beaches of Maui.

Sands from Namibia, consisting of pink and red Garnets.

Stars from Okinawa, Japan. Actually, the skeletons of single-celled forams.

Moon dust, collected by Apollo 11.

It looks like a Hubble image of an asteroid, but it's a speck of dust from the Moon.

More Apollo 11 Moon dust.

Thanks to Dr. Gary Greenberg for the use of his photographs.

To see a world in a grain of sand,

and a heaven in a wild flower,

hold infinity in your hand,

and eternity in an hour.- William Blake (Auguries of Innocence).

The other night I was surfing the net (like you do) and I came across a site that I wanted to share with you all. It is called sandgrains.com. It is the the website of Dr. Gary Greenberg, who is a scientist, an inventor , and an artist. Dr. Greenberg holds a PhD in biomedical research and is the co-founder of a company that makes scientific equipment, including microscopes. He holds many patents for high definition three- dimensional light microscopes (I'm not completely sure what that means, but it sounds fancy!). Since 2001 he has be using his special microscopes to photograph sand, foods, flowers and the landscape of our bodies, magnified hundreds of times. A lot of you know how I love science geeks (after all, I'm married to one!) and I'm fascinated by people who use their skills and talents in very unexpected ways. Since I use gemstones in my own work, of course I was drawn to his beautiful sand photos, many of which are actually fragments of gemstones and still others that are shell and coral. I love to spend hours on the beaches of California searching for bits of glass and beach tossed stones, but I've never been lucky enough to see a handful of sand from this vantage point before. His photographs give new and enlightening perspective to the natural world that's all around us. I contacted Dr. Greenberg, and he was kind enough to allow me to reproduce some of his photos from both his website and his wonderful book, A Grain Of Sand. In his email to me he included some images of moon dust collected by Apollo 11. Just last week he collaborated with Nasa contracted scientists to create these images which he shared with me.

An exhibition of of Dr. Greenberg's photos will be at the Science Museum of Minnesota, from May 2008 until early in 2010. His beautiful book is available here. Visit his website here.

BEAD DREAMING IN CANADA

A beautiful grouping of Karen's Pod Vessels From Another Planet!

I think these are so beautiful.

The vessels are hollow and wearable and have fine silver collars.

The tallest of her vessels is 4 1/2 inches tall!

I just wanted to take a minute to to congratulate my good friend, Karen Elmquist for being accepted into the Bead Dreams competition for 2009.  Bead Dreams is a juried competition and exhibit sponsored by Bead and Button Magazine.  The accepted pieces will be displayed at the Bead and Button Show this June in Milwaukee.  The winner scores some nice prizes, but more importantly some serious exposure and props from their peers (that's never a bad thing!).

Karen is an extraordinary lamp worker from Canada.  She obviously works really hard at her art.  She is also a very sweet, generous and kind-spirited person.  She's also a bit of a kindred spirit of mine, in that she's always searching the ground for something shiny to pick up!  She's definitely one of the good guys and I really hope she wins.

Check out her work and her blog here.

Thanks to Karen for the use of her photos.

SLIDE TUBE SATURDAY

The finished products, left to right, Bonnie's, Margaret's and David's.

Bonnie is so full of enthusiasm.

Margaret wraps her PMC to keep it from drying out.  Good girl!

David made 6 beads for his bracelet.  Check out the giant one he made in the center of his bracelet (in the first photo).

Margaret wore this piece that she made to class today.  I think it turned out really pretty.  I also really like her bead choices.  Well done, Margaret!

I had a good class today at Bead Haven.  We made PMC slide tube bracelets.  This is a new, shortened version of an all day class that I taught last year.  Since we used a rubber cord bracelet for the slide tubes instead of making our own, I decided that we could make it into half day class.  It was down to the wire, but we got it done.  The students made their slide tubes, embellished them and did sanding and finishing work to them.  While they were being fired and tumbled, they textured and hammered the fine silver jump rings that I had made beforehand as spacers for the tubes.  After the pieces were all nice and shiny and hardened, we dipped everything in liver of sulfur to give them a little patina.  A little more elbow grease to polish everything back up and then they assembled everything and voila, the day was over in a flash!  Everyone did so well and with such good spirits.  I kept them hopping and all three really rose to the challenge.  I honestly was impressed.  Thanks to Margaret, David and Bonnie.  I really had a good time!