Milestone!

A few months ago, I decided to enter an art gallery's exhibition showcasing young local talent. Most of the entries I knew would be traditional 2- and 3-D art: paintings, drawings, collage, and perhaps a bit of sculpture. My talent lies with beads, but instead of entering an elaborate piece of jewelry, I dove headlong into the biggest bead embroidery piece I'd ever done--and make it as a framed wall art piece.

I used glass beads, resin pendant, gemstone, seed beads, silk ribbon, shells, and my own shimmerstone cabochons. I'm particularly proud of thinking to use the ribbon.

I laid it down on the s tiffened felt base and sewed it on with tiny fuschia beads on top. It sort of reminds me of planty things, perhaps seaweed. You'll also notice that inside is filled in with a mix of yellow, light orange and pale pink beads, and over it is a beaded helix in pink, orange and yellow.

Here is a corner of the piece. My sister persuaded me to buy three large green glass faceted nuggets which you can see here. Inside is a pink chalcedony 'flower' made from several briolettes, and in the foreground you can see an orange shimmerstone and a pink shell diamond.

Here is the upper right corner, before framing. I used a crystal-studded resin go-go component, put green fringe in the hole, and accented it with some green glass teardrops and a magenta glitter shimmerstone.

Here is a detail shot of lines of yellow teardrops and a pale pink shimmerstone cabochon.

 

and here is a green shimmerstone next to the pink ribbon and yellow drops

 

Lastly, here is the final piece. It got accepted into the show, and was displayed on the gallery wall!

It's called 'And So You Shall', after a Monty Python sketch about fairies granting wishes to the police force.

sneak peek

 

I'm working on my biggest piece of bead embroidery yet (I've only done pieces 2 square inches or under before)  for an art exhibition at Liberty Town Arts, a local gallery. It's been a real challenge, and a great learning experience. This photo is several days old, and have done so much work since then--I'm almost finished, in fact.

Liberty Town Arts

                        

Last night I went to the monthly art reception at a local art co-op, Liberty Town Arts where lots of artists rent studio space in the communal building. The first Friday of every month (this month delayed one week due to snow), many of the artists come in to their studios to demonstrate and mingle with attendees. There is also finger food and an understatedly festive atmosphere--not at all a 'snotty art scene'. Even better than finger food though, is all the wonderful ARTISTS working there! Take a look at each of the Liberty Town artists.

I hope to become one of them. There's a waiting list to have a studio there, the gallery owner handpicks artists from the waiting list (not in sequential order, but in terms of suitability) and the space isn't cheap, but I think I have a shot at being accepted, and have saved up enough money to cover a month or two until sales start covering the rent. We'll see.