Creative Slump III

I continued with Gwacie's assignments, and have dragged a couple of others into playing with me on The Glass Haven. Here's the newest pictures:

Gwacie's assignments were these: Make the longest tube bead you have ever made, make the bead with the most colors you have ever used on a single bead, and make the teeniest weeniest decorated bead you have ever made. Well, I figured that the long tube bead would be good for using up the shorts that inevitably collect when I'm done with a color. When I am going to keep using it I fuse the short to the next rod, but at the end of a set I can get lazy. So I wound a bunch of complementary colors at random on the mandrel, and added stringer in whatever color I grabbed first. The bead's a skosh over 2.5" long, which isn't the longest bead I have ever seen, but is either the longest or one of the longest I have ever made. It's as long as my longest bead release dipping lid, for sure.

Then I went for the weeniest bead. It is hard using a normal-sized rod to get a teeny tiny footprint on the mandrel, but with care I managed it.
Then I rounded the bead, which is surprisingly harder than it sounds when you have such a small amount of glass on the mandrel, and added dots. They're alternating, and are a bit cockeyed. I need to try this again! But I got a 2mm wide bead out of the exercise, which I thought was pretty tiny.

Finally, a bead with the most colors I have ever used. Id on't know if the dense white frit counts as a color, or the black base for that matter. For the rest, I just grabbed all my excess stringers and started striping. I have to say that I liked the bleed effect so much that I made a set in the same design! It should go up on ETSY tomorrow.



Meanwhile, it's my turn to come up with challenges for the ongoing SLump Game. I've got until Friday, though.

Baby Steps, Fine Tuning the Mind, and Creativity.

Over on The Glass Haven and other lampworking boards there's been some desultory discussion about custom orders. The basic positions seem to be:

* Custom orders pay the bills but are not exciting, and can inhibit creativity because they have made what was fun just more work.

* Custom orders are good ways to keep your skills up during dry creative spells, or are not a problem because the process itself is so much fun.

I vacillate between camps. Right now, for example, I'm feeling unexcited. I think mostly that's because I am feeling overwhelmed. This week, but it is also registration week at my university. Later today I have a faculty meeting. It would only take an hour, but because my university is spread out over two--soon to be three--cities, and I don't live in the "home" city, the drive will be a total of 3.5 hours. Tomorrow I need to work registration most of the day, and again on Wednesday and Thursday afternoons and early evenings. Friday we have our departmental beginning of term session, and Monday classes begin. In my lampworking world, I have a trunk show coming up weekend after next, and a show in September. In the middle of all of that is my custom order, and so I find myself putzing, resisting, and not getting ANY of the work done -- which makes me feel overwhelmed.

How can one break out of that? Ironically, I know that I enjoy both my workaday job and my lampworking, and that when I can buckle down to DOING those tasks that I will not only enjoy them, but will jumpstart my creativity for new and continuing projects in both worlds.

So I am taking a leaf from two principles. The first is breaking down tasks, into baby steps, seven to ten minute jobs. I can't get the whole house clean, but I can fold the laundry. I can't turn on my torch this morning, but I can put away the glass I bought, neaten my supply cabinet, and make my workspace a pleasant place to get to. I can't finish my syllabus, but I can find two article references. And the like. All are small, accomplishable steps that make me feel more in control. (FInishing the blog entry after a few days' hiatus is one of those baby steps!)

The second is fine-tuning my attitude. I don't want to empty the dishwasher. Bleargh. But I do want to have a pleasant kitchen. If I tell myself that I am making a pleasant kitchen, that's more appealing than emptying the washer. It's better to make things interesting and manageable for students rather than slogging through a syllabus. It's better to be making a calm peaceful state and an enjoyable weekend rather than planning the first night (because having a plan NOW means a calm, peaceful weekend in which I can torch.) Not being able to torch means that I can be resting after last week's sustained torch time. And working on a custom order means that I can be productive while my brain begins to think of new ideas.

How do you handle these issues?

Of Fawns and Glass ....

And, of course, 130+ pound Great Danes who think they are teeny tiny itty bitty dogs. You can see more pictures of the Dane and the fawn at my sister's Fawn Folio (see left navbar). Jet, the fawn, is absolutely darling--and a real pig when it comes to carrots and lettuce and grass. It took him a while to learn to trust me. I was actually of two minds, because frankly the fewer humans he trusts the better, if he's going to live wild. But he;s such a loving little critter, and comes over and gives tiny sloppy fawn kisses when I'm not looking. I
know that a lot of that is pure looking for food--after all, I have given him his bottle and his carrots, and his lettuce, and the treats--raisins and nuts and other dried things.
He'll come up to me now when we are outside--the other day he was racing around with Draco, who is so huge I keep him in sight when he's loose on the property lest he inadvertently scare one of the neighbors. He does not like the neighbor who holds the property next to the tract my brother-in-law holds out near Karnes City, so even though he's an utterly gentle lummox I watch him when we're on the home place, too--just in case. Anyway, he and Jet had raced around like mad things,
and Drake was utterly blown. Jet was just getting started--yet he came right up to me (food? food?) and then wandered off. While most of the time Jet comes in--and, believe it or not, is starting to behousebroken!--sometimes he stays out all night.

While my sister is at work I have gotten to play in her studio, trying out presses, glasses, and frits that I don't have myself. As a result, I've done mostly frit beads--one does not want to use up other people's stock of fine silver foil (at $15.00 a pack), mesh (at $7.00 a square) or rare glasses. I have blown some shards for her, and want to do a few more -- she has a wider blow tube than I do, and it makes blowing the shards easier. I need to get one that diameter! I had thought it would make blowing the shards harder, but it was easier. Anyway, I've had fun with Bullseye glass, seeing what colours I want to order. I like the earth tones, and the blues. Vetrofond seashell swirl and raku frit remain a favorite, of course,
but some of the BE reds, pinks, and blues are lovely. I made some this morning that are peach-coloured before the kiln; we'll see what happens when I pull them out of it this evening.

There's another Vetrofond oddlot named "Moon Rock" that also does beautifully with raku, and it matches the tonality of seashell swirl. I made a large tab of that, with some SIS to finish it off. Anyway, though the pictures are a little dark--I haven't figured out the white balance with a background like this--here's the eye candy I promised--at least the first installment.

The Belle Armoire Jewelry Article: Response II

As I noted in my last blog, this week in some parts of the lampworking community there was a heated argument sparked by a recent interview with Carter Seibels in the summer 2008 issue of Belle Armoire Jewelry. The argument revolved around two statements in the article, one about presses and one about creativity and age. Yesterday I responded to the issue concerning presses. (I should add a clarification--NO beadmaker makes beads by hand; the temperature of the glass precludes that! We all use tools. Some use more minimal tools than others.) Today, however, I'd like to discuss Ms. Seibels' suggestion that older beadmakers are less creative.

Before I start, I will acknowledge that Ms. Seibels has made an apology in her blog and on Lampwork, Etc (the thread there has been removed) for her statements about age. I am neither trying to flog Ms. Seibels or the proverbial defunct equine. Nor am I decrying Ms. Seibels' lampworking skill, which is quite good. I do, however, wish to state a rebuttal and to propose some alternative theories that might create her observed results.

"She says she stays on top of trends in lampwork beads by tracking the listings on Ebay ... from the traditional colors and shapes of beads created by the typical middle-aged bead artist to the more experimental pieces being created by younger artists just starting out" (22).

People who commented on this statement at LE in general did so in a polite yet firm way, though there were some who insisted on confusing the personal with the content. In her commentary on Ms. Seibels' apology, "Margot" wrote, "Those people are angry about a host of things that have little to nothing to do with you. They’re just looking for an outlet to vent their misplaced anger. They are the sorts of people who see the glass as having a huge hole in it and who feel that everyone else is stealing their piece of the pie." I argue that the comments by and large did not come out of a sense of misplaced anger or a fear of young, dynamic, up-and-coming artists. Instead, I propose that there are two issues at work in this statement to which we all were responding: ageism and methodology. Basically, Ms. Seibels is ascribing "traditional" designs to middle-aged beadmakers (how does she know?) and innovation to younger ones, on the basis of Ebay listings.However, she is ignoring other factors: demand for product, skill level, marketing, and the like.

First of all, creativity and innovation are by no means linked to youth, whereas traditionalism is hardly the province of the old. Some of the most innovative bead-makers I know are middle-aged and better. Barb Svetlick, Lydia Muell, Angelina Beadalina, Lisa St. Martin, Andrea Guarino-Slemmons, and Lance and Maureen McRorie all come to mind instantly. Browse through the annual Bead Review or 1000 Glass Beads, and you will see that innovation and creativity have nothing to do with age.

That refutation brings me to my second point, that of methodology. There are at least two assumptions lurking underneath the author's paraphrase of Ms. Seibels' statement (a close paraphrase, as Ms. Seibels proved on the unfortunately now-vanished LE thread). One is that Ebay is the primary venue for bead sales, and the second is that people put their best and most unique work out on Ebay rather than at other venues. I argue that both of these premises are problematic, for related reasons. There are multiple venues for bead sellers, both online (such as Etsy, the Annealer, gallery pages, and individual web sites, etc.,) and real-world (Bead and Button, Down the Street Bead show, The Gathering, et al). Ebay is only one of these, and one moreover that has proven increasingly uncomfortable for crafters. It would stand to reason, then, that many people would not be making the bulk of their sales on EBAY--or even appearing there at all.

Those who do likely have product targeted to a specific audience. Frankly, simpler, more "basic" lampwork beads, with precise (i.e. pressed) measurements or simple rounds, are often what designers and buyers want. Many designers like simple beads for filler or background--less expensive, less eye-catching -- one can have only so many focals on a necklace, after all. Recently I listed an elegant organic set with strong colors on Etsy, but it hasn't attracted much attention. By contrast, a simple frit set (white beads rolled once in frit, melted, and c'est tout) gathered at least three hearts. Other frit sets of mine have done similarly well, one with (currently) ten hearts! None are innovative, but all are nicely balanced. Lisi does very well with "simple" styles and beads. Don't let the "simple" confuse you--she has amazing skills -- and one of them is knowing what sells. Obviously, I am using a single experience to form a generalization, which is *also* problematic. But I would submit that Ebay functions as a marketplace, with all the attendant laws of supply and demand. If frit beads, traditional colors, and traditional designs are prevalent there, it might not be because that's all the beadmakers want to sell. Instead, it might be because those are the beads the market demands. What would you rather have, a single $80 bead, worth every penny, that takes weeks or months to sell, or 4-5 sales per week of a simple $20 strand of beads? If you're living on your lampwork income,or using it to save up for something, I bet I know the answer. That doesn't mean that the frit beads are the sum total of your skills. It just means you've found a niche and are filling it.

Some people, therefore, may be using Ebay and (to a lesser extent) Etsy for their bread-and-butter beads, and selling others at different venues. I know at least three people who first sell their beads on their websites, and then take what doesn't sell there and at three shows to Etsy or to Ebay. Other people, like Jo Hoffacker, reserve their new stuff for galleries or for the Gathering. In other words, they know what sells where, and that determines some of what they make, and where they sell it -- not their ages or their amount of creativity. For the same reason, doing a search of Ebay to determine trends and general bead artistry will only show you what the larger mass audience wants to purchase, not the directions that bead artists are going for high-end or innovative work. It would be like going to Michael's Craft Store to figure out what new work the designers are planning to bring out. If I gauged my work by Michael's, I should be at the top of the bead world! However, since I gauge my work by the truly innovative out there, I rank mine at the beginning journeywoman stage. I am a competent and occasionally inspired bead crafter who has a very lot to learn still in terms of technique and design.

Publicity and a name can also affect both where you sell and how well you do. I have seen beadmakers with stunningly ordinary beads get $150 a bracelet just on sheer marketing knowledge and chutzpah. Do I begrudge them that success? No; what they lack in innovation they make up in sheer hard work, technical competency, and marketing skills (purchased or learned). Either way, it's earned. Ms. Seibels has the self-confidence and the marketing team down pat, and good for her.

All the same ... I'd like to close with a link and a quotation, directed both to Ms. Seibels and to myself. The link is to Gwacie's blog, in which she quotes some fantastic text by Angelina Beadalina. These words were aimed at those who copy, but I think they hold true for creativity, as well. The quotation comes from a text attributed variously to Miller H. Caldwell, Dale Evans, and to a seventeenth-century nun's text. (The historian in me strongly doubts the latter, simply because of word usage, but I digress.) "Lord, thou knowest better than I know myself that I am growing older and will someday be old. Keep me from the fatal habit of thinking I must say something on every subject and on every occasion ... release me from craving to straighten out everybody's affairs....with my vast store of wisdom it seems a pity not to use it all, but Thou knowest, Lord, that I want a few friends in the end."

The Belle Armoire Jewelry Article -- Response I

This week in some parts of the lampworking community there was a heated argument sparked by a recent interview with Carter Seibels in the summer 2008 issue of Belle Armoire Jewelry. The argument revolved around two statements in the article, one about presses and one about creativity and age. I'm going to respond to the "simpler" issue, presses, first; tomorrow I'll talk about my response to the negative link made in the article between increasing age and creativity.

In the article, "Carter Seibels," author Rice Freeman-Zachery wrote, "Many beadmakers have turned to press molds, where the beads are formed by pressing molten glass into a mold, rather than by forming unique beads one at a time, by hand, as Carter does" (22).

This statement is simply inaccurate. The author must have misunderstood Carter's words, for two reasons. One, the items in question are called presses, not molds, and the glass is not completely molten when it enters the press--in fact, it has "set up" a little and is rather firm. Using molten glass in the press will produce a badly-shaped, ugly bead with sharp edges. The more important inaccuracy is that presses are not mass production items. Beads made using presses are still made one at a time, by hand, as you can see in the first picture, which is a slim straight-sided lentil. As you can see, there is only one cavity in the press. It would be impossible to use this press for mass production. It was unfortunate that such inaccuracies were allowed to be printed in a major magazine article.

Some presses are simply nothing more than tools to aid the beadmaker in the making of repetitive shapes, with precise measurements; many jewelry designers want precise shapes and sizes, and the use of a press allows the beadmaker to achieve that goal. Lentil, nugget, heart, tab, oval, and other similar presses fit this category. They do not, however, necessarily save the beadmaker time. Some presses can be used more quickly than hand-shaping--after the beadmaker learns how, by trial and error--but others take more time no matter how practiced the lampworker.

Other presses allow the beadmaker to create shapes that could not be created easily--or at all--by hand. An example of the latter is the doughnut press or the faceted gem press. As made by Zoozii's, the press makes a bead that has eighteen facets--nearly impossible to craft by hand. No matter which category it is in, however, no press can simply be used to "stamp out" beads. Even the simplest press may require multiple pressings to get the shape perfect. I am a reasonably adept press user, and it never takes me fewer than three pressings to get the bead to my standards--and often it takes many more.

Perhaps most importantly, the press is usually not the final step in making a good, well-designed bead, or an innovative one. The basic bead shape, whether achieved by hand or a press, is no more than a canvas for the artist's eye and creativity. A beadmaker can keep the fundamental pressed shape, but range from the unique to the ordinary in terms of design and color choices. Or, as I did with this Taxco set, the press only provides the starting point for the finished bead. Some beadmakers add to the basic shape or distort the pressed bead, as I did with these tabs, which I raked to form rice-grain style pearlescent beads. Many of the amazing beads I have seen in terms of shape and design began as pressed beads.

Equally problematic, in my perspective, was another statement regarding press usage. " ... the difference between a molded [sic] bead and a hand-formed bead is the difference between an off-the-rack dress and couture. You can still wear it, and it will look nice; but the workmanship and artistry just aren't the same" (22).

Here we have moved into the realm of opinion -- whether a pressed bead holds the same workmanship and artistry as a completely hand-formed bead. And here opinion is divided. There are a number of lampworkers who would agree with the author's paraphrase of Ms. Seibel's opinion. To these artists, presses are a shortcut at best, and at worst a substitute for learning how to form the shapes without the press. From that perspective, pressed beads indeed lack artistry. And there definitely is something about the small size variations of hand-formed beads that give such beads a particular charm. Many lampworkers are so skilled that those size variations are almost imperceptible.

I will agree insofar that press usage should not ever be a substitute for craftspersonship, or for (where appropriate) knowing how to form a bead on one's own. I have seen any number of pressed beads with heavily ridged ends (caused by pressing the glass when it is too hot), poorly executed corners (too cool / not enough presses), and sharp ends (too hot / too large a footprint on the mandrel). Mine wind up in my wonky jar, and I either sell them to be broken up for mosaic pieces or put them in the wonky jar for people to use in hempen jewelry (where the ends matter less) or for kids to choose ... at $1 a bead, all proceeds going to the animal charity of mine and my business partner's choice.

However, I would disagree with the idea that presses somehow make a bead less artistic. Presses are tools, just as the marver on which one shapes a square bead is a tool. I can make a lentil with a marver, with the round ice tongs that used to be sold at Target, or with a lentil press. If I want to spend $40-65 on a press to make precise lentils, I am merely making a tool choice, just as the people who purchase Jim Moore's $200 precision bead press (for coring beads with sterling silver) rather than making do with a set of flaring tools, tube cutters, and chasing hammers from Harbor Freight are doing. I don't hear anyone saying that using Jim Moore's bead press makes the resulting sterling-lined beads "less artistic" than the method of doing it by hand, with all the attendant imperfections and individual quirks that result.

Furthermore, while presses help the beadmaker create beads that are precise in shape and size, they do not create uniform beads in decoration. Take a look at the following sets of mine -- all made with a nugget press, but save for the size, no bead in the sets is exactly alike any other bead in the set.



Are either the most creative bead out there? No, they aren't. But that is neither the fault of the press, nor my age (more tomorrow). It's what I chose to make at the time, in part because of what materials I had, what I thought might sell, what I had been asked to make, what my mood was, what my current skill level is ... not because they are pressed beads.

I'll continue this response to the Belle Armoire Jewelry article tomorrow, when I talk about creativity, age, and expression.

Copying: The Fallout Continues

In an earlier post, I referred to Ulljasbeads, who has been proven to have purchased beads on EBAY and resold them on ETSY as her own creations. There's more blog commentary about this incident, below.

Su Beeds
Designs By Kurato
Copyright Laws

Her DaWanda Shop has been closed, as well as her ETSY shop, and her blog entries have been removed.

The issue of copying is always a hot one in any creative community, but particularly so since the Internet has made it easier to see other people's work and to repost it as one's own. Where would you draw the line? For example, there are only so many styles of floral bead, and so many solid colors, and inevitably there will be lots of people doing three, four, and five petal raised flowers. I have a set on ETSY that is remarkably similar to one by Gwacie. Now, I do do some Gwacie-style beads, with her full knowledge and permission, but when I saw these side by side in a treasury, I contacted her and asked if I should pull mine because of the unintentional similarity. Her answer was no--they are a basic design, in primary summer colors, and you see variants of them all over the Web. (I say that hers, by the way, are better. She says mine are underpriced.) Unintentionally duplicating a basic bead now and then just happens, I think.

However, copying directly also happens, and that isn't excusable. Recently another lampworker noticed that her tutorial had appeared on several other sites, and had been attributed to other beadmakers. That is plagiarism, pure and simple, and is wrong whether you do it on the Web or in the classroom. Sometimes we all copy beads to try out a technique, or because we're learning a style in a class. That's fine--it's like doing five finger exercises on the piano. But to publish or to sell those beads as your own? No. Period. I might show them on the Web, as I did my tornado bead in an earlier post, with a clear note that this was my first bead made without deviation from the tutorial of beadmaker X. Then the beads go into my "gift" stash, with a note reminding me to point out that they are copies of Beadmaker X's work. Or they go into my Sekrit Private Stash that I don't share with anyone. Passing them off as YOUR design, or -- worse -- presenting a bead that you've made in a class, to someone else's specs, with someone else's copious help ... is as much plagiarism as stealing someone else's generous tutorial. When you take a class, unless you've been taught something generic, wait until you've put your own stamp on that technique to sell the results.

Are people just that lazy or afraid that they can only try what they have been shown, and no more? I remember one customer who was afraid to start beading because she had to "get it right," and was afraid to experiment, and be wrong, and start over. Do people truly care more for the presumed fame of having a tutorial in their name, or do they not care about the reputation they will get for copying and being a technique or tutorial thief? Do they really think that if it is on the Internet and they don't pay to see it that they can copy at will? Are they just that lacking in imagination, or do they truly not understand that what they are doing os theft--of words, of ideas, of time. If it hasn't got a price tag on it, do these people think it is free?

Whatever their beliefs, there will be an effect on the community-minded, generous souls who post tutorials and from whom I have learned so much. They may stop sharing their knowledge and skills freely. I hope not ....