The Journey—Lisa Liddy

Sometimes the creative journey seems a lot like air travel today. Not nearly as easy as it was years ago! Lots of missed connections and extra costs. Delays and a few unexpected surprises on the trip.

I’ve hit those snags and delays of late so I’m going to take this “journey” more in terms of how I ended up creating jewelry and developing a business out of it. I liked how Lori Anderson handled it in her post awhile back.

I’ve always done crafty things. Sewing was my primary love for years and years until my daughter was born. I’ve not sewn creatively since then. The floor was my preferred place to layout and pin patterns…not conducive with an infant/toddler. And somewhere along the lines “they” resized the patterns on me! (OK, it was baby weight that never left, but the thrill of making my own clothes left around that time). 

I dabbled in beading years and years ago when I was single with a beaded Christmas tree…made two of them! And then moved on to other things. Have crocheted a bit, fabric painted, and a few other activities through the years.

When Emma was 6 or 7 she was invited to a birthday party at a bead store…the girls made little strung necklaces from kits that they chose. She ended up at several and had her own party there one year too. Since the moms stayed closer for those parties, I spent some time poking around the store and occasionally found time to go and sit for a couple hours working on projects for me or as gifts. I learned how to crimp endings and add clasps and the general mechanics of finishing off necklaces and bracelets (as well as an understanding that buying retail was going to get really expensive!).

I wasn’t hooked  yet. But it was coming. I had discovered Ebay and developed an interest in vintage jewelry that never really went anyway…I’ve got a box of old earrings that have been turned into holiday wreaths and mini-trees for charity over the years. Somehow though in the course of searching, i stumbled on lampwork beads and the obsession was born. I was fascinated with these glass beauties and the detail in them. I bought and bought and developed relationships and friendships with beadmakers all over the world. It was the bonus in the purchase as I had become a bit of a homebody: husband traveled every week, main business was homebased and computer driven, daughter was fairly high maintenance. I didn’t get out much for several years. So my online beadie friends were a godsend. A couple would suggest that I should learn to make my own beads (a couple others thought that was a bad idea! ) and as much as I love the beads, I realize that I have no time in my life to become as skilled as my taste in beads would require. But I digress.

After collecting beads for a bit, I was making them into jewelry (I actually started with natural stones and crystals and Bali silver but moved on from there to almost exclusively lampwork, freshwater pearls and Hill Tribe silver). In late fall 2001 while we were still reeling from the devastation of 9/11, my husband found out he was losing his job. He stayed on to close down the corporate office (which moved back east) and then tried to find work in the hospitality business for over a year. During that time, I ramped up the book design business and he took over as the “senior editor/delivery boy” enabling me to grow my business enough to keep us afloat on one income for awhile. He started working for one of my clients and eventually ended up working for the large publisher who purchased my client’s business.

But it was a long and stressful side trip…I worked endless hours at times and found comfort and sanity by having a bead tray nearby. I could lay out the beads and push them around into various designs even for just 15 minutes late at night. It calmed me. I usually started several projects that way and a week later might get to the point where I could string them. Finishing them off might be another week later in stolen moments. Friends and family wanted to buy what I was making. Somewhere along the way I was introduced to Nirvana (the gemshows in Tucson, not the band!) and Joolz by Lisa was born.

 

I still struggle with finding the time for ongoing creation, not to mention the venue for successful selling and I love to be surrounded by my treasured beads. It’s a topic for another day but my office is a co-mingling of my two lives. To the left of the computer are all things book design. To the right, all things bead and jewelry related. Those who have seen it are a little unsure how I get anything done!

Let the journey continue.

www.lisaliddy.wordpress.com
www.joolzbylisa.etsy.com
www.joolzbylisa.com

The Journey - Lori Anderson

When I looked at my given topic this month and saw it labeled as, “The Journey”, I thought of several ways this article could go.  I thought, WHICH journey?  The journey I take each day when I sit to design?  The journey that it takes to find my creative self in the midst of a chaotic day?  Or the journey I took to get to this point in my life, where I make pretty things for a living?

I thought it might be interesting to try the latter — how I ended up where I am now, where I have the absolute joy of actually making a living making jewelry.  It’s a strange, convoluted journey, with lots of twists, turns, and almosts, and it will tell you a little more about me, and in the end, why my jewelry is so eclectic, and doesn’t adhere to one given style.

I’ll start with my first real-world job.  It’s as far from jewelry design as it could possibly be — four years in the US Air Force.  Joining right from high school, I spent a year in California learning Korean, and then off to Osan AB, Korea, to work an intel position.  Lots of fun, except for chemical exercises (see photo for the reason why!), but no beading.  I never even thought of it. 

After four years in Korea, I left the military for the civilian world, and held a few different jobs, mostly in marketing.  While marketing didn’t have a thing to do with making cool things, it DID give me a solid background that I now use everyday in how to market myself and my company. 

A quick jaunt to Italy occured when I realized I was never going to quite be complete without a college degree.  I spent the three months before classes started living in Italy, teaching aerobics for spending money. I fell in love with Venice and, of course, Murano glass.  I spent my time admiring the vases and large sculptures, never dreaming that glass beads were going to become an integral part of my future career.  Oh, if I’d only known then what I know now, and had a bunch of money to spend on beads!

Next came college — two years at community college, then finishing off a four-year degree at the University of Virginia, majoring in Biology.  I’d taken nearly every microbiology and teeny-tiny-things bio class I could, and was in pre-med, so I’d had lots of time in chem labs.  THAT gave me an attention to detail that I use now in each piece I make — it has to be JUST so, down to the ending bit.

After self-imposed poverty while getting that degree, I decided to take a year off to make some money before med school, and ended up in the IT world, smack-dab in the middle of the dot.com explosion.  Once again, I found myself working in sales and marketing, and gained more skills that would eventually serve me well when I owned my own little company.

Another twist in the road — meeting my husband!  Deciding to have a family rather than spend up to age 40 in internships, I happily got married, and discovered while making wedding programs, table cards, and favors that I had a bit of a creative side.  I very nearly took the tests to become a wedding coordinator but then, oh joy, we were expecting a baby!

While I was pregnant, I spent part of the time on bed rest, and my friend brought me some beads to keep me busy.  Uh oh.  Kinda got hooked.  I didn’t have time until after Zack was about 8 months old to really play around seriously with the beads, but it was addictive.  I sent some things to my mom, who took them to her office, and they sold — and all of a sudden, I had a business! 

Now I do about 16 craft shows a year, have tutorials in magazines and a book, have been a mentor to a few new crafters, and have never had a job I loved more.  I feel so lucky.  All of those twists and turns in my life could have led me anywhere — a career military sergeant, a PeopleSoft IT professional, a doctor, a wedding planner.  Each of those stops along the way gave me something to take with me to this part of my Journey.  And I couldn’t be happier.

 

 

You can see Lori’s work at www.lorianderson.net and www.lori2.com.

Her blog is at www.lorianderson.blogspot.com

 

 

The Journey: Laura McCullough-DeLorme

The path of my creative process has been a long and evolving one. I’ve traveled it easily and it’s rare that I feel stuck, uninspired or as if I’ve emptied the well and can no longer create something new. However, as long as I can remember, the real obstacle for me and one that held me back was (and sometimes still is) my own struggle with self-worth.

It isn’t that I don’t get a kick out of things I’ve made. In fact, I’ve been known to give myself loud applause and dance around in delight when a piece I’m working on turns out even better than I imagined! Yet, when it comes to feeling that my work is “art” or when I’m viewing it through other people’s eyes, I become stuck and fearful that what I do isn’t substantial enough to count.

This pattern first began to emerge when I was ten years old and sabotaged my dream of becoming a gymnast. I practiced alone with very little family support for several hours every single day for a spot on a team that for the very first time was accepting gymnasts under twelve. Then, after all of my effort, when the big day came I blew off the tryouts.

I was a natural, but I was embarrassed to show up in a secondhand bodysuit (which snapped at the crotch) instead of a real leotard and with my parents’ signature on the slip, but not their presence. Although I knew that my skill level was high, I didn’t feel legitimate compared to the other girls who looked and acted the part with hired coaches.

A few weeks later, I felt angry, hurt and disappointed in myself as I sat on the curb watching a parade pass and blinked back tears when the excited new gymnasts rode by on their float waving while everyone applauded.

This pattern carried itself into my adulthood. Several years ago, I began to draw and this time I was strongly supported by friends and family members. They encouraged me to make some prints and greeting cards of my work. I didn’t. Again, old feelings of doubt and of an underlying lack of confidence in myself surfaced and I was afraid to take a risk…I knew I was repeating old patterns and sabotaging myself, yet I made excuses about being too busy.

In spite of letting the drawings go, I kept creating and soon began making wallets and little purses out of paper and vinyl.

Again, I was encouraged to try to sell them. I agonized a long time before entering my wallets in my first juried fine arts show. I was petrified, but not of being rejected (I’m a playwright…rejection I can handle!), but of trying something “artsy” and demonstrating a clear effort to start something new, I was officially putting pressure on myself to “make a go of it”. Was I setting myself up for embarrassment or feelings of failure if it didn’t turn out the way I imagined?

The thing that finally tipped the scales in the “go ahead and apply” direction was that I knew I didn’t want to repeat the same mistake I made with gymnastics or my drawings. I didn’t want to see promotions for the show and know that maybe, just maybe, I could have been part of it if only I’d tried. Plus, I have a long history of trying too hard for other people and not enough for myself, so I went ahead and applied.

The wallets did win a spot in the show, but I’m embarrassed to share that my problems weren’t over. I began lamenting that I wasn’t going to be thin and look like a “real artist” in indie/artsy clothes, that other artists would think my booth was unprofessional, that I wouldn’t sell enough and that I’d be forced to keep my spirits up publicly for two days all while wanting to die and become invisible. Isn’t this lame? Talk about self-absorption.

Finally, I had to come to terms with the fact that all I can do is create and market. Those are the only two things I have control over…making things and finding places for them to be seen. How people react isn’t up to me, but standing behind my work and not having regrets is. I wasted years being afraid to put energy and time behind my own ideas and not making a commitment to being someone who not only creates beautiful things, but who isn’t afraid to be proud and believe that what she makes matters.

These days I’m committed to my work and while I’m still plagued by doubt at times, I don’t let it stop me. If you’re just getting started, I urge you not to waste precious time second-guessing and doubting yourself. Once you take the leap and really commit to your work, you’ll be amazed by how much lighter you feel. If you are reading this and recognize a little bit of yourself in my experience, I hope you’ll go look through your many boxes of saved work (we all have them) and reconsider the reasons you put it away. It’s never too late to give yourself or your art a second chance.

www.littleorangekitchen.typepad.com

The Journey - Suzanne Tate

I came to glass beadmaking in a rather convoluted way, although, like many people it stemmed from jewellery making.  As I may have mentioned, I am a member of the SCA, a medieval recreation group.  There is something for almost everyone in the SCA – leather work, cooking, singing, brewing, sword fighting, archery, weaving, embroidery… the list goes on.  As I had no desire to get enormous bruises by being beaten up by big guys with swords, I was relegated to watching the tourneys, and for many of the women in the SCA, that means they are often spinning, weaving, sewing etc while they watch.  Unfortunately, despite the fact that I was a textile teacher, I hate sewing etc, particularly fine needlework.  I just can’t do it – I’m too messy for starters.

So, to entertain myself at SCA events, I started ‘merchanting’.  I sold feasting gear, fabric trim and handmade jewellery.  My ‘mundane’ (non SCA)  jewellery was made with purchased glass beads (ones I now know were mainly cheap imported beads from China and India) and silver plated findings, but my SCA jewellery was made with semi precious stones and pearls, as befitted the medieval period. When I eventually started making jewellery from my own beads, I wanted to produce a high quality product that did justice to my glass creations.  From then on, I only used sterling silver findings, semi-precious stones, and Swarovski crystals.

When I was at University, I had majored in Photography and Metalcraft.  When my husband suggested he get me a soldering torch for my Birthday, so I could return to silversmithing, an American friend in the SCA mentioned we could make glass beads on it.  I had never heard of lampworking, so that brief comment planted the seed that was to eventually turn into a fully fledged glass obsession. 

For one reason or another, I never did the get the soldering torch, but about a year later the same friend pointed out a lampworking course at a local TAFE (Technical and Further Education) college, and I immediately jumped on the chance to sign up.  I completed a 2 day beginner’s course with Kathryn Wardill, a wonderful Australian Beadmaker and Master Jeweller, who at the time, was one of the few people in Australia making a living from Glass Beads.  A few months later, I completed an advanced course, again with Kathryn.  I got a great grounding in the basic skills from Kathryn.  She ensured we understood safety issues, COE and glass compatibility, and insisted we learn how to hand shape a variety of forms, like tubes, squares, triangles etc.  She taught me that it is important to learn the fundamental skills that you can then build on as you acquire new skills and tools.

                        My first ever beads -  Day 1

 

                                    Day 2

 

I worked on a Hot Head torch for over 4 years, not being able to justify the additional costs associated with a surface mix torch, and not really feeling my HH was holding me back.  It did teach me patience, as I have always made large beads, but apart from extremely large vessels and sculptural forms, I never felt limited (although I could have done without the noise!).  Eventually I upgraded to what we beadmakers often affectionately call a ‘Big Girl Torch’ a couple of years ago, and I have enjoyed the increased flexibility (and the blissful quiet) that it allowed.

My glass journey has perhaps been slower than it could have been, had I not been a hobbyist with a full time career, but it has been enjoyable, inspiring, frustrating, fulfilling, enriching, expensive and rewarding in turns.  And it’s not over yet!

 

 

www.solarflarecreations.com.au

What a Long Strange Trip it’s Been - Heather Hertziger

I’m a magpie. I love shiny objects like jewelry and I love collecting it. Unfortunately I also have a nickel allergy, which means that I can’t wear the pretty, sparkly, shiny inexpensive pieces at the department stores. So when I was in college and very poor I started making my own jewelry so that I could wear pretty things without breaking out into a rash.

A piece for my white blouse here, a gift for someone else there and one thing led to another until I ended up turning my hobby into a business. I called the business Square One Beads because I was self taught and every time I made a mistake I had to start over at square one.

Soon after that I started buying lampwork beads on eBay. Unfortunately I couldn’t always find or afford what I wanted. Because I had heard that lampwork required thousands of dollars worth of equipment I thought I could never afford to do that, so I started using polymer clay to create beads for my work. This went on for some time until I saw a hot head torch and found out that I could try making my own beads without a huge outlay of money right off the bat. As soon as that glass started to flow I was hooked.

Silver clay and kumihimo joined lampwork and polymer clay as parts of my jewelry-making arsenal. As I got more and more into the process of glass art and jewelry making I grew afraid that I may start to look at all of it as work and that it would kill my creativity. To hopefully prevent that from happening I added another art form to my resume, which had absolutely nothing to do with jewelry – oil painting. I find the oil painting is a good outlet for those days when for whatever reason I am just unable to make the glass work for me.

In a few short years I have gone from making jewelry out of other people’s beads, to making my own beads, to putting paint to canvas. I wonder where the next few years will take me? I can’t wait to find out. Heather

 

 

 

 

The Journey - Annette Piper

As a jewellery designer, each piece of jewellery I make takes me on a little journey.   As I make one of a kind pieces, you can imagine I go on quite a few of these little expeditions.

  

The journey begins with the stones.   I am not a miner, fossiler or a lapidary so the stones when I find them, have already been on their own, sometimes quite long trip.  They have been mined or found, they have been sliced, cut and polished and maybe even changed hands a time or two before I find them.   But I usually know if we are meant to be united.  I start seeing possibilities from colour, shape and texture before I even get a good, close look.

  

Once I have selected the stones they usually go into one of two piles.  The pile that I HAVE to work on, (right now or I’ll go crazy!) or the pile where a little more thought is needed.  The creative journey can be frustrating or satisfying, enjoyable or  almost depressing.

    

Some pieces really come together very quickly and are finished fast if I have complementary stones, pearls and clasps to hand.  Others require a bit more work, sometimes days and days of looking, moving around, mixing and unmixing and sometimes even mock-ups before the picture in my mind can become a reality.   I am still waiting for inspiration to strike with some stones.  They can sit there for months like that before I finally pull them out and try again.  But I know I will eventually make them into something worthy of their beauty.

  

Even when the designing phase is ‘done’ the actual construction can go awry and require refining before it is right.   So more moving around, mixing and unmixing  and off we go again!  But eventually the piece comes together and is completed.

 I then get to bask in its beauty for a little while before it is sold, already hearing the call of other stones waiting on my bench for me to spend a little time with them.

The Journey - Debbie Chialtas

  

“Oh no!!” I yelled, as I opened the broiler and found my tray of oats on fire.  Lesson One: putting dry oats under a gas broiler flame isn’t a great idea.  But how else do you toast oats?  I don’t know, but oats look pretty horrible mixed into a clear glycerin soap base anyway.  Yuck.

So this is how I started making glycerin melt and pour soaps.  I actually took a very long break after this first initiation.  When I was pregnant with my first child, I rediscovered it in a fit of nesting hormones.  There were still a lot of lessons to be learned: don’t use any kind of ingredient that will spoil, like coconut.  It will just spoil in your soap.  Nasty.  Coffee grounds used in soap can “take barnacles off a boat” as my husband says.  And never leave a pot of melting soap on a burner with the heat turned up too high or else you will spend the rest of the day cleaning soap off of every kitchen surface it boils over onto (but if you wait long enough it will harden and pull off in sheets, which is pretty fun actually).

The most important lesson I have learned, though, is Do Your Own Thing.  When I started Soapylove, I was just experimenting with a new hobby.  I used some books, but loved to try things on my own.  I had an old set of popsicle molds and made my first soapsicles.  They were so cute I made lots of variations and had good luck selling them on Etsy, a discovery I made that launched my hobby into an actual business.  Finding inspiration outside of soapmaking (like in glass art, polymer art, cake decorating, textile design, etc) gave me ideas that didn’t exist in my craft yet.  Some ideas were better received than others, but overall I was encouraged as people purchased my soaps.

Even though I had some pretty disastrous experiences as I learned about glycerin soap making, I am still just as inspired now as several years ago.  I still sell on Etsy, but also sell to many wholesale customers and even have a distributor in Australia.  A book may be in my near future, and my ultimate dream of being a “work at home mom” may be a reality soon.  The journey so far has been very exciting, and I look forward to many more years of soapy lessons!