Beading is essentially a solitary endeavor. I've written already about being accompanied by audio books, a computer, radio, or TV. I've also written about the portability of beading and how it can be done in all sorts of venues, most of which will be with other people. I am a firm believer in balancing the individual nature of being an artist with being part of a group of artists or craftsmen. Years ago I created my own artist support group. I invited half a dozen or so creative women I knew to meet monthly to discuss art. We were just getting going when I gave birth to my third son. Having a new baby was demanding, and without my leadership, the disparate band of artists dissolved. I craved the company of fellow artists, though, and my son was still in a stroller when I met two other women who both had children the age of my oldest son and another one in a stroller like my youngest. Better still, they were both artists. I overheard them talking at a middle school cross country meet where all of our oldest children were running. Without hesitating, I joined them and before long we were meeting weekly for play group and mother/artist support. That was thirteen years ago! One of the women has dropped out, but the two of us who remain are committed to our meetings. Recently, we gave an artist talk together. It was wonderful to work together formally in that way. Our talk included a small exhibit of our work as well as photographs that we discussed. Set out in that way it was clear that we have influenced each other's art. Both of us are members of WCA NH, the local branch of the Women's Caucus for Art. I am also in the League of NH Craftsmen. Both organizations provide levels of artist support. I know a very successful craftswoman who meets weekly with other artists in her community. She calls her group a "salon," and I am reminded of the groups of Impressionist Artists who met together in France, or the great writers who would meet and talk about their work. For me, it is critical to my growth as an artist to interact with other artists. To see their work, to discuss problems of the moment, issues of the day, and art in general. It widens my perspective as well as helps to keep me focused. If you are toiling away by yourself, see if you can join a group. It can be a virtual group; I am a member of two online beading groups, and just reading this blog and commenting connects you with other artists. You can investigate formal organizations in your area. Many communities and states have their own beading groups. Or, like I did years ago, you can start your own group and reach out to friends or strangers (meet in a public place in that case) to create your own support network.
What is your favorite tool? Do you have a needle you've bent to just the right curve? How about a pair of pliers that twist your wire exactly the way you want it? Maybe you have a favorite pair of tweezers, or you like your bead spinner for stringing bead crochet. Perhaps we can talk about those tools another time, because the tools we all like best aren't products, they are our hands! Our hands are uniquely our own and the most important tools we have. So it is especially important to take good care of them. Some beaders have callouses where a needle pokes them repeatedly. If I am doing lots of bead crochet, I get a callous on one finger where the crochet hook pushes through the work and butts up to my finger on every stitch. Callouses are one thing. Overuse injuries are something else. An artist friend made an amazing crocheted work and then couldn't crochet for weeks because her hands were too sore. I injured my hand clearing ice off my driveway in 2009. I tried 15 months of physical therapy before submitting to surgery that stopped the pain and gave me back full range of motion. It didn't "correct" the problem, though. It simply severed a permanently inflamed sheath aruond a tendon. The months of therapy and fearful prospect of the surgery were important reminders to me to take care of my hands. I try to stretch them, strenghten them, exercise them and rest them. My therapist had me doing stretching exercises that involved wrapping a rubber band around my hand and expanding it by stretching my fingers as far apart as they could go. He had me squeezing Airputty to strengthen my hands (you can use rubber balls instead). I did regular hand exercises that included touching my thumbs to my pinkys, then each fingertip in succession. I bent my fingers carefully backwards with my oopposite hand. When my hand was originaly injured, I had it xrayed. The good news was that I had no arthritis. After my surgery, my doctor said I might have a little arthritis and I told him about the xray. He told me that those months of inflammation could have created some arthritis! My same friend who crochets believes you can be an artist your whole life. I agree. In order to keep creating, though, we need to take care of our tools, starting with our hands!
I try to do my beadwork everyday. Sometimes I don't succeed. Other times, I only get in a few minutes here or there, but I want to prioritize my beadwork, so that means making time for it. Fortunately, the portability of beadwork allows for doing it in all sorts of conditions. I have beaded in a car, on an airplane, at a meeting, in a waiting room, and at a sporting event, among other places. My hectic life does not allow for me to set aside huge blocks of time on a regular basis. Today, just trying to write this blog has taken three separate efforts of a few minutes here and there before I finally got to sit and get it done.
Working on deadline, there have been plenty of times when my artwork trumped the rest of my life and I kept at it for hours on end. (I do try to look up regularly, though, so I don't get too bleary-eyed.) Most of the time, though, I set aside time in and around the other things I need to do, drive to and from school and sports practices and games, do laundry and cook meals, attend meetings, etc. I value my roles as wife, mother, and child advocate as well as my role as artist. Some days it is easier to work it all together than others. I try to take it one day at a time. Every step on a journey is equal. The important thing is to persevere and keep moving forward! I don't think I'm being rejected enough. That may sound like an arrogant statement, but it is meant as a motivator. A friend told me she'd been told if she wasn't being rejected regularly, then she wasn't working hard enough and putting herself out there enough. She even keeps a file (a fat one) of her rejections to motivate her and as a history on how far she's come. She has pieces that were rejected that she altered and got accepted in a different venue. I have a piece I made for a biennial exhibit that was rejected. At first I was wounded when I had to retrieve my bracelet. Later, a photo of that same piece was selected to appear on the NH Arts website! There are many reasons for a rejection. Sometimes it's as simple as not fitting a theme jurors are creating. Other times it's a matter of one person's taste. Often, a poor photograph can be to blame. Rejection can be painful, but it can also be informative. Teenagers are well known for taking risks, sometimes unduly so, but as we age, we get safer and stop taking as many chances. Risk implies the unknown, and by it's very definition, a journey there is an educational foray. For a while, I was regularly making submissions to national exhibits, but I kept getting rejected. So, I looked at my work, at the work that was being accepted, and decided to buckle down and push myself and my work in new ways. Now it has been months, maybe more than a year, since my last rejection, and so, it feels time to put my toes back into the water and see how far I've come. In the interim, I don't expect the rest of the world stood still, so I will emotionally prepare to be rejected again, but while I am working at it, I am going to plan to be ready to succeed, as well. Looking at my own work with a critical eye, getting the best photographs I can, making a submission with a particular venue in mind, will all increase my odds of acceptance. Not too long ago, I lost my mother and celebrated a milestone birthday of my own within a few months of each other. Both are reminders to me that life is fleeting and we need to create our own opportunities. To do that, we have to risk rejection. Maybe I should start my own file! (Check out my beadcrochet page to see my Waves brace
In my work, I primarily do off-loom bead weaving. This involves any one of a number of bead stitches: peyote, right-angle weave, herringbone, brick stitch, or bead crochet. I also do some bead embroidery. Once in a while, I will put together a finished piece that involves stringing. Whenever possible, I try to avoid using glue and even knots. In my beadwoven pieces,I eschew knots for several reasons. Most of my work is one-of-a-kind pieces that I develop as I go, which involves a fair amount of ripping out and reworking. Knots hinder that revision process and often force restarting from the start, a big time consumer. Also, knots look ugly and amateurish so are kept hidden, which means inside beads. If it is expertly done, the knot-filled bead is one that does not need to be in the thread path a second time and so does its job invisibly. In my experience, however, the knot can make a bead sit awkwardly, and invariably I will want to pass through the bead again as I continue crafting the piece and the knot precludes any room for another trip of the needle. I've broken off many a needle eye doing this, or worse, cracked the bead, requiring me to remove it and rework that section. Instead of knots, I have learned that by passing my thread at several right angles in the work, I will have secured it sufficiently to ensure it will not unravel. When I first tried this theory, I worried that it wouldn't hold, but I found it worked just as well as knots, maybe better. (I was especially convinced when ripping out work that the threads were so secure I needed to cut them to pull it all apart!)
In strung pieces, I do use knots and will finish an end knot with a drop of hypo-tube cement. Since those knots are at the ends of a work, there is no efficient way to weave the thread back through the work, so a knot is the best solution, and a drop of glue helps extend the life of the knot. Glue contains chemicals, though, and they can degrade the thread, so it's important to use it sparingly and according to directions. Bead embroidery is sewn directly to a base fabric, so no glue is required there, but once in a while, I find a particular piece requires glue as the best solution. Recently I was embellishing a vintage evening bag for a client friend. My beadwork replaced a warped piece of horn that had slipped into brass brackets. The brackets would not hold my beadwork in the same way. I tried weaving the beadwork around the brackets, but it drooped too much for that to be the sole support. I tried sewing the beadwork directly to the fabric of the bag, but the fabric was too stiff for my beading needles, and needles that would penetrate the bag would have broken the beads. (Not to mention they would leave permanent holes in the bag's fabric.) So I resorted to glue. I checked with my local bead store to be sure the glue was the best solution and opted for E6000. When I pulled my tube from it's location inside a closed plastic bag on the top shelf of my bead closet (away from the curiosities of my three sons), I discovered that it had been unused for so long a crack had developed in the tube and the glue had all dried up. So I went back to my bead store and bought another (small) tube to finish the project. With my habits, it too will be hard before I go to use it again! Here's a photo of the finished embellishment on the bag. |