Wow! It has been a long time since I've posted. When I started this blog I had intentions of visiting every day. I had intentions that I no longer remember. I've been so busy, and I feel guilty for not following through. However, I now forgive myself and reinvent my intentions.
I have been so busy with school, pool, and Isaac. I haven't had time to make many beads and I've revamped my website but haven't had time to even promote that. There's always one more thing I must do. I must get all my inventory on the site, then I can contact people. I must get this paper done, then I can photograph beads. I must get these pool statistics done, then I can make some beads.
And in between the shoulda', woulda', coulda', I occasionally break for a cigarette and "meaningless" reading. Recently I purchased an older collection of Ornament Magazine. That has been my reading during smoke breaks and before falling asleep. It is driving me crazier!
Ornament Magazine is so inspiring. It isn't specifically related to lampworking but features art, true art, of all kinds, including lampwork. It has been more inspiring than anything I own that is specifically lampwork related. I see artistic design, colors, shapes, and ideas for lampworking come out of such nonrelated objects. I'm being inspired by elements, instead of whole works, and that makes me feel creative in my own unique way instead of envious of whole works that other lampworkers do that make me feel inadequate.
But still, I have so much to do that I cannot get this newly found inspiration expressed in lampworking! Hence, my new purpose for this blog. I am going to share what is inspiring me, and long to get back to lampworking (even when I don't have the time.) I thought I would start with
Ornament Magazine, and went to their website and low and behold, guess what is on the cover of this month's issue?!
I've seen this bead before. Who is that? Loren Stump? Patty Walton? Leah? Mary? Who?!!
I've been thinking about making beads and worry about forgetting the things that inspire me. I'm going to sell my magazines because I need money and I need to do spring cleaning and I just want to share the unexpected gift I received when I bought them. I never sketch my ideas, so another purpose of this blog is to write down my inspirations so that I don't lose them.
When I've been thinking about making beads I also think about skills I'd like to have that I don't because of practice. I'm out of clear, so I can't make encased florals. However, I have been wanting to practice my stringer control. I'd love to be as good as Claudia, aka
Glasting! No one compares.
So I tried and I'll have to post my pics of my yellow and silver glass lentils. They are okay; I need to use thinner stringer and practice more. I've thought about what colors to use and I saw an inspiration on
Creative Juice this morning. It was a decorative wire Cheshire cat in purple and orange. I've always loved that color combo.
I guess I've been worried about losing inspiration for a while and have tried to write sources down in different ways. One of those ways was through bookmarks of web sites and pages. I recently reorganized my book marks (new years resolution) and created an inspiration folder with a "color" section. I got the purple and orange photo above from a great color inspiration web site called
Multicolor Search Lab It's a very cool tool that finds Flickr images that meet the color parameters you pick.
Well, that's all for now. More inspiration for now and for later, until I get to actually turn them into reality at the torch. What a tease!
