December 1, 2008 by Cyndi Lavin
Filed under Bead Embroidery, Beading, Wearable Art
Make Art Monday!
Here is step one, after about 4 hours:
You see that outline? I don’t think I’m going to end up following it…my ideas are sort of evolving as I work 
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Cyndi is a mixed media and jewelry artist whose constant plea as a child was, “Please Mommy! Don’t throw that out. I can make something out of that!”
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Oh, Cyndi, too weird for my tastes but the colors are magnificent even here on the net. It reminds me a little of one of the scenes in the old sci-fi novel – you know the one “Its alive, its alive!!”
I wish I had half your technical skill, though. You are some SKILLED lady. Admire you skills,entirely.
I’ve been at my table for a couple of hours and make 2 necklaces, one pair of earrings, and one bracelet. – nothing spectacular… kind of nice colors, decently done, nothing to be embarressed about either way.
OK – dull, dull, dull ! I admit it.
I just don’t feel part of the NOW crowd. Love looking at the pictures, though…Great spectacular pieces seen here and on the other sites but would Sue or Barb wear them to church? Would Nancy wear them to a Banking meeting with her boss?
Hi, I really like this piece! What is the center made of? It looks like glass or resin. It has a certain energy to it, and yet the color is soothing. I enjoy bead embroidery, its my favorite beading technique.
LOL!! Well, I wear my pieces to church
It doesn’t matter if you make elaborate or simple pieces, as long as you MAKE SOMETHING lol!!
The center is a large triangular “donut” of sodalite that I got from Fire Mountain Gems. The colors are a little off in the photo, because I had to use my flash. I’ll try to get a better shot for my future updates
I haven’t ordered from them for a while, though I still get their catalogs.. didn’t realize how small it was – it looks modern to me – its the shape, too.
- if the economy behaves itself in the new year I may try to get back into selling some of work on the net. (My husband claims that this is only beginning of the problems with our economy- and his arguments make sense.) Problem with selling is I can’t take the time for experimentation and I’ve promised myself to do something NEW in the New Year.
(I keep saying that..)
I want to really return to beading, I enjoy it so much and allow myself so little of it. The old Italian saying “The shoemaker’s children have no shoes ” is totally appropriate.
I NEED new jewelry, myself.
I always worry that my friends just throw my gifts in the drawer and never use them. Though, one friend last year said all eyes turned when she wore a shawl I made – it was very dramatic – the ladder yarn in browns & golds.
I tend to have an orderly mind (instead of an orderly house!) Even when I try to be haphazard – make bead soup it looks like I planned everything. I have an overlord planner in my unconscious in a chaotic universe!
Has anyone here ever thought about beading a fringe for a shawl – that image is driving me nuts. I suspect it would be massively impractical.. breakage & sitting on it .. but I’d love to do it. I still have an idea for a shawl of fabric – with tatted/beaded designs and a beaded fringe. My brain isn’t going to be happy until I make at least one of them. do that in the new year. Keep seeing that one in my head, Cyndi.
I thought the colors were just fine.. I love the sea/ turquoise blues – Sodalite? center ? (why didn’t I realize it was Sodalite?) You are right about color though – the Sodalite looks almost lapis to me. That bit of metal passing over it still reminds me of the electrical impulses in the old sci-fi movies! Its alive! LOL But now you mention the center maybe – something about doorways?
LOL! The metal is gold wire
It definitely does give it a dynamic look, maybe even bordering on SciFi. That’s ok with me!
I’ve seen shawls with beaded trim, but I’ve never made one myself. I think sometimes you just have to let the practicalities go (breakage) and go for it anyway. If each dangle was fully anchored, then breakage wouldn’t be such a total disaster maybe.
Its fun to experiment, isn’t it? does remind me of a scene of an old movie; Instead of Frankenstein (”No, its ‘Frankenstien”)
(can anyone name that movie!????)
What about star gate? .. or 2012? — hmmm Portal through time? Portal to dreams? The Heart Chakra’s symbol is a star of david, one of those wonderful symbols that repeats in every culture and time. Pointing upward it means human energy going towards divine, pointing down the triangle means divine energy descending through the realms into the human heart. 7th. Charka’s color is purple/white – the throat center is blue, the third eye is electric Blue. Your design can be about communication/speaking/truth!
Always looking for meanings, aren’t I? Is that a fault?
I admit it – I worry too much about the shawl being practical.. . Its just I keep seeing it my head! I think I will make it (for me) once I am done with Christmas gifts.
Oh, don’t worry about anchored. I do great with that sort of thing — its the making things looking random I can’t do..
Well, I sure *hope* it’s not a fault to look for meanings! One of the reasons that I’m so name-challenged when it comes to picking one for my own pieces is that all my creative energy has already leaked out into the actual piece
I like your suggestion “Portal to Dreams”…I think that one might stick.
Oh, and it’s from “Young Frankenstein”, isn’t it?
Bravo ! Young Frankenstein it is.
“ee- gor?”
“no, I-gor!”
My favorite line though is a bit mature in content.. here a pretty good selection..
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0072431/quotes
My real gift, this lifetime is writing prose, the rest of it is distraction – amusing myself either properly or not, or just wasting my time.
(I don’t consider beading a waste-of-time; It is a MOST excellent obsession!)
I find myself looking for patterns and meaning in everything, a lifetime reading myths, legends and doing research – it has filled my mind with such connections as has my study of the mystical side of thing, i.e., the unity behind diversities of life.
I’m an “old” Star Trek fan, so the idea of portals made me think of th episode “City on the Edge of Forever” it was a time portal. Classic episode and a cool concept. Sci Fi indeed!
Starring none other than Joan Collins, back when she was young and cute!
Yep – a very, very young Joan Collins, Cyndi… also, loved some of the concepts of that plot.. war isn’t always the worse thing that happens to mankind, sacrifice of a beloved for the greater good, that saving ONE life might cause the loss of millions..,etc… What would you do if faced with the same questions as Kirk? Time travel always raises such excellent philosophical questions.
I always think of Babylon 5 and its vortexes Remember the one in “B4squared”? or the Star gates? Susan, unless you are over 50 you won’t remember the old “Time Tunnel” TV show -worse awful special effects but they sometimes told an interesting story. (or I thought so at 16!)
BACK on subject : has anyone been inspired by Science Fiction or Fantasy in their Bead designs? I always wanted to do a design of the Flag of Aragorn long before the movies. Made a rug based on a design in one of Tolkien’s books, wanted to but could never do a elvish design – I’m not a elf. I am a Hobbit, Dwarf or a Numenorian. I love the good tilled earth and growing things like an hobbit, am the size of Dwarf and I am married to a Numenorian. LOL
Thought about a necklace with the “Seven Stars, seven stones & One white Tree” of the Numenorians – the same design as Aragorn’s flag and never tried. Drew it out though. Did all of you realize that the Numenorians were Atlantians in all but name?
– What about a Fangorn necklace – all leafy, mossy and things?
One of the problems with the movies is that they have solidified the world of Tolkien in everyone’s mind, now and not always for the best.
I *loved* Babylon 5! And all the other sci-fi-fantasy that you’ve named. But I think my design tendencies are to lean towards urban steampunk rather than Fangorn.
You know, watching the Tolkien movies, one of the things that thrilled me the most was just how close the characterization of MiddleEarth was to my inner vision. There were a few things that were off, and some in a big way, but so much of it felt right to me that I was just grateful grateful grateful that my visions weren’t going to be shattered when I went to re-read the books (which I do once every decade).
I think Babylon 5 was the best TV science fiction ever made. It was one perfect, coherent story.
Firefly, was a close second.
I have no idea what urban steampunk is! Excuse me, is my age showing ?LOL (I kind’f imagine retro- techno/Mad Maxx?
I tend to look at history for ideas in jewelry – or literature or just inner perceptions. I even go to the mall once or twice a year and walk through all the jewelry departments — I’ve been known to carry a notebook and a pencil. (;
Most of the time the images in TLOTR movies were rather close to mine also… But Leon and I almost have the novels memorized (I certainly do) & they departed from the story way to often to please me. There was a time when I would read the entire trilogy once a year. I love the language of the novels. Pure art. I have CDs now and listen to it as I work.
One more heaving eleven breast I was about ready to run out of the theater screaming, ‘no, no’ – dwarf tossing? really, what happens in Australia should stay there. Why no scouring of the Shire? THAT was the entire point of the story: the hobbits had become great souls as brave & capable of defending themselves as any the great men in the novel, why stay true to the a writer’s vision, and then, miss the entire point of the what he writes? sigh. The elder races had departed earth, the end of an age, just as this is an end of age. How does one react to the end of the age? —-
Stay safe in Hobbiton? is any place safe in terrible times? The end of the War of the Rings doesn’t happen in far Gondor, but on Bag End’s own doorstep, the terrible irony of that moment was completely lost in the movies and I will always feel that they are less for it & as an older woman I grieve that no one else will bother to rectify the missing scenes in my lifetime.
Why miss the point that the novels kept repeating time and again. Mankind and hobbit-kind inherited the earth. The age of the elf Lords, dark Lords, and angel-wizards had ended. The gods/angels were on a distant shore that we can not reach…
The death of all that was the old, Birth of a new age – from the ashes a fire shall be awakened.
Now there is a theme for an artist- beader: The end of an age– What was lost never to be regained. Beads as memory?
Speaking of “end of an age” themes, you might really find Steampunk intriguing! Here’s one of my recent posts on it: LINK
The basics of it is imagining a future where technology never moved past steam power. Since I’m more of a grungy found object girl than an elf (or dwarf or hobbit!), steampunk style really appeals to me. The looks of it might not be your thing, but I do think you’ll find the idea of it interesting