From the monthly archives: January 2012

A brief lesson in marketing

By On January 30, 2012 · 6 Comments
A tongue-in-cheek-comparison of ‘Marketing Speak’ and ‘Reality’
What you see on the artist’s website:



The Graffiti series



Here we see myriad dichotomies assert themselves in a cacophony of symbolism; the battle between the natural, represented by soft aquatic blues, and the urban, rendered as stark, crude graffiti is played out on the surface of the bead; whilst the inherent human urge to simultaneously beautify and desecrate their surroundings comes through as we consider how the artistic savagery of these industrial, tribal scrawls is both a rebellion against the concrete confines of the city and the state, and the expression of a longing for something more aesthetically substantial, a wild, tribalistic echo of the beauty of the natural world. And in the end, we find ourselves drawn into these continual tentative states of negotiation, and discover the wildness inside us all.

What you didn’t see:

Oh boy, time to lampwork. Working on stringer work today, oh yeah. Gonna be a goooood session.
Right, I’ve got a nice flat surface on my bead, perfect for stringer work. Got my stringer, ready to go into the flame and start making stringer magic! Starting with a spiral…come on spiral…nice and round…or square, yeah, okay, we’re drawing a square instead…good, good..Whoa, slow down stringer…not so fast…phew, hands getting a bit hot…let’s draw another square now…or a rhombus, yeah, fine, making a rhombus…with a strange appendage..oh dear, I hope no-one reads anything into that shape….hands getting a lot hot…Oh my God, where’s the stringer going?! It’s melting too fast…it’s out of control…argh, argh, it’s stuck to the mandrel! Now it’s flopping around! Quick, quick, stick it back on the bead…argh, I dropped it…Oh my God, it’s in my shoe!!! It’s burning my shoe!!! Get it, get it…not with that hand, that’s the one with the molten bead on it you idiot! Put that down first!!!

Huh. Well, that went a lot better than I expected.

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(extra points to you if you can comprehend that BS up there, because I sure can’t *G*)

 

The obligatory ‘summing up’ post

By On January 3, 2012 · 6 Comments

For the first time, I’ve been feeling like writing a summing-up-looking-forward post about 2011 and 2012, so here it is, in brief bullet-point form (because bullet-points make things both important and impressive)

Things I learned in 2011:

  • I can take professional rejection and not enter a fugue state. In fact, I found I’m not bothered much, and can pick myself up and carry on (personal rejection on the other hand, is still very ouchy!)
  • It is a bad idea to contact people you have fond memories of from school, because they probably won’t remember you. At all. (even if they did go to your house all the time, and you went to their farm…again, ouchy)
  • I’m not good enough to get on Polymer Clay Daily (hee, I know, who do I think I am trying to get on there…but I did have a hidden, tiny hope that has now been squashed)

Arty-crafty things I got done in 2011 :

  • Had 3 magazine tutorials published
  • Worked on the FHFTeam blog with a great group of people
  • Became better at lampworking (…comparatively)
  • Made jewellery out of my own lampwork beads (eeeee! that was exciting)
  • Made a lot of polymer clay beads that I, dare I say, liked
  • Set up a website and online shop for my beads

Things I have decided for 2012

  • I will just stop reading sites and blogs that annoy me, instead of wishing I could say something ranty about them. Reading them with suppressed irritation doesn’t do me any good, and saying something would just inject bad vibes into places other people like (which isn’t fair, because it’s my problem not theirs!)
  • I will makes what I like. So there *G*
  • I will try again to improve my photography skills
  • I will get a proper storage system for my polymer clay

Other news since I last blogged: I got a lentil press as a present – and I’m unreasonably excited about it, especially as I also received Nelli Rees lampworking book, which is lovely.

You can win a prize from me, by commenting anywhere on the FHFTeam blog and becoming a follower – here’s a picture:
Or you can choose to have a gift voucher from Continuum Designs instead, if you don’t care for bracelets. We’ll be doing a giveaway every month this year, and the team blog is getting full with hints, articles and a *lot* of eye-candy. Seriously, there’s a heap of gorgeous pictures (and there are mine too! *G*)
 
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