Beadlust

Inspirations for
Bead Embroidery!

For many years, Karen Cohen's art has been cloisonne enameling, which when you stop to think about it has a lot in common with bead embroidery... placing little particles of glass on a surface. No surprise, then, to see her take up needle and thread. What I enjoy most about her first bead embroidery, is the way she's worked with the inspiration for her piece.

This adorable art, the tree and child's head, is the logo for the Med-O-Lark summer art camp for children in Maine. (Karen is teaching beading there right now as I write this post.) To practice and learn bead embroidery, she decided to make a piece inspired by the camp logo to hang on the office wall. Here's her work:

Isn't this fabulous!!!!! She's made her own art, but kept the basic design and feeling of her inspiration. In one of Karen's emails, she said, "I was really hoping not to get bead fever, but it has happened. My local bead store (50 minutes away) has a sign that says something like I didn’t cause your habit, I only support it. Hits the nail on the head." You bet it does!

Tomorrow, I'm going to post three of Karen's beaded buttons. Again, you'll see the connection between her new bead passion and enameling.