Candles Can Start Fires...

Ooops... a candle burned itself out... hot enough to shatter the heavy glass plate under it.


Yikes... hot enough to scorch the wall and shelf above the candle.


Holy cow... hot enough to cover the walls and ceiling with invasive and oily soot.


OMG... look at the soot on the closet curtains.


Silent awe... what happened here?


I think the pictures tell most of the story, but I'll give you a few details. Last weekend I joined my neighbor in her studio to do a holiday show. She makes soaps, lotions, candles, etc. I bring beaded jewelry.

Below a section of my display. I fill a small room with jewelry, including an 8 ft. table, a bookcase, a large dresser and this desk.


The room I'm in is normally a guest bedroom with a small bathroom attached. Just before the sale started, I lit a candle sitting in a bed of lavender on a glass plate on a shelf in the bathroom. After the show ended, we decided to leave our displays up for a day or two, in case someone who couldn't make our regular hours might want to come and take a look. We blew out the candles, picked up our purses, locked the studio and headed for home.

Obviously, either my memory of blowing out the candle is false OR I didn't get it completely out. Because during the night and the next day, the thing burned. The wax of the candle and the lavender (remember, it's used in smudging) flowed together and smoldered, creating an unbelievable amount of soot that went everywhere in the bathroom and bedroom. The outlet is an interesting thing. An electrician came to check for damage and said the electrical current in the wiring to the nightlight (which was plugged into the outlet) attracted soot. The streak you see above the outlet goes three feet up the wall.

It took a while for it to dawn on me how serious this was. Just a little hotter and the towel next to the candle would have caught fire, which would have made the curtains flame. A fire could easily have destroyed the whole building along with all my jewelry and all of Gayle's products and antiques. We were blessed. I was especially blessed, because I was the one who lit the candle and therefore responsible for making sure it was completely snuffed before leaving.

As I mentioned, the soot went everywhere. Below is a jewelry box that was under the table, as far from the candle as you can get. There were two tent-cards for earring display sitting on top of the box. You can even see my finger prints where I picked up the box.


Everything in both rooms got a dusting of soot. I had to wash all of the jewelry and re-card/tag it (two days work). Many of the boxes and all of my signs got trashed. The soot washed out of all the linens, curtains, towels, etc. fairly well using dish-detergent and bleach. The carpet in the bedroom will have to be professionally cleaned. Monday, we will try to wash the walls, ceilings and furniture.

Thankful prayers... Soot we can clean. Fire would have been a disaster.

Warning... Candles are a common causes of home fires. It's easy to forget to blow them out and even when you do, there could be an ember burning that gets them going again. From now on, I plan to use the buddy system. When I light a candle, I will ask a buddy to help me remember to blow it out... I'll also wet my fingers and pinch the wick to make double sure it's out.

Read more about candle safety, especially at Christmas time, here.

Thougths about Beading, Money and Self-esteem

Today was the second day of a little holiday market here on San Juan Island. My neighbor hosts this two-day event in her studio in December every year and for the past 5 years I've joined her to sell my beaded jewelry... earrings, fibula pins, bracelets, necklaces, key chains and zipper pulls. Here's one of my recent fibula pins.


Business wasn't good this year. Not many people came and only a few bought. I know... it's probably the economy...

Despite understanding the situation, I still feel a little rejected and hurt, stood-up by my friends and the community. It's gotten me to thinking about the past and what I'm doing... also about a selling-our-art conversation I had with my brother, Thom Atkins, a couple of days ago. Rather than mope around this evening, it occurs to me that I could blog about it... so here you go... some thoughts about beading, money and self-esteem....

Over 20 years ago, I quit my day job and began beading and bead-related pursuits to make a living. I named my mini-micro-business Beads Indeed in the spring of 1988. Like many people into beads, I began with stringing... making multiple-strand and knotted, single-strand necklaces. Here's an example showing the center part of a multiple-strand necklace.


Earlier, in the mid-70's, I pounded, sawed and soldered sterling silver and gold sheet and wire to make rings and other precious metal jewelry. Below are a couple of scanned photos of my work during that time. My best friend, Liz, and I had a shop together. We sold our work at home shows and a few craft shows. Although we did pretty well, I hated and dreaded the selling part of it.



Thick-skinned, like an actor always auditioning for the next part... that's what one has to be to sell and promote one's art. It didn't come naturally to me. I could organize selling events and felt OK about promoting the events. But, when it came to tooting the horn about my own jewelry, I became tongue-tied and stupid-seeming.

So, when I started my bead business, I looked around for other ways to make money... I taught workshops, sold beads, gave slide lectures and eventually began writing books. All the while, my creative needs were largely met by making beady things as examples for my workshops and books, gifts and just for fun. Other than accepting a few commissions, I didn't try to sell my beadwork, which was just great for my personality.

Then, after I moved to San Juan Island, someone asked me to be a guest artist in the Annual Artist Studio Tour, to share her studio and sell my beaded jewelry. I had been cutting back on teaching and felt the need of a bit more income, so I agreed. For a month I produced beaded jewelry like a mad woman to accumulate a sufficient inventory for the event.

It went reasonably well. Yes, I was still tongue-tied, but people bought my work anyway, bless them. After calculating the proceeds, my self-esteem level was pretty high and I readily agreed to do it again the next year... and the next... and the next. Plus a friend in Seattle hosted a show, which I also enjoyed doing.

However, the only way I can see to fully support myself by making jewelry is to sell through galleries and shops. And that, for the most part, only works if one gets into mass production, giving up the luxury and fun of one-of-a-kind pieces. Not for me... the designing part is the most fun... take that away and it would get boring pretty fast.

So I continue to teach and write books, keeping my jewelry production minimal and one-of-a-kind. My studio tour hostess moved off-island, which ended that opportunity. So now I only do this weekend's Christmas-season show and next weekend a studio show in Seattle.

Which brings us to the present again...

One day during the past two weeks, while I was happily creating more beaded jewelry for these two events, I happened to get a phone call from my brother, Thom. He's a beader too... and a quilter... and, in my eyes, quite an accomplished artist. He had just completed a 3-in-a-row-weekends Artist Studio Tour in Santa Cruz, CA where he lives. So we were talking about the good, bad and ugly of selling our work.

He was explaining to me how he needs to sell his work, that it gives him a sense of completion. Anything he makes that is not sold is incomplete. When people buy only the least expensive things and want to bargain with him for a lower price, he feels they don't appreciate his art. His sense of self-esteem is tied up with selling his work and its value is tied to people buying it at a fair price.

While I understand his feelings and have felt this way at times in the past, on that particular day I tried to convince Thom that the journey is the destination... that the payoff for making beaded jewelery is the pleasure of creating it. It doesn't matter, I said, if we sell it or not, if we keep it in boxes or give it away, if everyone buys it or if nobody buys it... none of it matters at all... because we've already received the big payoff!

I felt very noble talking like that. Yes, I thought, it is conceivable that nobody will come to our week-end show and that I will not sell any of these new pieces I am creating. But it doesn't matter... I am having a blast making them and therefore earning the payoff right now!!!! Did you notice my halo?

Well, tonight I am here to confess... the above is a hard position to maintain in the face of very few sales... Somewhere, on the intellectual side of my brain, I still think it's true. But the emotional side wonders why some of my friends didn't come, and why some who did didn't buy anything. The emotional side wants to climb under the covers and never make jewelry again...

I don't know how it will go next Saturday for the studio show in Seattle... I'm a bit scared of another let down... Yet I made a commitment... I will show up and try to remember the golden rule of beadwork... the journey is the destination.

What do you think? Is the real payoff the creative process? How do you deal emotionally with a disappointing sales experience or being rejected by a gallery or for a show? Maybe a few of you could post about this... If/when you do, will you leave a comment here with a link to your post?

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PS. If you're in the Seattle area and would like to come to a fun studio show, with several well-known artists, it's next Saturday, December 13th from 3 to 8 pm in the Lake City Way area. Email me for the exact location.

Nov Bead Journal Project ~ Mom & Me ~ Finished!!!

You might want to start by reviewing the pictures in this post... which show the beginning steps to creating my Nov. BJP page.

During the first part of the month, I had a special week with my 91-year-old Mom, who lives in Minnesota, and decided to make November's journal page about her (and a little about me too). The page evolved into a book-like form with a butterfly wing for the cover.

Below is how the wing (plus half of the butterfly's body) looked when I finished beading it.


Then the big question was how to assemble the pages and the wing/cover to make it all function as a book and look good. That took a very long time under a thinking cap... and even then it took two tries to get it right.

I began by making the beaded wing into the cover for the book. I clipped away the excess fabric around the wing leaving about 3/4 inch seam allowance. To turn under the seam allowance, I sewed a little running stitch all around the edge and snugged it up evenly. Then, using a toothpick as an applicator and PVA glue (acid-free adhesive used for book binding), I fastened down the seam allowance (below).


Then I glued the inside page to the back side of the beaded wing using PVA glue and sitiched the pre-punched edges to the fabric of the wing with buttonhole stitch. There is no additional stiffener between the inside page and the bead embroidery, which I hope will be OK and survive over time. Here's how it looks.


All of the pages of the book and the liner for the cover are made the same way. I use Photoshop CS. Starting with a picture of the butterfly wing (dimmed by adding a layer of white at 40% opacity over the top), I added layers of images which I'd previously made into vignettes. After printing my collaged images on enhanced matte paper (the manufacturer of our printer, Epson, guarantees these prints to be good for 80-100 years), I cut them out, poked holes around the edges and embellished the edges with buttonhole stitch using two strands of embroidery floss.

Next, I needed to attach the book pages and cover to my BJP background fabric. I started by attaching the last page of the book to my BJP fabric using the buttonhole stitch. At first I thought I'd stitch the other pages onto the last page and then stitch the wing on top. I left the butterfly's body on each of the pages.


However, that proved to be too bulky and didn't look right. So I had to go to plan B, which was to cut the body away and stitch the pages to the fabric through the buttonhole edging (which first had to be continued around the part of the wing that attaches to the body. I also had to add more silk fabric to the beaded wing/cover between the liner and the edge so the stitches wouldn't show.

So in the end, here's how it looks, page by page! If you want to see the detail, you can click on any of the pictures to see an enlarged version.





Challenging and fun? Yes, indeed!!!

My Mom and I are alike in many ways. We've also had times when our tempers flared and even some screaming matches when I was a teenager. There have been disappointments and failures on both our parts. Yet, all-in-all, she's a wonderful Mom... I am so very fortunate because I love her and totally know that she loves me. Plus we are friends, have interests in common and share an abiding mutual respect. This November BJP is a testament to our cherished relationship!

Bead Journal Project ~ Christi C ~ A Sense of Place

Above is a preview of a feast for your eyes which follows!

Christi C. lives on lovely Lopez Island, which is one in a chain of islands off the NW coast of Washington state, known as the San Juan Islands. This place is near and dear to me, as I also live here on one of the islands.


Christi joined the 07-08 BJP and completed her piece for the first month, which was June. Then life got in the way and for some months she didn't do any beading at all. After a while, she realized there was something missing in her life and that she needed to return to beading and the BJP. This year, in November, she is working on last year's November piece. She plans to finish all 12 pieces to complete the project.

Personally I very much identify with Christi's work, feel its pull on my heart and hear the songs in her designs... She's chosen to explore her relationship with the place where she lives, showing with found objects and beads what her island is like. I love the notion of art used to reveal a sense of place and her pieces do it particularly well in my opinion! Since she is another BJPer who doesn't have a web presence, I've photographed her pieces and you get to see them (all click-to-enlarge) below!


^June ~ Driftwood ~ the beach and all the water that surrounds her.


^July ~ Lavender ~ Christi grows lavender as a business and July is the height of the growing season.


^August ~ Three Shells ~ about the sky.


^September ~ Lichen ~ this lovely grey-green plant form becomes more apparent in early fall.


^October ~ Madrona Bark ~ distinctive tree with rust-colored bark, found only along the NW coast.


^November ~ Beach Stone ~ about fog and layers of clouds in the sky, both of which are common at this time of year. This one is still in progress.

I think it's fabulous that Christi is continuing to work toward completion of her 12 pieces for the 07-08 BJP! I personally know three other women who are also still finishing their pieces for the first BJP... I am so very proud of them (and many others unknown to me) for their perserverance!

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If you have any interest in seeing photographs of our islands, my husband, Robert Demar, also explores his relationship to the place where we live. You can see his photography here. Some of my favorite images are here and here. He's done two studies of Madrona trees (featuring macro pictures of their peculiar fracturing bark)... one in black & white and one in color.

Bead Journal Project ~ Christy, Donna & Lunnette!

Only about half of the 260 participating members of the 08-09 Bead Journal Project are active on the Internet. I'd like to introduce and show beading by three who are not... three who do fabulous work but do not have a web presence!


This is Christy H! She works full time, lives here on San Juan Island, is a mother and grandmother. We met through our husbands (both then were fire fighters) but quickly found that we had stitching interests in common. She encouraged me to come to the Quilting Retreat on Orcas Island three years ago, which began a bond that has grown, flourished and wandered into mutual beadlust!

You can see some of Christy's BJP pieces from last year on her BJP member page, here. She's still working on finishing, with the final piece underway now. Below are her recently completed pages for February through April. They are 3 inches square and solidly beaded.


February ~ Memories & Dreams ~ features a heart-shaped piece of fossil ivory, a gift from her Aunt... old and new ~ it's all about relationships that claimed her heart in the past and her heart dreams for the future.


March ~ Little Christy ~ features a sea turtle for her love of the sea and yellow/orange colors for the exuberance and joy of her childhood.


April ~ Moon & Sea Spiral ~ this one is all about seeking peace and calm, also about the sea, sea shells, peacefulness.

Christy is now working on May, the final piece for last year's BJP! She has many ideas for the current BJP and plans to get caught up soon.

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Donna H is Christy's Mom. Gradually, we got both Donna and Christy's sister, Kathy, hooked on beading too. (I'll introduce Kathy and her work in a later post.) Donna, a very young, energetic great grandmother, lives in Cabo San Lucas (Mexico) during the winter and Homer, Alaska during the summer. She and her DH, Ken, drive back and forth twice each year, with side-trips to San Juan Island on the way. She quilts, sews and beads!


Donna joined the BJP for the first time this year. Her idea for the year is very intriguing to me! She's making a color wheel! It won't be a totally ordinary color wheel. She intends to stitch the sections together and then bead across the seams, blending the adjacent colors to achieve an almost seamless wheel of color rather than the traditional color block wheel! Below you can see what she has done so far... September through Dec. The pieces are about 3 square inches each and placed next to each other for the photo but not yet sewn together. (Be sure to click this one!)


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Here is Lunnette HH! She, Christy and I get together nearly every Tuesday afternoon to stitch and bead. We have the most wonderful, comfortable, quiet, appreciative and non-competitive relationship. I cherish our time together more than I can say!


Lunnette is mother to two grown boys, a volunteer firefighter (for nearly 20 years!), part-time clerk at our drugstore and an avid quilter. For last year's BJP, Lunnette went small because she didn't want beading time to interfere with her quilting time. You may remember her buttons (here and shown below)!


Having enjoyed the journaling aspects of the BJP last year, she decided to go bigger and combine her beading with quilting, photo transfers and surface embellishment this year. She's making hexagonal pieces, each of which showcases something about her life, her passions and/or her joys. They are about 6" across and she will make them into a quilt at the end of the year. She's right on target so far, with three completed.

September ~ features her extended family with lots of subtle meanings to the way she's embellished the photos and her fabric selections.


October ~ honors her career as a volunteer firefighter on San Juan Island. As you can see, the "doors" open to reveal more of the story. The County's volunteer fire department recently celebrated its 50th year and Lunnette celebrated her 19th year of service! This is the piece that gave me the idea to make a "book" on the surface of my Nov. piece (butterfly, see in progress here).



November ~ the month of our annual quilt retreat, this piece showcases Lunnette's long-standing love for quilting and two of her quilting buddies (Christy H and Krispi S, both of whom are active BJPers this year and last year).


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I feel honored to bead with Christy, Lunnette and (when possible) Donna... to know them, to share a passion for beading and to introduce them to you! I will twist their arms a bit to get them on some one's computer, somewhere, to read comments you make about their work!

Painting Fabric with Dyes ~ with Ann Johnston

Who-hoooo!!!

Four and a half yards of plain white fabric
turned into these
colorful (and color-fast), hand-dye-painted beauties:


Detail pictures follow... and all are click-to-enlarge.

Some of you know how much I love to paint decorative papers with layers of acrylic paint (see my website here and past posts here)! And some of you may remember my post about a brief opportunity to paint fabrics with dyes in Chicago a year ago (see here). To you it will be no surprise that, instead of going to our annual quilt retreat this past weekend, I took a 3-day workshop from Ann Johnston!!!!

Ann describes herself as a quilt maker, who took up fabric dying to get the fabrics she wanted and needed for her quilts. I'd describe her as a quilt master, an artist with double mediums of dye and fabric. Below is a sample of her dyed fabrics showing some of the techniques we learned.


Three days was just barely enough to scratch the surface, to learn a little about the variables involved in immersion dying and painting with dyes. The confusing parts for me concerned mixing the four solutions:

• Procion MX dyes ~ we mixed all of our dyes using only 6 colors (2 reds, 2 blues and 2 yellows) plus black
• soda ash ~ fabrics need to be saturated with soda in order to fix the dyes
• print paste ~ sodium alginate and other ingredients mixed with water ~ used to thicken the dyes for painting
• urea water ~ used to thin print paste

Also confusing was the whole curing process involving time (4-24 hours for the dyes to set), temperature (72 degrees or more) and moisture. I need to take some time to re-write my notes so I don't forget so much.

We started with a selection of plain white, quality, cotton fabrics with no sizing or wrinkle-free treatments. My favorite of the fabrics were a Hoffman Indonesian lawn (the same as used for Bali batiks) and a medium-weight ultra sateen, by Robert Kaufman.

Our first lesson was to make a very light and a dark value of the same color by immersion dying. Then, also using the immersion process, we did a two-color blended fabric. Below are my light red, dark red and orange-olive blend curing (fixing) in their respective dye baths.


For the remainder of the first day and the next two days, we painted dyes on fabrics using brushes, rollers, stamps, stencils and sponges. My favorites were done in layers. Each layer had to cure and dry (but not too quickly) before applying the next layer in order to preserve distinct edges. I didn't try to paint fabric sets, but have arranged pieces that look fairly good together for the detail images which follow.







My roommate and tablemate was Marie, of Z Quilts.


We both had a great time... and it was fun and a privilege to get to know Marie better. You can read her blog about the class (here) and see pictures of the fabrics she painted (here).

Although 19 of us were crowded in a 3-car plus garage for this class (now I know how sardines feel), we all managed to have a great time and produce some wonderful fabrics. Some of the local women have already formed a study group and figured out how to buy bulk supplies.

Pleased as I am with most of my fabrics, the jury is out about me doing more of this. The number of variables, the expense of it and the space requirements are the downsides. The fun of painting and the often serendipitous results are the upsides. Time will tell...

Meanwhile, I'm already back to beading. You'll see more of that soon!

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If you're a quilter, you may want to check out Ann Johnston's latest book, The Quilter's Book of Design. I've skimmed through all of it and find it one of the best ways to look at the design process that I've ever encountered. It easily applies to related art forms, such as bead embroidery, as well.

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A thought about taking workshops ~ I've been teaching workshops and classes for 20 some years. Only a few times during these two decades have I found time to take a workshop taught by someone else. And what a pleasure it is to be on the other side of the room once in a while... not having to know anything, not having to be responsible for anything except my own learning process, not having to prepare all the kits (Ann's were awesome!), not having to pack and put it all away when I get back home!!!

Ann handled all the difficulties (crowded space, great variation in previous dying training by her students, trying to convey years of her experience and knowledge in just three days, empowering students to experiment and play with the basic techniques on their own) admirably well! It was really a joy to sit back and be a beneficiary of her efforts. Sweet!