Passionate About Life
I'm going to let you in on a little secret. I love working with glass. Glass is My Passion. Many years ago this 'passion' started out with stained glass, which turned into glass fusing, which led to glassblowing and lampworking. The best part was I could use blown and fused elements in my stained glass work, and fused components found their way into blown pieces. Lampworked pieces fit into everything. Pretty awesome. For many years glass was My Only Passion. And every year when I stopped blowing glass for the summer, all I could think about was getting back to it in the fall. To busy myself I would work at the torch, and make stained glass windows.
One summer I felt like a change and pulled out my old jewelry making supplies. I had forgotten how much I loved making jewelry! It was a blast. I made lots and lots of pieces. One day, while shopping for beads, I happened upon a copy of Jewelry Affaire and was absolutely smitten with all of the beautifully made items. Inspiration was found on every page.
A New (old) Passion took me over by surprise.
The ideas in my head were more than my hands could produce, and the results were gorgeous! Feeling like I wanted to share them with the world – I decided to take the plunge and submit some pieces to Jewelry Affaire just to see what would happen. Guess what? I submitted 15 pieces and 8 were selected for publication!!! A nice confidence booster indeed.
I continue to submit work and have currently been published in Jewelry Affaire and Belle Amoire Jewelry, both Stampington Publications. Published submissions have been individual pieces, multiples of the same, and an eight page feature article that focused on my adventure into clay (Another Passion – see my blog post Make New Friends). Stampington also publishes magazines on subjects such as artful living, blogging, doll making, cooking, paper crafts, altered couture, sewing, quilting and more. Yep. I pretty much want my house, closet and jewelry box to look like it came from a Stampington magazine.
WHAT!?! You haven't ever looked at a Stampington publication??? Or maybe you did – a long time ago? Well here is your chance to be entered into A Giveaway. My way. Stampington has offered up a copy of Jewelry Affaire for me to give to one of my blog readers. All I ask is that you comment at the bottom of this page (scroll ALLL the way down on a mobile device) or on a Facebook post - and your in. That’s it. Your name will be written on a post it note, and the winner will be selected at random by my dog, Dakota. I will video him choosing the winner on or about December 1st, 2015 and will post it here. I will most likely post it on Facebook too, because he's just that cute.
Here is a preview of what you can expect. Offerings from the contributing artists souls. Re-claimed and re-purposed jewelry transformed into hip, fashionable pieces for every ocasion. Original designs with flair. One of a kind collections to inspire you in every aspect of creating.
If your into lampworking, you will enjoy my technique based article on glass flower slider necklaces pictured above.
If this is not enough inspiration, Stampington also offers it's readers The Shoppe at Somerset, a place to buy crafting sutopplies that will "Jumpstart your next creative project". Offerings include inks, dyes, books, ribbons and so much more. Check it out!
Now. Lets return to the subject of Passion. Like I said, glass is My Passion. However, when I make jewelry, I become passionate about it. When I get my hands on some clay - yep - that same passion returns. Lately, I have gone full circle back to textiles. Spinning and dyeing wool is my Passion Of The Week. It's fair to say I become Passionate about anything I get my hands on. Because it makes me HAPPY to be creative. The fact that my house contains the worlds largest collection of my own work has never stopped me. Or when my husband teases me about hording crafting supplies. It's easier to be grateful for the problems I don't have and clean the basement once in awhile.
Being Passionate alone hasn't made me a successful artist. Good things take time. If things are going bad in your career - you didn't get juried in some show or whatever - don't worry, tomorrow you will get another chance. Keep a good attitude while working on your dreams. If you really really want something, you'll do it despite rejection, failure, the odds or ridicule from your peers. I don't need to tell you that lessons learned the hard way are lessons well learned and stressing over things you can't change is pointless. Remembering sometimes things must go very wrong before they can be right, and sometimes you must go through the worst to arrive at your best will help you to continue growing as an artist.
Nothing lasts forever. Keep at it. Stay Passionate.
