Thinking about designing while I'm getting ready to write Part II of the Apple Core Tutorial

As I'm getting ready to write the Part II of the Apple Core Tutorial, I'm thinking of all the seminars, lectures and workshops where people come together to discover and articulate their voice and style.

To me designing is about
(1) paying tribute to those who have been designing with glass (and other media) many years before I came into the process
(2) spending the time to understand and to address my own aesthetic principles that move me emotionally and intellectually.

In this day and age with the democratizing of the medium includes making access to equipment and materials easy and affordable, and encouraging a culture of sharing in respect to knowledge and skills. Those of us who enjoy working with glass and value the ways of the glass to facilitate self-expression, take it to the next level, i.e., the marketing and the selling of the product we create.

I get so excited and thrilled when I see that the crafter, in addition to making her/his product available for sale, has also made an effort to show the customers that s/he spent energy, thought and time to make glass speak for them and help them express themselves. If not, then the question for me, is why else would I do it? Now more than ever the market is full of glass creations, so why would I buy something unless it helped me connect to its creator who thinks, feels like me--or quite the opposite, and that can be exciting as well, enough for me to want to purchase it.

Here’s the story that I want to share with you to show you my path which led to the apple core design and collection.

A few years back I took a class with Jim Smircich. Among his wonderful demonstrations, he showed us how he made HIS apple core. You can check it out in almost any publication about his work. It was in the middle of the demo when I felt an arousal of my creative energy as I watched the disc placed between the two bridged beads melt. The disc was pushing down and out while the rest of the glass was drawn by the heat to the surface of the bead – what an innovative technique and a sensuous experience all in one. After the class was over, I spent hours making Jim’s apple core and watching the disc melt. Being somewhat attention deficient, I started sticking things on the bottom before I applied the disc, like metal etc. I have a few designs that incorporate the fruits of that period. They include the Constellation Collection and the Aurora Borealis Collection.
So, while continuing to experiment with the Apple Core technique I simultaneously started enjoying the dots to stripes technique (I show how to make this bead in my Part 1 Apple Core Tutorial) and did that for a long time till my brain/experience took me to marrying the two together, thus creating the current LilianaBead Apple Core Collection. Hence, the Mother & Daughter Duo.

By bringing the two designs together into one Apple Core Bead, I recognize the connection between the two but mainly I want to encourage you to make similar connections in your experience with glass and design. Isn’t this the reason why you’re lampworking: to create collections that only you could have thought of because you are an individual with creative and intellectual powers which are characteristic only to you and no one else?

While we come out of a community, we are our own idiosyncratic selves - Let’s celebrate that!

It's a rainy Sunday and it's very peaceful... Now to Designing with Chains

Snow and Rain together ...
Middle of February in Natick, MA can be a crossroads of seasons where either direction I look I can think back of winter passing and look forward to a spring rain. Today, watching the rain fall onto the snow, I'm pausing to give this moment merit. I'm finding peace lying in bed in my bedroom upstairs and enjoying a cold, the harsh reminder of which is just a sore throat.
Today is a good day to pause....

Our house is full today. Everybody plus* is home today and everyone is inside and on the inside of their ways of being: thinking and being in a sincere and warm way.

My friend Tolly just surprised me with a phone call. She is an Icelander who lives in beautiful Copenhagen and she studies glaciers. We know each other from Alaska where we both attended the University of Alaska Fairbanks. I love talking to Tolly because we can talk about everything and nothing while laughing and laughing and sometimes crying together.
Sometimes we talk about global warming since this is a part of her professional pastime and she keeps my awareness on this issue alive.


Let's talk design a bit or let me talk about design a bit and then you tell me what you think in the comment section. The topic is CHAINS.

I love using chain in my designs in part inspired by the many talented artists out there who've done that before me. Specifically, I'm talking about use of chain in designing earrings.

1. The most obvious way to use chain, of course, is as an extension where its primary purpose is to add length. Sometimes the function is treated too literally by some and I've done my share of that. So, this design - a bead and an ear-wire connected by a short chain segment - most of the time looks too spontaneous and unintentional. I rarely see the design value in such pieces.
2. I've seen successful designs where the purpose of the chain is to provide a frame for a focal piece or a multitude of elements such as the chandelier earrings or a vine-style earring.
   
3. When creating the design in this photo, I really enjoyed thinking about chain as a part of design that provides visual and conceptual continuity to the piece. I'm hoping that the design I'm showing you in today's post does exactly that i.e. the chain turns the bead into a flower.

Meaning creation though close attention to elements makes design much fun for me and it adds to the value of the piece. And that's the news from Liliana on this dreamy and rainy day.