COME BY TO SEE NEW WORK.
SHOULD BE GREAT WEATHER FOR ART-STUDIO-HOPPING.
ALL WEEKEND I’LL BE CELEBRATING MAKING MY 3000th NECKLACE, BRACELET OR EARRINGS. IT ONLY TOOK 24 YEARS. HA! BUT WHAT FUN ALONG THE WAY!
FRIDAY, AUG 16 FROM 6 TO 8 PM. wine and cheese to celebrate 3000.
SATURDAY & SUNDAY, AUG 17 & 18 from 10 TO 4.
CATALOGUES FOUND AT HULL BUSINESSES. ALWAYS FREE.
I first introduced Max to you in my July 1 blog when he was 11 lbs and eleven weeks old.
Now he has reached six months of age and is just under 30 lbs.
Like all puppies, he is maturing; learning good citizenship; and playing his heart out every weekday with other dogs. Like all puppy Moms, I am surviving, no thriving, with my bundle of energy and love!
He is quite a comic, especially as he is learning to pee like a big dog: he lifts his leg against a tree but can only get a dribble out before he starts to fall over!
He had his first grooming this week and looks really sweeeeeet! First photo is before his cut; second is in the car immediately after; third is a full view of a proper Labradoodle cut.
“Celtic Twilight”
This necklace has many fascinating beads with too many stories, so I shall focus only on the amazing agate stone centerpiece which has two sides and two personalities. I will list all the beads for my readers’ information.
Agate really is just a stone living in volcanic host rocks discovered in the third century on the shore of a river in Sicily…think Mt. Etna.
Most agates are hollow and in the form of a geode. Slices like this one are cut from the outside of the geode; the inside is called drusy quartz. This agate is probably Brazilian identified by its brown color interlaced with white and gray with striking layered bands. This is high end agate; ordinary agate is found as gravel in streams.
The stone centerpiece pictured here and above inspired this necklace’s colors: warm and inviting.
It can be worn on either side.
Here is a list of my favorite beads in the necklace: yellow and white “sugar beads”, my name, called crackle glass by other beaders; copal, opaque and beigey, which I have often described as young amber; white vintage Japanese cut glass; small white-striped Venetian trade beads; semi-precious citrine chips; yellow jade; pale yellow vintage pre-war German pressed glass (three are seen at the clasp).
This necklace measures 21″ plus 7″ for the centerpiece and dangles. It weighs 6.8 ounces. It is not heavy to me since it is dispersed over 4 strands. Wear your own gold earrings with it. $145.
YOU ARE INVITED TO
HULL ARTISTS’ 23rd ANNUAL
OPEN STUDIOS
THIS SATURDAY AND SUNDAY FROM 10 AM TO 4 PM
23 ANDREW AVE IN HISTORIC HULL VILLAGE
781-925-0484
Maps available in my studio or online at hullartists.com.
With apologies to my colleague Donna Goes, I would like to correct her website address to:
luckylifestudio.com
She produces paintings in a very unique medium–fused plastic–actually made from recycled plastic bags!
You can see her work and mine plus 38 other artists at the Hull Artists 23rd Annual Open Studios Tour on July 7-8 and August 18-19. Free catalogues at Hull businesses from early June on.
I wondered what I would say about Coral since everyone knows a lot about coral, like
pearls, like turquoise.
Then I remembered Don and I snorkeling in the Great Barrier Reef in 1994
during our travels around Southeast Asia when Don was managing the area for
National Semiconductor and I accompanied him on his business trips. After
business in Melbourne, we traveled to Cairns with snorkeling on our minds.
We found someone to take us and spent a lovely afternoon.
Everything was colorful, abundant, vibrant and full of the orangey coral I
loved. But I noticed a few sections of white coral and didn’t understand
it. I came to understand it is bleached coral and I subsequently invented
my own story: true coral was becoming more extinct and bleached, so they
started dying it. I made that up because all I ever saw at bead shows was
“dyed red coral”. It’s a lovely color when dyed well-if not, white shows
through.
It turns out there is a bit of truth in my story, so I decided to update
myself and my dear readers on this subject.
Coral clusters form a reef barrier, very important to ecosystems, beach
protection, fishing, and tourism, not to mention coral’s own subsistence
since red algae attaching itself to coral gives it its natural color. If
the temperature or the salinity of the water change, coral reacts by
expelling the algae, revealing its white skeleton. This is bleaching.
Using Australia as an example, they made the Great Barrier Reef into a
protected reserve. Voila, no coral for jewelry. The very happy news is
they are discovering coral is able to adapt and acclimate to changes and it
is believed it will survive.
Dyed red coral are pieces of skeletal coral dyed. Nothing can replace the
beauty of natural coral, but I can live with dyed red.
That said, this necklace is natural! These coral beads came from a
multi-strand necklace I found in my travels and promptly cut up. It has
supplied me with coral for years!
The sterling silver sea scallop shell with a piece of coral is beautifully
made with great-and realistic-details. I have a clear memory of buying it
in an ethnic-type shop in Palo Alto after returning from Hong Kong. It
measures 3″ by 3″.
The necklace is 22″ long with a sterling silver clasp. Wear it with your
silver earrings. $115.
“Exuberance and Wit”
My Chinese Apothecary Chest: in 1994, it arrived via container to California from Hong Kong, where I discovered beading during my husband’s ex-pat assignment. Serves as the repository for my beads. Handcrafted. It has 52 Drawers, mostly sorted by color.
2017 Challenge: Create a Necklace a Week, using only the Beads from one Drawer at a time. Voila! 52 Necklaces!
Week 35/Drawer 35: August 30, 2017: “Exuberance and Wit”
The genesis of this necklace goes back to 1998 when I was designing a lot of tassel necklaces. And a lot of my One-of-a-Kind style…where each bead is one of a kind…all my necklaces are one of a kind, you know that.
I was happy I had found my niche with big beads and chunky necklaces in an era when everybody seemed to be doing seed bead creations that were lovely but made my eyes cross when I worked with those itty-bitty beads. I was taking lots of classes from really fine instructors and thought that teaching my Tassel and One-of-a-Kind techniques at national bead shows would be my path to greatness. I did teach at a Miami show and at one of our better shows held each spring in Santa Fe. Well, teaching was not meant to be a path to anywhere: my mind worked faster than my mouth and I tripped over my words. I put greatness back on the shelf and it remains happily there.
This 26” necklace features lime faceted crystals, three Bohemia pre-war glass discs, two sizes of ceramic beads on the lime side. On the blue side, there are Czech glass in light and medium as well as matte darker blue resin beads. The blue and lime lampwork glass bead with the Nautilis design was made by Carolyn Driver (CA). The clasp is a vintage plastic piece in an intriguing shape plus a sterling silver toggle I made.
The tassel measures 4.25” long and is topped by two fabulous beads: a large Venetian glass round bead lined with gold foil and a large American Art Glass bead in a pretty shade of blue with lime bordering the inside.
The tassel is a medley of blue and lime with a spot of chartreuse to treat the eye!
Earrings are included. They measure 3.5” long. The set is $149.
If you want to read about some references I made in this post, enter these dates in the search box on the landing page of priscillabeadle.com:
One-of-a-Kind style—see blog dated August 7, 2013
Venetian Glass beads—June 29, 2013 or Drawer 1 or Drawer 2
American Art Glass—Drawer 17 or April 26, 2017
“Emotionally Rich”
My Apothecary Chest: in 1994, it arrived via container to California from Hong Kong, where I discovered beading during an ex-pat assignment there. Serves as the repository for my beads. Handcrafted. It has 52 Drawers.
2017 Challenge: Create a Necklace a Week, using only the Beads from one Drawer at a time. Voila! 52 Necklaces!
Week 15/Drawer 15: April 12, 2017: “Emotionally Rich”
Since I had just a few peach and gray beads, I put them together in Drawer 15 and they have co-existed over the years. While rummaging through the drawer, I was excited to find two strands of gorgeous peach aventurine to feature this week.
Aventurine is a crystal with a lot of quartz in it, mostly opaque and often green, leading some to incorrectly identify it as jade. Peach is a lesser known aventurine color which is achieved by the presence of the minerals orange mica and pyrite (aka “fools’ gold”). These minerals are said to enhance creativity.
When I found the four large peach aventurine ovals, I knew I had enough to make a two-strand necklace! Notice how the sparkle of the coppery seed beads brings out the brightness of the minerals.
The highlight of the necklace is the lampwork glass creation of Gail Crosman Moore. Gail is special to me: a familiar face at the many CA bead shows where I shopped; she is from Western MA; and she is a redhead! Mostly she is a truly creative artist as she wields colorful glass canes in one hand and in the other hand, she shapes the molten into a unique bead, all while wearing protective gear in front of flame!
Shaped like a bell, the centerpiece is peach with striations of green and blue. The bottom has beautiful blue pods waiting for your caress.
Read Gail’s website and be sure to note her shop in P-Town!
This necklace demanded a copper clasp and is accompanied by a simple pair of copper and aventurine earrings. It is 20” long. $115.
“The Beauty of the Baltic”
My Apothecary Chest: in 1994, it arrived via container to California from Hong Kong, where I discovered beading during an ex-pat assignment there. Serves as the repository for my beads. Handcrafted. It has 52 Drawers.
2017 Challenge: Create a Necklace a Week, using only the Beads from one Drawer at a time. Voila! 52 Necklaces!
Week 10/Drawer 10: March 8, 2017: “The Beauty of the Baltic”
I had a chance to discover amber early in my bead artist career. In 1996 my husband and I cruised from London to the Baltic. Most port stops were well known places in Germany, Russia and Scandinavia; but squeezed into the middle of them was Estonia. The first person we met as we strolled ashore was selling amber beads: I declined since I couldn’t tell if they were plastic or amber. So we poked around Tallinn’s quaint square and wondered what will we do? I saw the Amber Market and cajoled my husband into looking. I learned a lot about amber and bought several interesting strands.
Over the years as I got deeper into bead acquisition, I met traders who were always exotic looking and as colorful as their beads. They sold large pieces of amber and showed me how buyers checked to be sure they weren’t imitations by sticking a heated needle point near the hole. True amber will melt slowly and smell sooty; false amber, which is usually the opaque younger “copal”, will melt quickly and be fragrant.
Amber is fossilized tree sap well over one million years old. Wearers of amber love the air bubbles, water, and remnants of plants and insects that can be found within the bead!
A dangle, Left Photo, top left dangle, in this week’s necklace clearly shows an air bubble. All 13 dangles are from a gift of broken or outdated jewelry given to me by my friend Tess whose parents moved from Lithuania during World War II. I made good use of the cufflinks and charms! Thanks Tess!
Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia make up the Baltic States which are full of beautiful people, rich cultures, and plentiful amber.
This necklace is 31” long. Besides the dangles with their [unknown] stories to tell, it features a very faux plastic clasp with a sterling silver toggle. The necklace consists of very large chips of a deep variegated color from the Lithuanian Market. It will look nice with your sterling silver earrings. $115.
To celebrate turning 75, many people choose a relaxing vacation or a great party; some people are happy just to make it through the day. Priscilla Beadle, Hull MA artist, challenges herself.
Inspired by a friend who was fascinated by the 52-drawer apothecary chest in her studio, Beadle decided to create a one-of-a-kind beaded necklace each week in 2017. Each neckpiece will originate from a different drawer. “I consider this an adventure fantasy trip,” enthuses Beadle. “Do I think about slowing down for 75? Do I think about maintaining? Or shouldn’t I speed up for a year?!” she laughs. “The fact I’m turning 75 makes me want to speed up!”
An English major in college, Beadle has lived her life by Robert Browning’s line, “…a man’s reach should exceed his grasp,/ Or what’s a heaven for?” This quote is the driving force behind all Beadle’s difficult and exciting endeavors. “It gives me permission to push myself,” she says. For her, this challenge is self-motivating as it produces a real accomplishment each week. “Sometimes you just have to push yourself to grow, stretch, and do things for yourself,” Beadle advises. She has already begun to write a maker’s journal that she will keep throughout the year.
Adding to Beadle’s motivation, her large vintage apothecary chest has 52 drawers; seven square drawers arranged in seven rows, with three large drawers at the bottom. Purchased in Hong Kong, the inspirational 1940’s era Elm wood apothecary chest is more than seven feet tall, four feet wide, with each drawer going 16 inches back.
“I’m going to start in the upper left corner drawer and work my way through every drawer, from left to right, top to bottom,” confides Beadle. She uses the chest to organize her vast collection of beads based on color and material. Each drawer has three compartments. The first necklace of the year will be drawn from Venetian glass beads which have been divided into silver/gold, blue/green, and red/orange groups. The second drawer has different color Venetian glass; black/white; purple/yellow; and multi-colored. The last drawer of the year contains faux amber—cherry, butterscotch, and yellow mock amber—resin beads from Indonesia.
Beadle keeps clasps and centerpieces in a special cabinet, not in the drawers. Center pendants can be made of glass, jade, silver, brooches, semi-precious gems, and oddities such as extraordinary buttons or other upcycled adornments.
Creating bead jewelry art since 1993, Priscilla Beadle first found inspiration for her bold, eclectic designs in the bazaars of Tibet and Nepal, in dusty shops in Beijing, on remote Indonesian islands reached by catamaran, in beautiful Bali, and in verdant Indochina—Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam. Each Beadleful design starts with a centerpiece—add whimsy, color excitement, texture, chunky beads, a fabulous clasp—a collectable necklace is born.
Priscilla Beadle returned to her hometown, Hull MA, in 2011. For 34 years she had lived in California, eleven in the historic mission town of San Luis Obispo. She brought her business, Beadleful, with her and crafted a comfortable studio for her work on the ground floor of her home. The spark of Beadleful ignited when, after 23 years in the corporate world, Priscilla retired in 1993 to accompany her husband on his job assignment in Hong Kong. Southeast Asia became her handicraft fantasy world as she hunted for beads: –odd, large, ethnic, contrarian beads; antique or contemporary glass beads; rare and unusual colors; textures that lead to touching. Whether traveling the world or stalking New England galleries, successful bead hunting inspires the bold eclectic designs that characterize Priscilla’s unique necklaces and bracelets.
For more information or to arrange a studio tour, please visit https://priscillabeadle.com/
Here is Max, the Labradoodle, now 19 weeks old. Still a pesky puppy, but doing well in obedience classes. He is showing loving traits, follows me everywhere, and loves being outside!
Priscilla Beadle 