February Doll, Take 2 – Bead Journal 2010

For decades I’ve been taking photographs in the Utah desert, and I think it’s the most beautiful place on earth. But for some reason, my beading and painting palette has always tended to heavily saturated jewel tones, and I find myself often reaching for bright turquoise, fuschia, royal purple and silver.  I love those colors, but lately they’ve been leaving me feeling like there’s too much… muchness… in them.  So the last time I bought beads, I pulled out those desert photos and deliberately matched the colors as closely as possible with Toho treasures and rounds, and Czech fire polish. But I hadn’t been able to figure out how to get started on what feels like a whole new period in my artistic life. Now I’ve I decided to take the opportunity that creating a new February doll offers, and to explore this new palette and a new set of textures.

This is the palette I've chosen for February. Coral Pink Sand Dunes, in southwestern Utah, is one of my favorite parks. It's also a treasure trove of amazing rocks and fossils, which I've collected over the years.

Copper and gold are more in keeping with this palette than silver, so I chose a copper face and started again with a beaded cabochon — but this time a much smaller and finer example of the type.

The first step in the beading process.

Cabochon edged with a brick-stitch star, and suspended on a herringbone top-bail ladder. Approximately 1.75″ in diameter.

Approximately 1.5" tall

I’m thinking that the body of this doll will be more abstract than representative, so I’m currently weaving in herringbone and considering how to ornament it.  In the meantime, I’ve started going through the rocks I picked up in Coral Pink Sand Dunes and trying to figure out how to work them into jewelry.  I made a start with this piece of volcanic fused iron and sand, beading around it with peyote stitch. I want to let this piece develop slowly and organically, so I’m not predicting how it’s going to look in the end. It’s part of what feels like a necessary growth process — shaking loose from routines and patterns that developed without my even realizing it, and which now seem to have limited my horizons. There’s always been a disconnect between what I found beautiful in nature, and what moves me in art, and I’m trying to first figure out why there’s a gap, and then figure out how to close it.  Part of what moves me in the desert is its vastness and scope, and jewelry is so… miniaturized.  So I’m thinking about how to bring the big into the small — I’ll get back to you on that one later.