Searching through ‘Tidepool Shallows’ for art

Homer artist named one of nation’s top beaders

By Naomi Klouda
Homer Tribune

Jewels, owner of Ptarmigan Arts Gallery, was one of 48 bead artists in the nation selected for the 2009 Convergence: Contemporary Jewelry Design with Art Glass Beads juried competition. It was an honor that came in several parts over the course of a year.
Announced in a special edition of Bead & Button Magazine’s Jewelry Designs with Art Glass Beads that is now on newsstands, the honor is the result of a juried partnership between the magazine and the International Society of Glass Beadmakers. It started last August as an invitation-only competition, sent out to bead artists whose works are becoming well-known through previous art submissions. Participants were then paired with a member of the ISGB (glass bead-makers’ society.) In Jewels’ case, that meant teaming up with New England bead-maker Sheila Comstock.
Comstock designed true-to-life snail shaped beads used in Jewels’ necklace, “Tidepool Shallows.” Despite the broad distance between the two artists who have yet to meet each other, they found much in common.
“One of my favorite things to do is walk a quiet beach and pick up seaglass and interesting bits of shell that I find along the way,” Comstock wrote. “The snails came from a happy accident I had one day in an early bead class; my glass was too hot when I tried to do something and instead of a nice, round bead, I ended up with something that remotely resembled a snail. I then went about trying to duplicate the accident and kept refining the process until I came up with the snails used here.”
She also created an aqua bead by using the same ivory, glass and silver leaf composition. The bead arrived through experimentation with copper leaf, dichroic glass and various shades of blue and green moretti glass rods “to look like rippling water,” she wrote.
Jewels, whose necklace “In the Garden of Beadin’” won national attention in 2005, said more recently her own inspiration arises from Alaska’s seasons.
“However, as a challenge to myself – and since both Sheila Comstock and I live by the sea (albeit on opposite coasts) – we decided to go with a ‘water’ theme for this collaboration,” Jewels wrote of her own work. “My main inspiration for this necklace came from the amazing ‘snail’ beads Sheila sent me…from there my imagination of shallow tide pools and swirling waves took off.”
Jewels then incorporated freshwater pearls, vintage red coral and shells to add to the look and feel of water. The gemstone colors and seed beads she chose were to reflect the multitude of plants and critters that thrive in tide pools.
“The choice of stitch (peyote ruffle) was to imitate the swirl and motion of water and waves, thus hoping to make it ‘flow’ rather than ‘stagnate,’” she wrote.
Jewels was able to complete the necklace in about 10 days, or after nearly 60 hours of beading.
Out of 140 entries, “Tidepool Shallows” was selected for the initial competition and subsequent ISGB catalog. It won further honors when Bead & Button chose it to be one of 20 entries highlighted in a special issue of step-by-step jewelry-making instructions, photos and illustrations.
And even without Jewels or Sheila Comstock present, as part of the juried exhibit, the necklace was featured at the spring 2009 Ohio Glass Museum in Lancaster; at the Bead & Button Show in Milwaukee; and at an ISGB Gathering in Miami.
The last stop for “Tidepool Shallows” was at a summer auction as a fundraiser for the Miami Gathering for the Craft Emergency Relief Fund (CERF) and ISGB educational programs.
Bead & Button’s special issue containing the instructions to Jewels’ necklace should be available locally through Gig’s Bead Shop. It also can be viewed at
http://www.beadandbutton.com/bnb/default.aspx?c=a&id=4012.

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Posted by Newsroom on Oct 14th, 2009 and filed under Arts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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