Beaded Jewelry by Susan: Glass Bead Primer, Part II

In the earlier post, I described the process of lampworking, making lampwork or lampglass beads, over an open flame, turning the bead and adding bits of colored glass and so on. One particular variety of lampglass bead that is especially lovely is the "foil bead." Gold, silver, or copper foil is added while the bead is molten and thus embedded inside the bead, either near the surface or around the core. Sometimes the foil presents a crackled sort of pattern that's very pretty. Sometimes the foil is smooth and even and it serves to reflect light beautifully. Here are some examples:

In the capri blue oval lampglass beads in these earrings, sterling silver foil has been added in thin strips that wrap around the bead and shine and sparkle nicely. In the red and gold pair, the gold foil creates a pattern, mixing with red glass inside the clear glass shell. Sometimes the foil is added on the surface of the bead in thick stripes, as in the black and gold discs below, or in a smooth single sheet to make the whole bead glow, as in the clear foil squares.

Nifty, huh? There can also be flecks of gold or silver, swirls of "gold dust" (aventurine glass powder), and other great effects. There's more to come in this glass beads series, by the way: millefiore, hollow blown glass, furnace or cane glass, pressed (molded) glass, etc. Lampworking is an old art and a modern one as well, with lots of new technology (propane torches instead of oil lamps, for example), and it is practised in many different places: Italy (especially Venice), the Czech Republic, Japan, China, and, most recently, in the United States -- where many wonderful glass artisans are making unique and thrillingly intricate handmade glass beads.  Final note for now: all of the "examples" that I'm showing in this glass bead primer are available right now for purchase at affordable prices (twelve bucks, free domestic shipping) at my etsy online shop: http://www.beadedjewelrybysusan.etsy.com/

Armchair Philosophy: Save Your Teeth

When I was a kid growing up in the late forties and early fifties, the world was a different place -- in so many ways. Don't worry, though, I'm not about to wax sentimental about old tunes or glass milk bottles or anything here. In fact, I'm about to highlight a way in which things have actually improved (hah!): dentistry. When you had a toothache back then, in my family anyway, first you rubbed oil of clove on your gum and hoped the pain would go away. When it didn't, the cut-rate dentist pulled out the offending tooth. There were no sealants or fluoride treatments to prevent more decay of other teeth, and since children (and even adults) considered pennies to be real money in those days and saved them, you could buy quite a bit of "12 for a penny" sweet treats that didn't help with cavities either. Bottom line result: I have only one decent molar left for chewing. Night before last, at 2 a.m. I had a cough drop in my mouth, which I evidentally bit down on -- and the back half of my last molar crumbled. But I'm lucky this time -- my dentist filed down the sharp edges and set up an appointment for me to have it filled next week. The moral of this story, kids, is Save Your Teeth!

Beaded Jewelry by Susan: Treasury News

News flash: I'm in my very first Etsy Treasury! Treasuries are collections of photos from Etsy shops that are put together by fellow Etsians. Vicki Diane has done a treasure of "Artists Exposed" that aims to show the artist behind the art work. Check it out! http://www.etsy.com/treasury_list_west.php?room_id=73512

In the Garden: Fall Color

Despite the chilly rainy days we've been having in east central Illinois, the fall color this year is really fantastic all over town. Champaign-Urbana is a town with a LOT of mature trees in a wide range of species, and it's quite a show. In our garden, there are a couple of show-offs that I wanted to share with you all. In the southeast corner of the south yard (protected from the cold drying winter winds from north and west) are two Japanese maples, one with a single trunk and another variety with a branched fan shape. Both were planted as quite small starts about 14 years ago. In the summer, their leaves are a lovely green, but in spring and, especially, in fall, they turn flame red and almost glow when the sun is out.

They are lovely little trees that aren't necessarily easy to grow here in the Midwest. Out in Oregon, where my sister and mother live, there are zillions of varieties of Japanese maples and they are common in private and public gardens. I also have a small very cut-leaf type in the north yard (sheltered by a circle of arbor vitae shrubs) that I found in a drugstore parking lot, its pot tipped on its side, a few years back. It suffered a major break a while ago when the big locust lost a large branch in a summer storm, but it is still with us, thank goodness. The two in the south are so bright that they even make a showing from some distance, as in this photo taken from the north end of the east garden.

Across the street from us, there's a larger Japanese maple that was planted when the neighbor's son was born and he's in his late twenties or early thirties now, I think. It shows how nicely the red foliage contrasts with a nearby birch.
   It is interesting to see what a range of plants provide fall color. The euonymous so-called "burning bush" shrubs all over town are brilliant this year, and the sugar maples are yellow and orange. The sweetgum trees have a riot of color in their foliage, including purple! Oaks, including the pin oak in our northwest garden, come in many shades of coppery orange and brown. But surprisingly, some of the perennials also show color.

For example, hydrangeas can take on a lot of subtle coloration. There's a hydrangea in our north yard called "Blue Billow" that has some lovely pale shades of pink and yellow this fall. I notice that many hostas' leaves turn a bright yellow, especially the really big, wide-leafed kind. Another surprise this fall was the two Chinese dogwoods (Cornus kousa varieties) in our north garden. Last year, they were touched with bits of red and orange, especially at the very top of the small trees. But this year the color goes all the way down and encompasses all of the leaves to a greater or less extent. The older of the two trees has grown quite a bit this year, too.

I took two photos of it this past weekend -- one up fairly close and another back far enough to show the color on the large hostas that are planted in a circle at the base of the dogwood. The Chinese dogwoods bloom later than the "regular" (i.e., Cornus florida) type here, which often means their blossoms are saved from late-spring frosts. The flowers are pure white and quite large and they seem to lie horizontally along the branches, so it's an amazing effect, sort of like snow on the boughs.

I hope you enjoy this little peek at fall color in my garden!

Beaded Jewelry by Susan: Glass Bead Primer, Part I

I thought that some of my followers on this blog and on my Beaded Jewelry by Susan Etsy site might be interested in knowing a bit about the different kinds of glass beads. So, over several posts, I'll be presenting a quick primer. Part I introduces lampglass beads.

Lampglass beads are handmade, one at a time, over an open flame. The molten glass is turned on a wire mandrel, and bits of colored glass and other materials are added. They melt into the bead and are a permanent part of it when the bead is annealed (cooled and hardened). Here are a few examples of the types of patterns, colors, and designs that are possible. As you can see, sometimes the finished bead looks as though it has flowers on it or inside it. Sometimes the patterns are more abstract, such as swirls of color. The outer shell of the bead may even be clear glass, with colored glass embedded in its center.

Another common motif is that of the so-called eye bead. This is a very common and ancient design, dating back, literally, hundreds of years. Circular marks like eyes were added to beads of all sorts in an attempt to bring good luck and protection to the wearer by distracting, and thus warding off, the "evil eye." Many attractive eye beads today are created through lampglass techniques in which the patterns of the eyes in a contrasting color are added to a solid-colored molten bead.

Armchair Philosopy: Planetary Consciousness

Identity is a complicated matter -- knowing who you are and who else you identify with. It probably started being a problem when the first one-celled creature was able to say (so to speak): "This is me. This, however, is my food." Seriously though, our sense of identity is terribly important, and it extends far beyond the obvious distinctions. We "identify" with so many different kinds of entities -- people we feel connected to such as family, friends, co-workers, neighbors, others of the same sex or age or cultural group; institutions we belong to such as schools, churches, clubs, businesses; more abstract identification with political parties, environmental organizations, and so on. And, of course, there is national identity, language identity, and species identity ("This is me. This is my cat. This is my oak tree"). All are part of who we are and therefore worth thinking about in a considered way, not taken for granted or adopted carelessly.

Ever since we first saw the beauty of the earth from outer space,thanks to NASA photos, we have had another kind of identity possible: identification with all life on our planet earth, our planet among planets among galaxies, among universes. Awesome thought, isn't it? And now, more than ever, with so many of the really vital problems of our age being global problems, truly global solutions are called for. And the kind of consciousness that needs to "raised" to begin to address these issues is planetary consciousness -- part of who we are is that we all live together -- all peoples, all creatures, all plants -- on this earth. Long may it live!

In the Garden: Garden Rehab Update

     Leaf color is changing rapidly and leaves are coming down in the wind. It's been rainy and cold at night. Translation: fall has come to east central Illinois. Our garden rehabilitation project is still ongoing, however. We had a few dry days and friend Bryan put in some time on it. Right now, we're trying to get rid of tree seedlings that got big over the two to three years of zero maintenance and to pull up the ready-to-seed weeds, including the chocolate eupatorium that took over large portions of the yard. Of course, this particular plant may be fine in your conditions. In my case, I started with one plant, a pretty thing with chocolately brown leaves and white flowers in the fall (related to the annual ageratum and the tall pink Joe Pye), that became an explosion in all of the shady areas.
     Most of the real rehab work -- re-doing raised beds, filling in gaps where perennials couldn't compete with the weeds that got established, and generally reorganizing with easier maintenance in mind -- will have to wait for spring. It's a big garden with a lot of treasures, collected over 15 years in this location and another 15 or more of plants transplanted from prior gardens. But the past few years, when health issues prevented us from working in the garden ourselves, have taken quite a toll. Fortunately, there are houseplants to cheer us all up through the long winter: