Inspiration Friday

With a new year, how about we make a few little changes to our Inspiration Friday posts? This year, you pick your inspiration reference! There are lots of places to find inspiration. Photo's, magazines, fabric, nature, patterns, textures...Have a really good look at the little things around you, and make something - anything at all. The whole point is to get you out of your comfort zone, and experiment with new beads, materials, found objects, ephemera - anything you can find!

We'd love to see what you come up with. Send us a picture of your new creation, along with a pic, or description of your inspiration reference.  Send it to contest@beadfx.com with the subject line "Inspiration Friday"

If you have a personal blog, or etsy/artfire/bigcartel type site - send us a link to that as well!

Our own Dwyn has been making some fabulous lampwork horses recently - every now and again she'll share up a pic of one of her creations on facebook. I asked her to share some of them with you this week.

It can be hard to let go.

I've been making horses all my life - from mathbook doodles to glass beads - my love of horses has been drawn across my life. After years of making my images more and more realistic - it can be hard to let go.

I want to capture the essence of the horse and our feelings as they thunder by. Like a cave painter with a blackened stick, hands red with clay - fashioning an image to be viewed with awe in the flickering firelight - so too do I try to make horses that seem to leap and dance, to run and kick and jump so high they seem to fly.

I recently became fascinated with and inspired by those early cave drawings. I love to wonder what the artist thought as they made them - and the stories that were told about them. Stories and art are inextricably linked for me. I imagine those cave paintings were the launching points that started the stories flowing. Cro-magnon mass media entertainment - "Come children - listen while I tell you of many moons ago, when a magical horse danced through fire and saved the world."



After a decade of making lampwork beads - moving to lampwork sculpture has also been a significant challenge - but liberating too! It's fun to not have to deal with the constraints of wearabilty! In that regard - letting go has been easy!

And now - woefully inadequate compared to the above ... lol!  I'm still working on my bracelet from last week - it's been a busy week though, and all I've managed to get done is cut out the rest of the rings, and punch out the circles. Nothing has been soldered yet - let alone filled with resin.

I did manage to get a bracelet made - but even this isn't quite 'done'. I decided it needed a little more definition, and dipped the whole thing in Liver of Sulphur. I haven't yet had a chance to polish back up the exposed bits.  Excuse the photography as well - I managed to get one lousy shot before the batteries died on the camera. It takes far to long to recharge to wait ... considering it's technically Saturday all ready :-)

Sterling silver, and angelite - All beadfx, but some of the sterling may in fact be 'vintage' beadfx :-)

Til next week!