Sources of Inspiration

I guess I'm one of the lucky ones... I really have no problem finding inspiration for the things I create. In fact, I have an overload of inspiration -- there's nature all around me, I have books and magazines galore, and I have oodles and oodles of beads at hand.

Among some of those oodles and oodles of beads is a MASSIVE collection of polymer clay goodness from my friend and fellow member of Bead Art Originals, Ddee Wilder (aka Malodora). Last year Dee released some of her creations into the wild (okay, she filled big boxes full of them and sold them on eBay), and I captured some of them.

It was while I was sorting through some of those beads, looking for something completely different, that I happened upon a collection of beads that share the same colors; and because they were all different shapes and sizes, I thought they'd make for a neat addition to a rather plain bead crochet rope. The rope is mostly white, but I added a sprinkling of transparent purple beads. And then the fun began as I added Ddee's beads to either end of the lariat.

This piece is called Sugarplum Fairy Dance, and even though sugarplums are typically thought of as a Christmas sort of thing, I just couldn't come up with a better name to describe this lariat. It truly does look like a dance, don't you think?






Another source of inspiration is the Bead Art Originals color mosaic challenge. Every two weeks the members of this team are challenged to create bead art using a photo as inspiration. The photos range from works of art, to photos of nature, to photos of fabrics; and our challenge is to create something using two or three of the colors from the photo.

The newest challenge was to create something using the colors from a painting called Let Me Tell You a Story, by an talented artist named Jeannie L. Paske.

The painting is from a series called Obsolete World, and I can say without reservation that I would love to own each and every painting in the collection.

I don't know what it is about them - the colors, the subject matter, or just the incredibly poignant imagery. But I think they're wonderful. (And I'm pretty sure I'm going to own several of these after we get our house built!)


My creation for the color mosaic challenge uses Czech glass beads in turquoise green with a picasso finish paired with some dark copper colored beads with a silky semi-matte finish. The bracelet is part of my Knot, Ready for Prime Time collection. Because the colors mimic the patina of aged copper, I've named this bracelet Weathered.


So, I'm curious. Where do you find inspiration?