The Art of Creating Beaded Jewelry

                    Professor Norton here, teaching my " Beading Magic: A Creative Jewelry Workshop" at the Sedona Arts Center last Saturday. Here is my student, Sharon, who had fun getting out of her head while expanding her creative boundaries.

I have been a teacher of some form of art for the last forty some years. Usually it has been Calligraphy, but I find myself eager to share new artistic dimensions . I like it that the student can actually Finish a piece within a day's workshop. It is such a reward for them to actually leave with their own completed  creation .

Since I also work in ceramics, I am enjoying the immediacy that jewelry  can offer myself, and my students. I still make my own high fired porcelain beads, each one a unique treasure. This is how I actually got into the jewelry making business, to give the gallery what they demanded. But that can take  months to create; fill the kiln; fire the kiln: stain, and fire again. With the gorgeous array of beads we have available, it can be so nice to  just pick out one's design from the array of beads I have to offer my students.            Yes, I Do go to the Tucson gem show, and any other location where I can score unique, and quality stones. What an array awaits me: crystal beads from Europe; coral, pearls, and shells  from the sea; jasper from our own state of Arizona; rose quartz that has been worn for thousands of years. The list is endless.                                                 What is so liberating is to experiment with color, textures, layout and designs. I am a teacher that really leaves those decisions to the student. I can offer suggestions, but they are sometimes not taken, which is fine by me. I am always surprised; impressed, and even amused to see how everyone's process is so different. Each person follows their own vision and how fun is that!                                                                                     Comments?

 

 

Art of Flower Arranging

 What fun to play with flowers! Here I am at the Arizona Federation of Garden Clubs Convention down in Phoenix last Sunday. As well as being a working artist here in Sedona , AZ., I love plants and flowers and joined our own SAGC here in Sedona a few years ago. I was fortunate enough to take a workshop with a Very well know flower designer, Brent Leech.  One of his first questions went something like  " How many of you just take your flowers from the grocery store  and  put them in a tall vase?" Ok. I have been guilty of that. I do often go outside and see if there are any interesting blooms in my garden to add, but not always. 

Brent does have an advantage over those of us who live up in Sedona, and other small towns in Arizona. He can go to the flower market in Phoenix, open to professionals and others. That is now on  my list of " must do" in My future. He  likes to work with the "Tropicals", those exotic flowers that grow in the tropics and are not readily available here in dry Arizona. Perhaps some local flower stores will sell them? Another thing to follow up on in my future.  

His goal was really to get us to think "out of the box" when making a design. Notice the other materials included here as well. There are large  leaves that can be folded; rolled; split; anything to add interest, or the branch that also adds support to the tall blooms. There are clever little bamboo pins to hide these methods of manipulation.

 Notice the difference in heights; the directions of  the blooms; the way the eye circles around the whole. A very low vase for a very tall arrangement. Even the little bamboo like stems we cut up and put on a copper wire , which flows out of the arrangement and keep us intrigued. Something mosslike is added to hide the "frog" or  foam, keeping the flowers in place. We all were doing the same arrangements, but there was always an individual interpretation. The Art involved in your next flower adventure! Comments?

Creating with My New Dremel

 

What fun it is working with my new Dremel! My fellow gardeners and  myself are creating table decorations with stones from our own  properties. Our conventions are coming up soon, in April. There will be gardeners from both the State and the Pacific Regions, including our own Sedona Area Garden Club. There are demonstrations, classes, and well known experts in their fields. I went two years ago and learned new techniques and information, as well as meeting very interesting people from other locations in our state. 

 However, not everyone knows about our state's natural beauty and historical petroglyphs and pictographs. The former are carved into the rocks: the latter are painted on.  We were inspired to try to reproduce some designs from the petroglyphs found around Sedona, where I live and create, as well as the many ruins in our Verde Valley . We are talking about art that could be as much as 1,000 years old.  

As I tried to hold my hand steady with my electric tool ( that really does not like to go in circles) , I wondered, "What were the tools the Ancient ones used; what did these symbols actually mean; what was the intention of those people: and especially, How the heck could they carve into these hard surfaces by hand ??". These   images are found not only near Sedona, but in many locations in the west. 

It was very humbling to create figures as exacting  as these images we were emulating.  I am impressed and will always wonder about the methods used and meanings of their creations. These are some of my results that my cool tool helped me create.