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?

 

 

The Lessons of Teaching

Despite a snowstorm, the class in pocket bookbinding went on as scheduled this past Saturday. Here is  a picture of Sid and myself,   working on one of the projects. I am the one on the left wearing  my well worn studio apron, and layered for the winter weather!
This class was  different from what I am  used to teaching. It was an informal group of fellow bookbinders, all with some knowledge of this art form. As I often do when writing, I went  to my dictionary to read  their definitions of teaching. " To import knowledge by lessons; to give instruction in; communicate the knowledge of."
 I think I like the last one the best.To communicate what I have figured out through study, practice, trial and error. There was often some of the latter experience. I wanted my presentation to be easy to follow, so everyone left with a finished project. One of my goals was to help them avoid making all the mistakes that took up my time and energy.
What I found was that everyone invents their own, original deviations. During my preparation, and there was a lot of it, my mistakes could  upset me, discourage me, and take a lot of time to resolve. As the instructor, I was  expected to have the answers, since this is something new to the others. So I put on my teacher apron; dug  deep into my past experiences; and helped work through the dilemmas that came up for others. I must say, I was impressed at my cool under fire. Maybe that was part of my lesson, to know I could do it. 
I guess it came down to figuring out how to translate whatever happened,the good and the not so great, into a new and better art form.  Not to forget another lesson. It was fun!

The Handmade Book Continued

I just took down my show, including  my handmade books, such as this one, alas that  did not sell.  This pictures is of  the Zig Zag book that I put on the front of my show invitation .I was pleased with how this turned out.  Here I am being the teacher of this style of bookmaking  to a group of my fellow book artists. We all take turns passing on our knowledge to each other. When you look closely, you can see that it is really four individual smaller  books that fold up in a zig zag style  to create the one complete book.
 After all, as  an artist, there are always lessons to learn . We all like to talk shop, this being  the informal way to teach, as well as the more structured form as I am doing. I have taught calligraphy for almost 30 years, and it has always been a great lesson to stay ahead of my students. Certainly my peers are even more of a challenge! Maybe that is the lesson here. to just be more prepared than the ones who are listening . And never forget how much you can learn from the ones you are teaching. 
Does this resonate  with any of your experiences ? Care to share?