We have been hit with the nice wetness we usually have in this month leading up to the summertime heat...... and you know what they say - April showers bring May flowers... as is most certainly so! I've fallen in love with portulaca this year as well as the balloon flowers. They rise to the occasion and always produce a profusion of color. I admit, the ritual is: coffee in hand each morning I greet them... and marvel at their colors, then check on them as the sun sets. These flowers are easily pleased and seem eager for my applause! This year I aimed to plant what likes to grow easily and requires little water - as this IS Texas and we know what ominously looms just around the corner. ; )
So, - much like the flowers - when I sat at the torch this week, I decided to create only what brought me profound joy... and I think it reflects so nicely in the result. Come see these offerings tonight on my website at 9pm Eastern. As always - smiles, Jill
5.10.2017 - Filling In...
I've noticed that there are sales coming from the pages that surround the Weekly Update Page... so this week, I've pulled more from my bead stash and filled some of those pages with inventory!
As an aside, I am still playing with that photo app called Prisma... I love what it does with my beads! My goal is to make beads that look like these! Just kidding, these ARE my beads! (just 'Prismafied') I just turned on the torch/kiln and plan to be at it again tonight.... do check in next week for some majorly pretty pretties!!
Thanks for looking! smiles, Jill
5.3.2017 - The Nature of Nature
This weekend we spent a lot of time in the garden as well as in nurseries. It was such fun! Of course the String of Pearls looks more like a "pot of peas"... but I do SO like these!!
Remember to check out the update tonight!!
first day - so tightly closed, and then triumphiantly open and glorious!
Loved the playful planters for these two... and a succulent that looks as if it were stacked leather saddles (below)
4.26.2017 - Long Longer - LONGEST
It feels so nice when long held limitations are lifted.
For years I've been making beads that are ONLY SO long. Because I have been cleaning beads the same way for two decades! I have a diamond reamer that I use with water and a Dremel rotary tool. It has always worked, and I never thought I needed any other way.
Last week I went to Blue Moon Glassworks' Fireflies night *(where the local glass artists meet once monthly to share)*... Libby Leuchtman was doing a demo and had some beads that were maybe 4"L. How do you clean that???
I ended up buying a packet of silicon carbide grit... and with the help of a mandrel dipped into water and then grit - I learned just how to conquer the long beads. Repeatedly using the grit eventually coaxes the bead release from the holes + it doesn't remove glass... it doesn't taper the holes - just takes the bead release. SO NICE.
I was inspired this week to work in transparents - not giving a second thought to length of the hole (that I'd need to clean out...) and went to town. I made way more than what's shown on my page... but that's always the case! many smiles - Jill
4.19.2017 - It's ALL about the Earrings....
If I could choose - I would love to be known as the ergonomic earring designer. You know... one who considers what's comfortable... colorful and unique. : )
Granted, I have a few limiting factors. 1. I like that my earrings fit into either of two little plastic boxes I have... they seem to accommodate 1/2"dia rounds and others with reasonably similar dimensions. I think (just my humble opinion) that earlobes get to be exhausted if they're called upon to support anything that is much larger than a 1/2" diameter volume of glass. Granted this can be shaped otherwise - but - 3/4"d I just can't do. So - with that as a parameter - I create.
I love rounds... and often will make a matching pair on the same mandrel - mirroring dot placement so that even with random dot placement - they match (is that OCD?). I love balance, symmetery... and ease of wear (reads "comfort"). If it pinches or binds - you won't find me in it.
Last week my mother came over wearing a pair of black/white dotted earrings and I was so pleased with the design and how nice she looked in them. Inspiring me to make dotted beads. For those of you who know my work, you know that is NOT the norm... but it was this week.
Years ago, I was told that I needed to make all my findings, as that would allow me never to be at the mercy of a supplier - AND would give my work a distinctive look. Over time I have tried a few different style earwires - but seem to always come back to the round. People tell me that they stay in easily and they don't lose earrings! (Yay!!)
This week, I also revisited the lovely long & slender tapered cones. They are exactly matched in length and diameter top and bottom... the proportion of these was chosen among my existing beads as being the most pleasing to the eye - and easiest for most of us to wear. I like it when the reflection that shows down the barrel of the bead is unbroken and straight... indicating a beautifully reflective surface and sleek design element. Crisp lines, straight edges IMHO speak volumes! What are some of your favorite earring shapes and lengths? I'm always interested.... smiles, Jill
4.12.2017 - It's Raining... POURING
Into every life a little rain must fall... I admit it, it is pouring! I've been really stubborn this week especially so... because I hate to give up.
You know those lovely silver wired beads I've been making? The ones that have the silver wire that's encased and still in wire form? Being like I am, I have - of course - tried it in most of the opaque colors I have on hand it's been great FUN. Some colors are heavenly, some are just meh.... so, we avoid those that don't work, and revel in those that do.
Then I got a special request... to make them in Gerber Daisy Pink... that's one of the elusive colors we all covet... I got down to business.
I tried all the pinks I had in Lauscha, nothing creamy enough... nothing pinky enough... tried all the Moretti ones I had. Nope. Even tried three enamel powders I had but nope - skip the enamels - they messed with the silver... ugh. Then I switched gears and tried some Bullseye pinks *had to dust them off", because I rarely work with Bullseye. Bingo. I mean BINGO. I made about 20, and upon opening the kiln the next day, noticed that about 20 of them cracked in half. I scrounged around and found a clear that I thought might be the key - and made eight more... they survived and are still beautiful!!
I made a special trip to Blue Moon Glassworks to visit Rose and buy some clear to encase that was actually known to be Bullseye (same COE) - and I researched a special annealing schedule for the Paragon for a long slow cool down and got down to business on Monday... hot from the torch into the hot kiln...
The pink is a Bullseye glass: This is an American glass company that is well known in the fusing world. It is a soda-lime glass and the rods are 4 to 5 mm in diameter. The coefficient of expansion is 90. The annealing temperature is 940 degrees and the strain point is 820 degrees. The rods come in opaque, opalescent and transparent as well as frit and stringers. This glass has a slightly stiffer working condition than Effetre. I would like to adjust my annealing schedule a bit - anyone out there work with Bullseye on a regular basis? I have a space for a Bullseye annealing program on the Paragon... want to get it right this time...
AND
Does anyone have any luscious opaque pinks they can point me to? I'm surely open to ideas...
: ) Jill
4.5.2017 - Lauscha Glass... makes my heart bea(d)t faster!
Awhile back I showed you what two tons of rocks looked like, today it's what 50 kilos of glass looks like. Many of you are lampworkers - and when you order glass - it arrives in nicely cut 33cm long rods of glass... but this photo is what it looks like coming directly from the factory.
Does it make your heart beat just a little faster??
For those of you who are NOT lampworkers - the beads are melted from glass rods that are pulled from large molten gathers from the furnaces at Lauscha. Below is a description of this process...
(back in 2000) I watched as this molten pile was pulled - one man held a paddle with the large gather of glass and the other walked backwards, stretching it into thinner rods of glass, moving faster or slower based upon their need to adjust the diameter of the rods they were pulling... so very cool to have seen this!
Of course, not all rods are the same diameter, but generally they were 2-4mm, 6-8mm, 8-10mm - and I guess you can guess why the price for the 2mm is so much more than the larger rods. ; )
After it cooled, it was pulled by a man seated in a chair - and he would just tap the glass and it would expertly break into just the meter long rods you see above. Things, I'm sure, have changed quite a bit in the near two decades... but this was the general approach. Smiles, Jill
3.29.2017 - Hello Color, hello Mother Nature!!
Is it any wonder that the perfection we see in nature is such an inspiration in art? Symmetry, balance, color, repetition... it just leaves me (almost) speechless! Surprisingly, we were hit with a freeze here this 'winter' that killed many of my favorite plants, so - no pretties yet from my garden... but I am in the act of replanting. Below are some of my favorites from this past year though. AND on another note - remember - the update is tonight in just a little under an hour... smiles, Jill
3.22.2017 - In This Beadmaker's Stash...
OK, so - I do very similar designs with a variety of different glasses... same shapes - maybe same versions of designs - but after 20 years - a gal kinda knows what she likes! : ) I was photographing tonight's beads and happened to see a grouping of these from a few months ago - and thought I'd say again how much I love what I do - and happy I am to see that it comes out in my "work". Many smiles - Jill
Weekly Wednesday Update tonight at 9pm Eastern...
3.15.2017 - Natural Evolution
Visiting silvered stringerwork on a nice base of not so yellow ivory (promise)... somewhat inspired by the wonders of nature in the curled up parts of a palm....
Kudos Mother Nature!
I've masked the decoration and etched the field for added interest. Stop by the update tonight at 9pm to see the others! smiles - Jill
3.8.2017 - Origins...
Funny how sometimes we just don't see. I have been happily making these wonderful silver banded beads for a few weeks now - and showed them to my mother, who said how they remind her of the ball of rubber bands that I assembled one night in front of the TV... I wonder if that was the subliminal start of this idea growing in my mind?? - NOW - I can't look at these wonderfully elegant beads without thinking of that silly ball!
I have now been making beads for almost two decades... and I take such joy in telling the inspiration stories behind the beads. One of my favorites has also been a series called Roadways, where the stringers, depending upon placement order, either give you a T or 4 way "intersection" or an "overpass". These are all 4-way intersections... : )
I love that there are stories - and often one that just eeks out a smile, maybe there is an aside to owning/wearing beads when you know the inside scoop on what made me smile when they were still just an idea. : ) Jill
remember - the Weekly Wednesday update is tonight at 9pm Eastern at jillsymons.com
3.1.2017 - All Wired UP
All wired up and nowhere to go... adoptable.
So - here's the latest style I've come up with... and after a few weeks of working with these, I've tried it with most of the opaque colors I have and this week have started playing with the transparent glass colors. My very favorites are the dark and rich colors... dark blues, deep browns, pumpkin, coral, and red.
I've been making beads since November of 1998, and since I have an update each Wednesday night - I'm always looking for that next 'design leap'... I feel like in the nearly two decades I've been making beads - I've done just about everything! (just kidding), so - when I happen upon something beautiful and sleek... I'm over the top with happiness. smiles, Jill (wonder what it will be next week???)