Fire Mountain Gems and Beads' Jewelry-Making Contest 2011 featuring Gemstones
Silver Medal Prize Winner
Fire Mountain Gems and Beads' Jewelry-Making Contest 2012 featuring Seed Beads
Silver Medal Prize Winner |
|
Meet the Designer-Artist
Where do you live?
I live in the beautiful San Jacinto Valley in Hemet, California.
Describe your artistic style.
My artistic style is what I call "Modern Fusion" ... I love to draw inspiration from the past ... and "morph" it into a beautiful work of heart ... rich and alive in brilliant color and subtle hues. I love to take the wisdom of ALL peoples elders, and combine traditional with modern ... old with new ... fusion!!!
What inspires you as a designer-artist?
Nature. Beauty. Texture. Color. Eloquent words. The sand beneath my feet, the wind blowing through my hair. The wrinkles on an older person's face. Waves of the ocean. Rain. Rainbows ... All creatures great and small, Native American's long braids--woven with pride. Beautiful, old buildings. Fire and Ice ... The world.
What materials do you most enjoy working with?
My favorite materials to work with are seed beads--shiny, satiny, pearly, rainbowy, glossy, tiny ... all of them! I also love the sparkle of crystals, the natural patterns of gemstones polished to display their perfection.
What is the name of the piece you submitted with your success story?
I submitted
Turquoise Pathways in 2011. I was SO proud that my barrette was chosen as The Silver Medal prize winner in the 2011 contest featuring gemstones! This was my first entry and my first "win" in such a large and prestigious contest. I immediately felt the inner "need" to challenge myself to attempt to create a "masterpiece" for Fire Mountains next year's contest, and began working on
Sacred Fire, which I proudly submitted for the 2012 Seed Bead contest.
What inspired this design?
Turquoise Pathways was inspired by the beautiful piece of turquoise. I wove meandering paths around it to create links between our past and our future ... between the wisdom of our elders and the dreams of our children.
Sacred Fire was inspired by Laura Mears beautiful Indian Warrior, and Indian Maiden. I enveloped these beautiful cabochons, each in an individual blue blanket, symbolizing their individual sorrows, before they "Unite as One" at "The Sacred Fire." One the couple are married, they discard their individual blankets for a wedding blanket, which is white, with a red stripe woven thru it, to remind them to "always follow the good red road."
How did it come together?
It created itself ... I was simply the tool that helped it come together. |