Finding your place

Watching people struggle to create and sell has given me a basic set of instructions for an artist's life.

1. Don't think selling cheap is a good thing. You undervalue yourself and devalue others.

2. Stop eyeballing others. Their success, skill or talent is theirs. Develop your own.

3. Be confident.

4. Be honest.

5. Don't buy into everything that shows up, glass, tools, toys. Look at what people made with sand and fire and work up from there. Kit doesn't convey skill.

6. Don't rely on others to do your thinking.

7. Something once said by Kandice Seeber, and the truest words ever spoken by an artist.

Never sell anything but your best work.

Ok, that's it. Go on and work on it, make beads that are the best you can and don't be bothered by ones that fail, you learn more from failure than success.

Dawning moments

There are times when I am extremely grateful to be an artist. Every day is full of anticipation, there is glass to melt and beads to shape. No one tells me what to make, or how. In return, I have the obligation to make the best beads possible. I am more critical of my work than anyone else would ever be, unless a bead is well-shaped, balanced and pleasing to the eye, it doesn't leave the studio.

I don't sell bunches of 'seconds' and I don't sell 'wonky' beads. They live in a jar by the door, like Eleanor Rigby's face. I firmly believe that your work is only as good as your last bead and your next bead, the one speaks about what you've learned and the other will show what you have added to that knowledge.

It is up to every artist to present their work fairly and with pride. If it's not good, then don't sell it because it says as much about your art as anything can, and being glass, it will outlive you. Make sure that your work doesn't come back to haunt you.

When you can't melt glass

The weather lately has been such that studio time for the last month has been almost non-existent.

It's not a loss though, there are a lot of things that can be done when I can't get in to actually make beads. I keep a sketchbook/notebook and jot down ideas. When I have some free time I expand those ideas into more drawings. Sometimes, working in a different medium helps focus the mind and clarify layouts, designs, inspire technique experiments.

Try taking a bit of time away from the flame if you feel you're not progressing and work in a different medium. Bits of coloured paper or clay or even just a handful of crayons.

Go on, you know it's going to be fun.

Good spacers make good beads

There's no replacement for practice.

A hundred spacers is boring, a thousand spacers is experience. You learn balance, application of glass, judging amounts, creating uniform base beads, decent ends. You get your eye in for larger beads by making spacers.

Get cracking, it's not as bad as it sounds.

Display and perception

Over the past few years, we have created a variety of ways to display the beads for sale at fairs. Craft fairs, bead fairs, history fairs. The common theme has always been to present the beads in the best light, but how to achieve that has been an endless question.

Oddly enough, the display version we used in 2009 received the most compliments and also the least positive comments. The positive ones were about the professional way the display was set up and the lighting. The least positive were about the professional way the display was set up! Apparently, making an effort to display my work means that it doesn't look 'handmade' or it detracts from the idea that I am an 'artist'.

When did being an artist or making things by hand require that the work is displayed in a slipshod, amateurish way? How is pinning things to a cork board better than displaying them on a specially designed stand? (we love IKEA, so much of their shelving and other items can be easily altered for display) Often, we wondered over the past year if people felt intimidated by the display we used, or if it really mattered.

How do we get people to perceive that handmade and art don't equate with cheap car-boot items? Is it necessary to descend to the lowest common denominator so as not to frighten the horses or servants?

Self-Management

One of the pleasures of being an independent artist is the ability to work at my own pace and hours. One of the disadvantages of being an independent artist is the ability to stay home when the weather's too bad to get to the studio, and wondering when I can get in to get some work done. No one else is looking over my shoulder, pressuring me to get things done. It would be easier if that were the case as someone else would not be as hard on me as I am on myself.

It's been snowing heavily today, the roads are barely passable and it is a question now of balancing the need to work with the need to get there safely. Unlike people who work regular hours and receive regular pay, if I don't go, nothing gets done and that makes me a harder boss to please than most others. So, do I take the day off and wait for the weather to clear or do I go and melt glass?

Answers on a postcard, please.

The past and the future

The past seems to be giving me the future in so many ways. This year I will be doing fewer bead fairs, and more events and work based on historic items. It has been so gratifying to have my work appreciated on many levels, from archaeologists and museums to re-enactors and history enthusiasts.

I find that beads can be such a compelling aspect of life that everything starts to look like a bead. I always try to keep my sketchbook handy to note down various bead ideas, and have given some thought to publishing some of the designs as small cards or postcards.

This month is devoted mostly to preparing for February, which has three major historic venues where I will be with my beads. I haven't forgotten the contemporary beads that are still a significant part of my glass life, and will work to keep a balance between the two this month.

Exciting times ahead for glassy goodness.