The Morning After...

by MaryAnn Carroll

can be tough with any kind of addiction...  Well... not ALL addictions!  The morning after a kiln firing when you have a "BEAD addiction" can be quite exciting.  It's the part of the addiction that keeps you wanting more.  It's like this one time, when Bill and I were in Saugatuck, Michigan, and went into this very cool bead store with LOADS of beads on sale!  It is a similiar thrill!  When it comes to beads, my second love next to art beads is turquoise... and that store was loaded with it.....

Okay, I'm heading off course...

Back to the morning after:  For all of you out there who are part of the "Supporting All Bead Addicts" group, you can imagine what it might feel like to open a kiln first thing in the morning and see this....

Lookin' Good!

Next, it is time to get them out and see if any minor collisions took place like 2 beads becoming 1 because they were placed too close in the kiln and the glaze fused them together or..... one dropped from a wire because I balanced it too far to the end.

Out they come....  Beads covering both sides of the bead trees....

Still Lookin' Good....

Time to remove them from the wires.  Here is when the the jury is called in....

Will they be good enough to put through to the next round?

And....we have all, but one survivor...  Not bad!  And that was just a little stray that I found and didn't want to throw out!  You can see it there still hanging on!  I guess that little bead was never really destined to be made into something special.

Now....I sort a little further.  Since I started up my jewelry venture again just a few months ago, I have been finding that I'm having a hard time parting with so many beads.  Instead of looking at them and thinking about what might look good together for sale in my Etsy shop, I've been looking at them and wondering what might look good in a piece of jewelry.  So, with this firing I decided to solve that problem and glaze extras of the beads that I covet the most.

So, there you have it.  The beads that are in a little group in the upper right are the ones that I'm keeping to add to my own collection (well...truthfully, since this picture was taken the other day, I've grabbed a couple of others....  but mostly, what you see here will eventually make it to my shop).

I have to say that clay is so fun to work with.  What you can do with it is endless.  An example of one  difference are the beads shown above.   I used the exact same glaze and applied with the same amount of thickness.  The clay body used on the beads shown on the left  is a stoneware mix and on the right is the porcelain, the clay that I use most often.  I gravitate toward porcelain because I can 'mostly' control the results because of its whiteness and translucence.  Lately, however, I have stepped outside of my little clay box and I'm experimenting with other clay bodies.  I have to say that it has been fun and the results surprising.

And lastly, I'm going to be redundant.....what I love the most are the endless creations.  You can create VERY small pieces of art like these little 5 mm beads (that is as small as I can get) .....

to these cute little guys and gals that my husband Bill has been working on.... 

These will be headed to the next wood-firing.

to very large sculptures created by clay artists around the world. 

Thanks for stopping by to see a little of what goes on in my little part of the world in Homer, NY.

The questions I would like to leave you thinking about today are...

"What art beads are your favorites?"

"Do you make your own art beads, if so, what do you make?" 

"If not, do you perhaps see yourself making art beads in your future?"

We would love to hear from you....  and stay tuned tomorrow for our next

EXCITING giveaway offered by Mary Jane Dodd.