interlocked cubes and scaffolds

Several months ago I did a few posts about some work I had done with interlocking cubes made of seed beads.  The last post (In May) was about a set of cubes with rounded corners that I had done.  At the time I said I'd like to do a whole necklace of them. There were 2 problems with that, though.  One, it would have taken forever.  I do lots of things that take forever, though, so that probably wouldn't have stopped me if I'd been really happy with what I was getting.  The bigger problem was that it was so very dense, I had the feeling that wearing it would be sort of like wearing those high starched ruffs that Spaniards used to wear.  Lord knows I like a piece that has some 3-dimensionality to it, but this was just going to be too much.  So it sat on my work table, partially made, for several months.  Then I thought about using my oxidized copper scaffolds to open it up.  That's what I did here, and I think it's a big improvement.  On most anyone's scale, it's still a pretty dense piece, and it won't be to everyone's taste.  But to my eye, the open areas break it up just enough that it doesn't seem like you're drowning in it.  If anything, as I look at the picture, I think I might go back and make the scaffold at the 4 o'clock position a bit longer to open it up just a bit more.  Anyway, I'm glad I waited and stared at it for a while.

bugle bead scaffolds

   I've been putting together applications for spring art festivals.  I decided to use mostly my tube bead pieces, because they're the ones that, to me, look the most different from what other people are doing.  So I did mostly my oxidized copper pieces.  I wanted to have one, though that had tubes with some color, so I bought some long bugle beads.  It turned out that the ones I liked best didn't actually have so much color.  As so often happens the picture on the website wasn't a totally accurate representation of the actual item.  I don't mean that as a criticism ( this was Shipwreck beads); I think it's just inevitable.  Anyway, even though they weren't very bright, I really liked them.  These are

30 mm bugles, so they really make a big structure.  I made these 2 necklaces right away.  The bottom one also has 15mm turquoise bugles.
    The hardest part was dealing with the sharpness of the glass beads.  I used fireline, and learned to push the new beads tight up against the old ones before I started pulling on the thread.  Even so the thread would be somewhat frayed looking by the time I got to the end of it.  That was partly because I  used very long lengths of thread (around 7') because, as you can imagine, making structures out of beads that are over 1" long uses up thread in a heartbeat.  On the bottom necklace, which was the first one I made, I went back again after I had made the whole thing and ran several threads along the whole length of the nceklace ( at top, bottom and middle) and put #11 beads between the bugles to ease the sharp angle.  I think they were too small to help much, but the extra threads should strengthen it enough.  On the 2nd (top) one I used #8 blue beads and put them between every bugle bead in each triangle.  They were almost too big, because when I got lots of triangles coming together at a point, I started to not quitehave room for the last ones, and things distorted just a bit.  The ideal bead would be as long as a #8, but with a smaller diameter.  Possibly a delica would do that, but I needed to do this quickly and didn't have any at hand.  Or 2 #11s, but I don't think I like that idea as well. Another possibility would be to use a bead reamer to round off the inside edges just a bit.  I only have around 150 bugles in each piece, so that wouldn't be impossible.
    Anyway, I had great fun making these, and I think they'll improve my applications ( I used the top necklace in the one I just sent in).  So cross your fingers for me!
   

Before and after

    I was talking in the last post about using a photo to look at a piece in a new way, and see a problem with it.  Cindy Holsclaw (beadorigami.blogspot.com)  and I talked a bit more about it, and it got me thinking about another piece.  This was one I recently finished that was based on the cage idea, but instead of repeating a single structure in a single cage, it was a looser version, with various seed bead shapes that are sometimes enclosed by and sometimes act as links between larger oxidized copper scaffolds.  I made the piece pictured on the top, and I really liked it a lot.  I worked hard to get a good picture of it, and have already used it as a jury shot once. 
    But the more I looked at the picture, the more I thought that right in the center front, where you want maximum impact, I had a blue shape that was so dark it didn't contrast much with the dark cage.  Also, it was completely encased by the cage.  So this morning, I took the blue piece out and replaced it with a pale pink and red one that extends beyond the frame of the cage.  I think it's a big improvement.  The second picture isn't as good--I like the lighting and the camera angle better on the top one, but that's easily fixed.
  

Oxidized copper earrings

Just a quick post.  I've been getting ready for a show in Atlanta (the Atlanta Dogwood Festival in Piedmont Park, if you're in the area).  The oxidized copper tube beads I've been working with lend themselves well to making structures for earrings, so I've just finished several new earring designs.They're all just combinations of tetrahedrons and octahedrons, but by using different length tubes you get interesting structures.  The ear wires are oxidized sterling silver.  I like to do the kind of post that needs an earring back to hold it on.  That's because the earrings are so open that I don't want an extra wire hanging down behind the ear, the way you'd have with something like a French wire.  So far they all have mirror image pieces for the other ear, but I'd like to do some where the 2 earrings are close, but not identical.

Another scaffold

I'm really getting into these dark tube bead pieces. I've done several now, and I think this is my favorite. With the one I talked about in the last post, I was concerned that, because it was done mostly in right angle weave, it was a bit too floppy, because 4-sided figures are not rigid the way triangles are. In this one I modified it by using triangles for the cross-sections, but 4-sided figures otherwise. That way it still has lots of flex, but it can't collapse totally flat. I think one reason I like these pieces is that they avoid the tendency toward "preciousness" that I think is easy to fall into in beadwork. Using these beads, even if you do a symmetrical piece it's kind of ____, I can't think of the word exactly; not masculine, obviously, but not overly feminine and pretty. Anyway, it works for me.

Funky scaffold

I think in my last post about beadwork, I said that since that piece was very controlled, I wanted to something funky next. Well, here it is. More and more, I've come to realize that I sort of have 2 distinct bodies of work, one very controlled, and one looser. I like them both, and they seem to resonate with different parts of me. I do the same with my rugs, although there I've moved more and more to the looser designs, with color families instead of single colors, and a more improvisational style. Partly as I get more confident with something, I loosen up a bit, although I still like the controlled pieces too. This necklace is a really simple right angle weave, done with oxidized copper tube beads. I used 2 different lengths of tubes, though, chosen mostly at random, which makes it asymmetrical, and gives it life (I think). I broke one of my rules with it though. I have come up with a general rule for my work that when I'm using round beads I generally create shapes out of polygons with at least 4 sides. I use triangles some, but generally I don't like the amount of thread that shows in a triangle. Mostly I use cubes, dodecahedrons, buckeyballs, etc. But with long beads, those sort of polygons don't hold their shape, so I stick to triangles, which are rigid. I mostly make things using tetrahedrons, octahedrons and sometimes icosahedrons, all of which are based on the triangle. This necklace is an exception to that rule, since most of it uses 4 sided shapes (I can't say squares because of the difference in the lengths of the tubes). If I had made it all with tubes of the same length, it would totally collapse. Because of the irregularity of the tube lengths, it can't quite collapse, and where it does collapse, it does so in interesting ways. At the back of the necklace, mostly to reduce the size, I changed it so that the cross-sections were triangles, and the sides were 4-sided, and it's a bit firmer there. Also at the bottom I added a second row with triangle cross-sections, both to create a focal area and to firm it up a bit. Still it's squishier than most of my work, but I kind of like the squishiness.