I Love Lucy and Her Jewelry!

Lucille Ball is one of my favorite actresses.  I've always admired her for being strong, outspoken, gracious, and just down right drop-dead gorgeous.  When the male dominated industry of Hollywood moviedom didn't know what to do with this fabulously funny and intelligent woman she made her own way in the fledgling field of television.  And she wore fabulous jewelry along the way.

In this photo for a publicity still for the movie "Look Who's Laughing" she's wearing a uniquely beautiful necklace and bracelet set designed for her by Joseff.  I haven't seen this movie so I have no idea if she actually wore it in the film or not.

And here's my version of her Joseff necklace; a seed beaded herringbone rope adorned with Kashmiri beads, Chinese crystals, and Czech glass daggers. 

This second piece, a sparkling herringbone and crystal bracelet, was inspired by the wide diamond bracelets that were so popular in the 1930's.  Everyone from high ranking studio star to hopeful starlet was wearing them.

 
P.S.  This apple picture is a cryptic nod to a favorite movie of mine starring Barbara Stanwyck as a fortune hunting con artist who gets her man by conking him on the head with a half-eaten apple.  Any guesses as to what that movie might be?

I Make My Own Crazy

Week 2 of The Artist's Way for Beaders (TAWFB) has been about recovering a sense of identity and one of the topics has been about identifying and dealing with "poisonous playmates" and "crazy makers."  The first 2 times I worked through TAW I successfully dealt with all those nasty Negative Nellies, or so I thought.  Now, here I am doing this a third time and I find that I am, as the saying goes, my own worst enemy.

I make myself crazy with all my self doubts and self defeating attitudes.  I thought I had laid all those horrible beasts to rest, but that's not the case.  Just like a bunch of zombies in a Z-grade horror movie they have crawled up from the depths, but instead of calling out for "Brains!  Brains!" they're sucking away at my self-esteem.

At this point I have no idea as to how to effectively deal with this.  How does one go about eliminating one's own army of Self Defeatist Zombies?  Baby steps of taking out one useless walking corpse of self doubt at a time, or just shred the whole bunch in one big explosion?  Is it ever possible to eliminate them all?

Either way, it's something I need to work on and I'm open for suggestions.

Two other tasks for this week were to make a list of 20 things I enjoy doing and a list of 10 things I would like to;  I'll give you 5 of each:

I enjoy:
1.  Word puzzles
2.  Jigsaw puzzles
3.  Hiking
4.  Biking
5.  Rock climbing

I would like to:
1.  Repaint my yoga/beading/dance room
2.  Collect antique tea cups
3.  Visit France
4.  Dye my hair purple and get a new hair cut
5.  Go on a retreat:  yoga, belly dancing, beading, writing;  any of these would do nicely

12 Weeks of "Artist's Way for Beaders"

Earlier this week Jennifer Chaslow VanBenschoten started a FaceBook group, "The Artist's Way For Beaders," based on Julie Cameron's book, "The Artist's Way."  It's a public group, all beaders are invited, so at least drop by the page, or Jennifer's blog, to see for yourself what it's all about.

I've already been doing the morning pages for over 10 years now, and for the most part I'm able to squeeze in a little bit of beading every day, so my 12 week challenge is going to be 30 minutes a day of play time, experimental, beading that may or may not lead to a finished piece.  If it does, great!  If not, it will find it's way into one of the many fancy photo boxes I keep handy for WIPs, false starts, and smeg-ups. 

My biggest challenge is going to be finding time for the artist's date;  one day per week that is set aside for just me to refuel and refresh my creativity.  First off, my daughter being in school for only a measly 3 hours a day gives me only about 2 hours of uninterrupted free time.  Secondly, my husband is a truck driver and is gone a lot.  Quite a lot.  Like for an entire week sometimes, so that leaves just about all the parenting to me.  And thirdly, there just isn't much in my neck of the woods that I would consider creatively refreshing.  The economy killed off the few small museums that were within a decent driving distance, and as the far west valley becomes overly populated all the cute little Mom & Pop style craft and book stores, yoga studios, etc. are slowly being pushed out of business by generic box stores.

I'm thinking my best bet will be a weekly yoga class.  A good yoga class always, always, always leaves me feeling freer, lighter, happier, refreshed, and refueled.  It's not the immersion into the artistic and creative world called for in the book, but if it's what works for me then it's all good.  And yes, this yoga class will have to be at the generic box store gym, because my favorite yoga studio closed its doors a few months ago, but at least the gym offers child care.     

I may also have to do some actual scheduling of my time to get myself through the next 12 weeks, if not the entire school year.  And I hate schedules.  I had crazy, control freaky "I own you." parents so anything that seems too regimented drives me absolutely raving, loony, bat shit, crazy.  I'll have to keep reminding myself that schedules are not a means of controlling or having power over someone, but are a way to keep my uber busy life running as smoothly as possible.