An Interview with Artist, Raida Disbrow from Havana Beads by Michelle McCarthy

I am lucky to have met Raida Disbrow from Havana Beads, at the Intergalactic Bead Shows Pompano Beach show, quite a few years ago.  I fell in love with her lamp work headpins for earrings, but really....I love everything she creates!  Raida is triple talented...lamp work, ceramic and jewelry designer.  I enjoyed interviewing her and this is what I found out.

How long have you been an artist? And how did you get started?


I’ve been on a creative path my entire life. In 2002 I started to make jewelry at a local bead store. There I discovered lamp work beads and knew I had to make them and incorporate them in my jewelry designs. By 2005 I was making lots of lamp work beads and making jewelry I sold at local art shows. In 2007 I opened Havana Beads on Etsy and the rest is history.



What are your favorite mediums?


My first love is lamp working. I love to work with wire and metals and also love to come up with unusual ceramic pieces and enameling.

What would you consider your designer style?


I consider my style “Earthy”.

Do you prefer making beads or designing jewelry?


I couldn’t possibly pick one or the other. Both are so important to my style.

Do you have a signature bead?


I think if you ask my customers they would probably say crusty beads and headpins. I love to make beads that are earthy in nature. My studio is located on the Manatee Pocket in Port Salerno, FL so I get a lot of inspiration from nature.

What is your favorite color combination?


Anything earthy! I love blues, browns, turquoise, greens, etc.

Where can we find your work?


You can find my work at havanabeads.etsy.com. I also have some jewelry listed at gentlewinddesigns.etsy.com. Most of my jewelry and beads can be found at my studio, which is open to the public, in Port Salerno, Florida. The address there is: 4745 Desoto Avenue, Port Salerno, FL 34997.


Thank you, Raida, for your wonderful beads and jewelry!  I am looking forward to seeing you in Pompano Beach again next month!

Interview with Dawn Dodson of La Touchables

For some time now I've been big admirer of the work of Dawn Dodson of La Touchables. If you participate in or follow the monthly ABS challenge, you're likely to have come across her jewellery designs. I know her entries have been featured in a number of Erin's Perfect Pairings posts. They're like no other I know of: Dawn's pieces have a style that is immediately recognisable and all her own. They have a primitive feel and yet they seem subtly luxurious, in part because they're always loaded with beautiful things, including lots of art beads. She also takes fabulous photos that are brilliantly styled. There are plenty here for you to admire. You'll find more on her blog and in her shop. As I find her designs so compelling, I thought I'd see if she fancied telling us something more about her work.

When did you first get interested in beads and beading and how did it come about?

One night in the late 1960's, playing in the backyard of our apartment complex with my brother, I took an ugly garden pot in my hand and held it up in the air stating, "This is a great artifact from the days of the Egyptians!" Then I hurled it to the ground where it exploded into shards, each one more beautiful than the next. Blame it on the eerie outdoor lighting and the marshmallows, an epiphany followed and my brother grew up to be a ceramicist while a seed was sown in me which lay dormant for decades till just a few years ago.

I started making necklaces out of pure curiousity. In art school in the 80's I had taken a metalsmithing class, and abandoned that to concentrate on painting. So art history and color had always held me in a stranglehold, manifesting itself in a funky way of dressing, cutting my own hair, or altering my clothes. For years I more or less floated along regarding my creative life, never quite taking myself seriously enough to do anything about it. Then one day the tides changed.

My love of personal adornment began to grow when I came into the possession of vintage bakelite and multi-part antique metal buttons, and thought I could make something out of them. At that time I was working from the diningroom table on my bags and things.

I see from your blog and your Etsy shop that you work a lot with textiles and also make jewellery using different fabrics. Did this interest start before your interest in beads? Can you say a bit about how your work with textiles informs your jewellery designs.

I'd say it was a parallel development. Working with textiles makes me predisposed to finding other solutions to construction techniques, which fascinates me because of my love of contrasting hard and soft. But it's not about a technique shouting. For me, it's about the beads.

You use a lot of art beads in your designs. Who are your favourite bead makers and what is it in their work that appeals to you?

I look for a singular voice, show of hand, sculptural organic forms, attention to detail, artistic development and especially passion.

I've only touched the tip of the iceberg, and forgive me for leaving anyone out. Happy Fallout first caught my eye with her Tea in the Sahara ceramic beads. Her layering of glazes and textures is hypnotic. Balela Ceramics makes magnificent  sculptural porcelain and stoneware beads with subtle glazes and powdery pastels and neutrals. Edooley seduced me with her translucent color and delicate lampwork forms. Donna Perlinplim has such a refreshing take on things, from delicate decals to ancient looking glazes on embossed ceramic. TwoSistersDesigns makes organic painterly beads and I love her matt effetre lampwork. LaccentNou's pitfired and gold glazed beads have me swooning. RaggedRobyn robbed my heart with her tribal handpainted ceramic beads. Calisto makes gorgeous luminous lampwork, and I have just discovered NuminosityBeads (delicate explosions of natural beauty in her lampwork) and Something to do Beads (your work is at once modern, fun, and delicate, and I love how you paint with glaze, leaving raw ceramic edges). 

I'm still educating myself about bead artists, trying to better manage my time and budget.

 Do you have a favourite medium when it comes to buying art beads?

Stoneware, porcelain, lampwork, bone, and other natural materials. I'm open for anything though, and always ready to experiment.

Do you have a dedicated studio or do you work around the home? Can you describe your work space?

My studio is in the garden with a view to the garden house.

I work best in organized chaos, so at the end of the day I can close the door and leave things sitting around on the table. I don't have a decent photogenic image. It is what it is, a space I can take my hat off in.

On occasion I'll work at the diningroom table.

Do you have a favourite piece or pieces?

The one I'm working on. When I'm finished with that one, the next one will be my favourite.

Most of my pieces are accompanied by a story, and I'll often consider a piece to belong to one of three lines: Lost City, Earth Lines, Stone Diaries.

 

Are there any designers (whether of jewellery or textiles) who have been a particular influence on your work?

My inspiration comes from the women and men in my past who made beautiful things with their hands, because that was what they had. I'm also influenced by street fashion, mythology and history. I gravitate to things that have a warm human nature, yet are designed with skill and imagination with a tendency to minimalist simplicity. It could be a loaf of homemade bread, or the wooden hull of a sailboat. Both forms, by the way, require some design element. To that effect there are no shortcuts.

Thank you, Claire. It's a pleasure being featured on the Art Bead Scene Blog.

Thank you, Dawn!  For more eye candy and insight into Dawn's work, head here:

Links:

latouchables.etsy.com

latouchables.bigcartel.com

latouchablesbagsandthings.blogspot.de

Artist Interview with Rejetta Sellers

Happy Saturday, all!  I don't usually do Saturday posts, the brief for which is fairly open. So, I decided that today I'd put together an interview with one of my favourite designers and beady friends.  Many of you will be familiar with Rejetta Sellers's wonderful work - her fabulously detailed and dinky polymer beads and her gorgeous jewellery designs, which regularly appear in Stringing magazine.  I'm always impressed by (and a little envious of) the way she brings together diverse elements, the ingenious methods of combining and connecting, and the harmony and balance she achieves in each piece. And her polymer beads are amongst my very favourites. She sells both in her Etsy shop.  So, anyway, over to Rejetta....

How did you get into beading and what was the first piece of jewellery you made?

I have always loved making things with my hands: cross-stitch, historic costumes, scrapbooking, etc. One day I spent extra time looking at everything my local craft store sold. There were some pretty beads on sale; lovely ball beads made up of maroon crystals. I strung them on a beading chain and my mother took the necklace off my neck and said I couldn’t have it back. Of course, I had to go buy more beads to make another one and I just never stopped buying beads.

What led you to start making polymer clay beads?

I found out I am a microcosm person. I like the tiny details in the world. With polymer clay I can manipulate, twist and sculpt on a tiny scale. And the biggest benefit with two young children is being able to leave a project, come back later, and it hasn’t dried out or become misshapen.

Do you have a favourite piece or pieces, be it jewellery or beads?

Details, details, details...I love my more detailed woodland animal beads that I make. In other bead artists I love the artful details, whether it is a crackle finish, texture, intriguing color combinations, or the shape of the bead.

For jewelry I am all over the place. I like every type of jewelry I see. I am mostly drawn to rustic, organic, free flowing designs. I enjoy jewelry designers who create with passion in their work. It is all such eye candy. I might challenge myself to venture into minimalist, romantic, Goth, phrase jewelry or bead weaving but I usually feel most comfortable stringing with beads, fiber and chain.

Do you have a favourite bead artist, and is there a jewellery designer who has particularly influenced your work?

I keep accumulating favourite bead artists and jewelry designers. I guess it is my thirst for unique pieces for my own work. For polymer beads it is Christi Friesen. She captured my attention with her techniques. She wasn’t doing polymer clay like I had seen before: caning, using molds, applying paint. She mixed the colors she wanted with the polymer and shaped it all by hand. And that is how I do my polymer pieces, too.

I wouldn’t even know where to start with a jewelry designer that is a favourite.  Each artist is different in design and materials used. I learn something new every time I look at other artist’s work. A few favourites: Slash Knots for a lovely boho style, Lorelei Eurto for her fearless use of colors and texture, Sparrow Salvage and My Selvaged Life for the post apocalyptic style that I am crazy about right now, Quisam for the feminine grunge look, and the romantic style is Tied Up Memories. The list really could go on and on...

Do you tend to plan your designs in your head or do you arrive at them by playing around with what you have in your stash?

I am very open to how I plan a jewelry design. Sometimes a design comes to mind and I dig through my beads to make it. I do a lot of sketches when I am travelling or can’t get to my stash of beads right away. But most of the time I will open my containers of beads and create a piece around one artisan bead.

What is your workspace like? 

I have seen other artist work spaces and mine is just as messy as the next persons! Sometimes ideas come so fast for a design, I may has 2-3(or more) jewelry designs in progress at any moment, a laptop fitted in there somewhere, new artisan beads that have arrived that are not put away yet, several blobs of polymer clay either left over from a project or halfway through a new design, and most wonderfully, my kid’s art work. And in amongst what others see as chaos I see a world of jewelry potential.

What is your favourite aspect of working with art beads?

Art beads are art. I am holding a tiny (remember I LOVE tiny) masterpiece in my hand. Some of my art beads have me so under their spell I don’t want to create with for fear I’ll have to let it go. Some whisper in my ear what jewelry design they want to become. And that whisper and need to horde happens to every person who buys an art bead. They are a fingerprint of the artist’s personality.

I really enjoyed finding out more about Rejetta's work and inspiration.  In very good news, this collection of winter-y lovelies are headed to Rejetta's shop today, Saturday, 15th November at 10am CST.  To keep up to date with all her latest designs and shop updates, be sure to follow her Facebook page.

Bye for now, Claire

www.somethingtodowithyourhands.com