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POINTS, LINES, PLANES, SHAPES, FORMS, THEMES: Creating Something Out Of Nothing

Posted by learntobead on July 20, 2018

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POINT, LINE, PLANE, SHAPE, FORM, THEME:
Creating Something Out Of Nothing
by Warren Feld, Jewelry Designer

Abstract
The artist creates something out of nothing. And the jewelry artist does the same, but also imposes this act on the person who wears the result, who in turn, decides whether to display or demonstrate its desirability and wearability, and all within a particular context or situation. So, we start with nothing into something. That something takes up space. That space might be filled with objects we call points, lines, planes, shapes, forms and themes. With whatever that space is filled, and however these objects are organized, the space and its composition convey meaning and value, communicated not merely to the artist, but as importantly, to the wearer and viewer, as well. As Design Elements, it is important to differentiate among the power of each of these objects to focus, anchor, direct, balance, move, expand, synergize, coordinate, conform, bound, connect, and violate.

POINT, LINE, PLANE, SHAPE, FORM, THEME:
Creating Something Out Of Nothing

The artist creates something out of nothing.

And the jewelry artist does the same, but also imposes this act on the person who wears the result, who in turn, decides whether to display or demonstrate its desirability and wearability, and all within a particular context or situation.

So, we start with nothing into something.

That something takes up space.

Space separates and connects us with things.     It is these arrangements and contrasts which allows us to find meaning, feel connected, recognize implications.

That space might be filled with points, lines, planes, shapes, forms and themes.    We might add color, texture and pattern.

With whatever that space is filled and organized, the space and its composition convey meaning and value, not merely for the jewelry artist, but as importantly, for the wearer and viewer, as well.    Filling space with objects will always create a level of tension because any viewer will feel compelled to make sense of it all.   This is work.   This is risky – what if the person evaluates poorly or makes a mistake or shows bad judgement or is compelled to pretend to understand?    It’s always easier (and perhaps safer) for the person to turn and look away.   To reject the jewelry.   Not wear it. Not buy it.

Jewelry designers do not want people to avoid their creations.   So, it is important to also anticipate what happens when more objects are added to the composition.    Further adding to and organizing and arranging these points, lines, planes, shapes, forms and themes into a design will exacerbate things even more, increasing the risk, but also the reward, for the viewer to maintain their stance, keep looking at it, and keep trying to figure out what it all means, and what it all means for him or her.

Meaning and value emerge from some type of this dialectic-type interaction, first between artist and self, and then between artist and client, often reflected in the selection of materials and choices about arrangements.   The meta-qualities and inspirations and aspirations underlying these decisions then transition into forms and themes.

This emergence is contextually bound by shared understandings about whether the piece should be judged as finished and successful.

The choices are infinite.

Let’s begin to decode points, lines, planes, shapes, forms and themes.    The jewelry designer’s ability to learn about, manage and control space is perhaps the most critical skills to develop.

^[1]Points, lines, planes, and shapes are independent design elements, and forms and themes are their dependent cousins.   Independent design elements function a little like vowels in the alphabet, and can stand alone and be expressive. Dependent design elements function more like consonants, and typically require some combination with independent elements to have fully formed expressions.

Whatever their independence or dependence, these design elements are progressively interrelated.     As we move from point along the list to theme, we increase our power to express meaning, establish value, create tensions, and resonate.     As we use more than one of these elements – either more of the same element or combinations of different ones — within the same composition, we also are increasing our artistic and design control, power, and ability to show intent, establish meaning, and achieve a successful result.

These design elements discussed here are considered objects to the extent that they are things to be positioned and manipulated.    They are considered parts of structures to the extent that they are part of some organization or arrangement.   Both objects and structures express meaning and value, but structures moreso.

Themes are explanatory meanings resulting from the interpretation of forms.   They may be literal or abstract.   They may be symbolic and layered.   They may be culturally- or situationally-specific.

Forms are especially coherent combinations and arrangements of points, lines, planes and shapes.   They may be distinct or overlapping.    They may be fully formed or partially formed.   They reflect broader, deeper meanings and reflections – something considerably beyond the meanings of the component parts.

Shapes are bounded lines and planes, delimiting spatial units which convey much more meaning than their individual component lines and planes could ever suggest on their own.    Shapes function in 2- or 3-dimensions. Shapes are interpretable, whether they are immediately or easily recognized, or not.

Planes are defined by the intersection of 2 lines, or the presence of 3 noncollinear (not on the same line) points, or 2 parallel lines, or a line and a point not on that line.   Planes suggest the ideas of existence, thought, and development.   Planes imply the possibilities for movement and dimension.

Lines are defined as a series of points. Lines imply the possibilities for boundaries, directions and movement.    They can be used to measure things.    They can demarcate that which is OK and sacred from that which is unacceptable or dangerous or profane.

Points change the nothingness of space into something-ness.   They can focus the attention.    Points are the simplest geometric elements which imply the possibilities for imposing individual intent, meaning and value on the universe.   The presence of two or more points can suggest relativity.

The jewelry designer cannot ignore any of this.   As design elements, points, lines, planes, shapes, forms and themes are an integral part of the jewelry artist’s tool box.    As elements within compositions, they are to be constructed or manipulated into principled arrangements we call jewelry.   They allow the artist to show his or her hand.   They are some of the major building blocks the artist uses to convey meaning and connectedness, show intent and inspire others.

As Design Elements, it is important to differentiate among the power of each of these elements to…

(1) Focus the eye
(2) Anchor or establish some kind of predominance or hierarchy within a composition
(3) Direct the eye
(4) Establish balance, order, and a satisfying distribution of proportions and sizes, or their opposite
(5) Give a sense of movement and flow
(6) Give a sense of dimension
(7) Synergize or marry the relationship between positive and negative space
(8) Establish a sense of coherence, coordination, sameness, unity, difference, and/or variety, or some grouping rules for elements
(9) Conform to the shape of the body
(10) Establish a silhouette or personal identity
(11) Connect to a time frame, context, or situation
(12) Conform to or violate shared expectations about good design

As used with Principles of Composition, Construction and Manipulation, it is important to understand how each of these elements can enhance or impede the artist’s ability to arrange objects to achieve a finished and successful piece of jewelry.    Each can support or detract from a compelling arrangement.

The designer does not have to use all of these elements.    But the designer does need to know what each can and cannot be used to do.    The designer must develop that intuitive and fluent knowledge how each of these elements function.    The goal of jewelry design is to communicate.   Communicate the artist’s inspirations and aspirations. Communicate the choices made to turn aspirations into concrete products.    Communicate the self-identifying relevance of jewelry pieces to the wearers.    Communicate the socio-cultural relevance of jewelry pieces both wearers and viewers.

Finally, each element should be used parsimoniously (that is, that Goldilocks point of just right), to attain a level of resonance.    Our jewelry, at the minimum, should evoke an emotion, and more importantly, go a little beyond this and resonate.

POINTS

In math, the point exists but has no mass. However, for this and our other design elements discussed in this article, we use a looser definition in art and design. The point is the simplest geometrically based design element the artist can use to create something out of nothing and draw someone’s attention to a piece. The point can be very small, or medium or large. It can be a simple circle, or a blob, or a square, or anything that might get interpreted as a point.

The point is the building block for everything else. Every mark we can make will be a combination of one or more points. Every line, plane, shape or form is essentially a point, regardless of its size.

Most importantly, the point calls one’s attention to a place where no attention was called for or placed before. They create a reference point. With 2 or more points, that reference point builds up much more meaning. It shows relativity in a relationship. It suggests distance and direction. It can suggest layering or dimension – think two over-lapping points.

Relationships between and among points pose two especially important meanings. One, the relationship that emerges about proportions of the point(s) to the space around it. Two, the relationship that emerges about the position of the point(s) within the space around it. Proportions and positioning.

Jewelry Applications/Decoding Points

A continuous series of points

Points directing your attention

Points which convey distance and relativity

A Point which steers your eye to the upper right, partly due to proportion and placement

The jewelry designer usually starts with a collection of different kinds of points with some determination and a lot of experimentation to arrange them in some pleasing way.    Some points might be various round beads.   They might be beads of different shapes.    They might be a clustering of beads into some shape or form.    They might be a fully formed component.

The artist thinks about the distribution and balance of points.   Sizes, relative sizes, shapes and variety of shapes are pondered over.   Then points are placed, usually, with jewelry, in some kind of circle or silhouette. Their placement may establish a sense of balance, such as symmetry.    Their placement might create a rhythm, either fast or slow.

The artist determines where any emphasis should go.    Often the artist uses a pendant drop, some variation in proportion, or some color placement effect to call a viewer’s attention to a certain part of the jewelry.   These function as points.

The artist determines how emphasis, size, proportionate relationships and placement affect how the piece will be interpreted and decoded by others.   In what way(s) does the point influence the space around it? Should attention be focused or directed?   What kind of rhythm should be established? Should a feeling of closeness, apartness, integration or skew be created?   Have the dots contributed to a sense of symmetry or asymmetry?   Do the points lose their “point-ness” and suddenly get perceived as a lines or shapes, when they move closer together?

The artist decides the number of points to be used, and decides their parsimonious selection and placement.    That is, the artist decides when enough points are enough.      Using more than one point adds a level of tension to the piece.   There is a competition for space and how position and proportion will affect interpretation of the artist’s intent, whether the piece feels finished, and whether the piece is seen as successful.

Overlapping points create a figure/ground perspective.    They change the nature of the space and the person’s interaction with it.   They add depth.    Overlapping points might get re-translated into a new point, or into a new shape.

LINES

Lines are defined by the connections between 2 or more points. Lines have length and width. They connect, they divide, they direct. The points along the line can attract or repel each other. They can emote strength, weakness, or harmony. They can excite, muddle or confuse. They can be actual or implied.

Where points are about emphasis, lines are mostly about direction and movement. A line is not attracting you to a point in space, but rather, it is directing you. Lines prevent the viewer from getting stuck staring at one point in your jewelry composition. They encourage the viewer to move around and take into account the whole piece.

Lines both separate and join things. They establish a silhouette. They demarcate boundaries. They signal a beginning and an end, or travel in one or both directions all the way out to infinity, and perhaps beyond. Lines can violate boundaries, or establish walls around something.

They can curve and curve around things. A line which curves around and connects its beginning to its end becomes a circle. If the line delineating the circle becomes too thick and fills all the negative space, it becomes a point. If the curving line does not meet itself, beginning to end, it becomes a spiral. A curved line usually conveys a different sense of beauty and romance than a straight line.

As lines become thicker, they begin to take on the characteristics of planes. To maintain their identity and integrity as lines, they must always be longer than they are wide. Changing the ratio of the length to the width has the greatest impact on how any line will be perceived and understood.

As lines become thinner, they more and more emphasize the quality of direction. As both endpoints of lines seem to extend towards infinity, they emphasize movement. If one endpoint is fixed, while the other endpoint is allowed to extend towards infinity, more tension is perceived as the space around the line is interpreted by the viewer.

Two or more lines together create a measure of things. People try to make sense of each line, sometimes in combination, but often as individual segments. The interval space between the lines becomes critical in this endeavor.

Eloquence, by Warren Feld, 2018, jasper, jade, Japanese seed beads

Here we have a 7-strand necklace. Look at the use of points, lines, planes and shapes. Look at the interval
spaces between each strand.

When two lines converge, they create an angle between them.    This joint or connecting point becomes the nexus for things moving in two different or altering directions.   The angle and juxtapositions of multiple angles can establish a rhythm.    Angles smaller than 90 degrees generate perceptions of more rapid movement than angles larger than 90 degrees.

When two lines are separated, they often are perceived separately, each with its own identify.    Think of the single vs. the multiple strand necklace or bracelet.    The interval between the lines becomes a critical part of the story ascribed to each line separately.    It is important how that interval’s negative space is filled up or left empty. It is important how wide that interval is between each pair of lines.   Pieces with narrower interval spaces have more tension resulting from how the lines are perceived and thought about.

The width of interval spaces between lines creates rhythm.    The use of color can further enhance (or impede) this perception of rhythm within a piece of jewelry.    Varying the intensity and values of the lines can create dimensionality, where some lines appear to advance and others appear to recede.

Thicker lines placed close together can change the gestalt, where the viewer’s attention shifts from the original lines to the negative interval spaces, now seen as the lines.

Jewelry Applications/Decoding Lines

Parallel lines

Curved lines

Directional lines

Circular lines

Lines are design elements used to compose, construct and manipulate beads and other pieces into jewelry.    They assist the artist in translating inspiration into aspiration, establishing intent, and securing shared understandings about whether the piece is finished and how successful that piece should be judged.

We’ve learned that the control over line includes choices about thinness or thickness, finite or infinite, continuous or sporadic, integrated or disjointed, connected or not, and spacing between intervals.     The presence of more than one line, and the chosen attributes of each line, adds more meaning, more complexity, and more opportunity for the jewelry artist to play with materials, techniques and designs.

The tensions underlying points get assessed and managed differently by the jewelry artist than those underlying lines.   While the point is more about attracting your eye, the line is more about directing it.    Points emphasize and focus and anchor.   Lines add movement and flow.    Points lead us to ideas about balance and predominance.   Lines lead us to ideas about alignment, coordination, closeness, grouping.     Lines add additional measures of meaning, such as those associated with violation, conformance, span of control, silhouette, dimensionality, boundaries and framing and walls.

PLANES

Planes are used to encompass a space.    Planes suggest unity.    Planes provide reference and boundaries and direction.    They suggest dimension and movement.   As such, the use of planes often makes it easier for the viewer to find and interpret meaning of all the other design elements found within or outside that plane.

Because of this, establishing planar relationships among design elements can also lead to a measured sense of history and time and timeliness.    They can lead to more concrete understandings of context and situation within which the other design elements present themselves, and seek to affect.

Planes are created in different ways.   These include,
(a) Two intersecting lines
(b) A line and a point not on that line
(c) Three points, one of which is not on the same linear path as the other two
(d) Two parallel lines

Planes are not restricted to a single point of view.      They allow widespread placement and fragmentation.

Planes may overlap. They may be parallel.   They may intersect.    They may be flat or curved.     Their boundaries may be linear or nonlinear.    They may have clearly defined or diffuse boundaries.   They may be warped and pulled in different directions.

Just as lines can be thought of as an accumulation of points, planes can be thought of as an accumulation of lines.

As a plane becomes larger, it sometimes takes on the characteristics of a point.    If it takes on the characteristics of a point, then its contour takes on more critical importance, diminishing the point-like characteristics, and increasing those of shape-like attributes.

For jewelry designers, planes can be seen to have surfaces. Textures and patterns may be added to these surfaces. Textures involve the placement of 2 or more design elements within the same space and which are seen to somehow relate to one another. Textures have visual impacts. When this structural relationship among textural objects seems to have some order or regularity to it, we refer to the texture as a pattern.

Textures and patterns may be 2- or 3-dimensional. They may be regular, predictable and statistical. Or they may seem random and non-statistical. They may be repeated or singular. They may be both visual and tactile. We may see textures and patterns which are layered or not, or smooth or rough.

Jewelry Applications/Decoding Planes

Simple planes

Multiple planes

Intersecting planes

Overlapping planes

For the jewelry artist, planes can become both a help and a hinderance. They can aid the designer in establishing a coherent point of view. But they can get away from the designer, and allow incoherence and irrelevance to slip into the composition.

SHAPES

When we come to focus on the outer contours of a plane, we begin to recognize this design element as something we call a shape.

Shapes are areas in 2- or 3-dimensions which have defined or implied boundaries.    They are somehow separated from the space surrounding them.     Shapes may be delineated by lines. They may be filled or emptied. They may be formed by differences in color values and intensities.   They may be formed by patterns and textures.   They suggest both mass and volume.

Shapes may be organic or mechanical.   They may relate to the background, foreground or middle ground.    They may be geometrical (regular, predictable contours) or organic, distorted or overlapping, blended or distinct or abstract.

Shapes may be interrelated by angle, sometimes forcing a sense of movement and rotation.

More than one shape in a particular space may make one shape appear more active or more important or more prominent.   This may change the perception of what that shape is about, particularly when shapes overlap.     Secondary shapes may seem more point-like or line-like in relation to the primary shape.

When we recognize something as a shape, we begin to try to impose meaning on it.   Shapes provide orientation.    They are very powerful connectors between viewer and object.   They may take on attribute qualities, such as masculine or feminine.

Shapes have meaning in and of themselves, and are not dependent on the human body for their expressive qualities and powers.     When dependent on the human body, they become forms, rather than shapes.

Jewelry Applications/Decoding Shapes

Repeated butterfly shapes with clear boundaries

Implied butterfly shapes and no boundaries

Jewelry artists need to be able to relate the shape to the message they hope the shape will convey. The shape should reconfirm, rather than obscure, that message.

Part of successfully working with shapes is controlling whether the boundaries are distinct, blurred or implied. Another important part is controlling how the interior space is depicted – such as, left empty and negative, shaded, colored, textured, either partially or fully, densely or not. A last important part is whether the shape represents a 2-dimensional or a 3-dimensional space.

FORMS

Form is any positive element in a composition.    It may be related to points, lines, planes and shapes.

A form cannot be decoded and understood without referencing the space around it.    A viewer must be able to understand and impose some meaning on the relationship between the form and the space it occupies.   A viewer must be able to differentiate the form or figure from the space or ground.    The artist cannot change the form without concurrently changing the space, thus how things get interpreted and related to.   The tension established between form and space determines the extent, time, and motivation of the viewer to interact with that form, and find it satisfying or not.

With jewelry, forms are primarily actualized as they relate to and are worn on the body.   They convey and solidify the expressive relationships among design elements, person and context.     Jewelry forms are not merely structures with wearability.   They are expressive design elements which resonate their expressive purpose and power as they are juxtaposed and positioned against the curvilinearity the human body.

Form tends to be similar to shapes, but more 3D in reality or implied by illusion.    Form can be delineated by light and shadow on it’s surface, whether actual or illusory.

Jewelry Applications/Decoding Forms

Forms supercede their constituent point, line and shape elements

For the jewelry artist, she or he must determine where the point, line, shape and plane end, and where the form begins. This means developing the decoding and fluency skills which can delineate and anticipate what happens to the expressive powers of the jewelry when the piece is worn.

The choice of form becomes a primary consideration in communicating the artist’s message and intent.

The artist must manage the tensions between form and space, foreground (advancing) and background (receding), object (design element) and structure (arrangement).

Forms can have magnetic powers, stickiness, and synergy. Forms can pull your eye in certain directions, or multiply, add, subtract or divide meaning and value, based on positioning, mass and volume. Forms can provide additional control over balance and movement felt within a piece.

THEMES

Themes are ideas which are conveyed by the visual, tactile and contextual experience with the piece of jewelry.   Most often themes are implied, rather than explicit.   They relate the jewelry to the mind, and cannot be understood apart from the individual or group culture in which the jewelry is worn.

Themes are forms which reference, or can be interpreted to have reference, or inflect in some way some reference to individual, group, cultural, societal or universal norms, values and expectations.

Themes infuse or imply power, position, protection, or identification.    They may be clear or abstract.    They may be repeated or not.   They may result from interpretations of individual forms, or whole compositions.    They may be obvious or they may be symbolic.



Jewelry Applications/Decoding Themes

Thematic use of forms

Well developed themes enhance excitement, interest and investigation.    They increase the chances the artist’s design will achieve a level of resonance.

In Summary

Points, Lines, Planes, Shapes, Forms, and Themes are objects used to turn nothingness into something.

That something holds meaning, asserts meaning and expresses meaning.

Points anchor.
Lines direct.
Planes encompass.
Shapes orient.
Forms provide referents.
Themes connect ideas.

Meaning is dialectic, in that how it is ultimately received and interpreted results partly from the fluency of the jewelry designer to use these objects (and other design elements, as well) to translate inspiration into aspiration and aspiration into a finished result, and partly from the various audiences of the designer and their shared understandings about what it means to be finished and what it means to be successful.

Arranging these objects into some organized composition provides a structure for them.    Both the objects themselves, and the structures they are arranged and embedded in, convey expressive meanings.    As these meanings get expressed within shapes, forms and these, their complexity, tensions and implications become deeper and more resonant.

At some point in the design process, points, lines, planes and shapes take on the characteristics of forms and themes.    That is, the jewelry is no longer decoded as a set of individual parts.    Decoding jewelry becomes more contingent on how the jewelry relates to the body (forms) and how the jewelry relates to the individual or group culture within which it is worn (themes).   The whole of the composition takes on meaning and value beyond that of the sum of its parts.

So, take a moment.   Grab a pen and blank piece of paper.      Draw a dot.

You are now an artist.
Draw a series of dots, lines, planes and shapes in the form of a necklace.

You are now an artist with an interest in jewelry.

Jot down some ideas how you would build upon your initial sketch and develop forms and themes.    You might re-interpret what you drew as a series of components.   You might select other design elements – particularly Color – to better define the forms and establish a them.

You are now a jewelry artist.

Think about how your developing piece of jewelry reflects your personal inspirations and intent.    Anticipate how others will view your piece of jewelry and judge it as finished and successful.    Think about clues you can look for to reconfirm to yourself that your jewelry has degree of resonance — that others will not just appreciate it, but want to wear it.

You are now a jewelry designer.

_________________________________________________________
WARREN FELD, Jewelry Designer
warren@warrenfeldjewelry.com
615-292-0610

For Warren Feld, Jewelry Designer, (www.warrenfeldjewelry.com), beading and jewelry making have been wonderful adventures. These adventures have taken Warren from the basics of bead stringing and bead weaving, to wire working and silver smithing, and onward to more complex jewelry designs which build on the strengths of a full range of technical skills and experiences.

Warren leads a group of instructors at Be Dazzled Beads (www.bedazzledbeads.com). He teaches many of the bead-weaving, bead-stringing, jewelry design and business-oriented courses. He works with people just getting started with beading and jewelry making, as well as those with more experience.

His pieces have appeared in beading and jewelry magazines and books. One piece is in the Swarovski museum in Innsbruck, Austria.

He is probably best known for creating the international The Ugly Necklace Contest, where good jewelry designers attempt to overcome our pre-wired brains’ fear response for resisting anything Ugly.
_________________________________________________________

_________________________________________
FOOTNOTES

^[1]Bradley, Steven, Points, Dots, And Lines: The Elements of Design Part II, Web Design, 7/12/2010. This article incorporates many ideas from this article.
as seen on https://vanseodesign.com/web-design/points-dots-lines/

DESIGNER CONNECT: Tony Perrin of Lock & Key

Posted by learntobead on July 5, 2018

DESIGNER CONNECT

Following The Bead

Be Dazzled Beads is a community of Creatives. Some people use our beads to make jewelry. Some to do mosaics. Some to adorn and embellish costumes. Some to enhance things like wine classes or drapes or mirrors or sweaters or cross stitch patterns. Some to embellish paintings or sculptures. Some actually use our beads in science experiments.
To us, all Creatives are Designers. That is, they make artistic and functional choices about how to incorporate the types of supplies we sell into personal visions. Some design for themselves. Some design for friends and family. Some design as a business.
It is not as much fun to work alone or isolated when you realize you are part of the larger Be Dazzled, Land of Odds and Nashville communities. We can learn a lot of insights from each other. We can support each other. It’s all about Connection!

DESIGNER CONNECT PROFILE

Tony Perrin, Jewelry Designer

Founder and Designer, Lock & Key (www.lockandkeydesign.com)

Tony: “I feel lucky. Blessed. Is the world easy? No. I have multiple jobs. I am part of the gig economy. I am trying to succeed in a world that favors large businesses. But I am working creatively. Finding my groove. There are a lot of sleepless nights. It’s not easy to be a Professional-Creative. But I would not change things for the world.”

STARTING OUT

Tony: “I have memories of always being surrounded by the arts.”

Tony comes from a family that was very arts-oriented, and very supportive of him pursuing the arts and crafts — wherever it took him. His mom was a watercolorwatercolorist and oil painter. His father was a small business owner as well as a photographer. His dad’s dad sculpted for Lockheed, and even was a street dancer. He had a great uncle in New York who had a jewelry business, and Tony remembers, even at age 5 or 6, his uncle was always making jewelry for everyone in the family.

Starting out with gymnastics, Tony graduated to dancing (because his older sister danced). As a dancer, he had to teach himself to sew for costumes as his Mom was much better with a glue gun then a needle. He remembers his family always making things — food, pastry, lapidary, painting. He has fond memories of always being surrounded by art and creativity.

A family friend — Frank — taught him how to bead weave the summer he was ten. That Summer Frank and his wife exposed Tony to the artisan craft as well lapidary, jewelry festivals and much more.

As many designers are, Tony is self taught.

Warren: “Do you think now, with all the creative things you are doing, that you, in some respects are re-creating your childhood?”

Tony: “Oh, for sure! I would say that’s part of a goal I have. I swore I would never be a teacher, but kids gravitate towards me like a moth to a flame. I realized it is because I am ‘5’. Kids get me, which should be the other way around. I am young at heart. I think trying to retain that naivete, that sort of blissful ignorance, especially as a Creative, just allows you to be a little more free with your aspirations. All of a sudden you grow up. It’s like Peter Pan. You lose that sense of innocence and exploration.”

Tony grew up in Los Angeles, spent some time pursuing a career in fashion in New York City. He moved back to Los Angeles for a few years. And then he came to Nashville with his wife who is a singer-songwriter. Today Tony wears several hats: Jewelry Designer, Dance Educator, Choreographer, Costume Designer, Jewelry Design Educator.

Tony: “Growing Up, I always thought I had to do one of these things, or the other. Before I moved to Nashville, jewelry making was just a hobby. When I moved here, one of my goals was how do I interweave all of the creative aspects that make me whole. I think a lot of creatives are creative in more than one discipline, as well. So I’m just trying to figure out how to make it one — one happy world.”

KEEPING GOING

Tony: “It’s been a curvy road.”

Warren:“Today, how would you describe what your jewelry making is like today?”

Tony:“I describe Lock & Key as a modern interpretation honoring an artisan craft. I am doing something that is ancient in terms of its art, as a form of communication and expression. The loom that I use is about 80 years old at this point, so it’s touched many different hands and many different stories. It’s definitely art jewelry. I describe what I do as boho eclecticism. Tribal influences, so I say it is international in feel. One of the main feedbacks I get is that it is fashion, but not trendy.”

Tony continues by describing his core consumer.

Tony:“My core consumer is 40+. Is a woman who appreciates artisan product, as well as pieces which make them feel modern with a sense of timeless appeal.”

Warren:“So, that first day you decided to become a business. What was that like?”

Tony’s first piece, done around 1998, was a custom piece. He was asked to design a piece for the head designer at Betsey Johnson, a New York fashion designer of clothes and accessories. It was a loomed piece, 1 1/2″ wide choker with multi-colored skulls in it and dangling feathers. He was excited, to say the least. He shared the story about making this one piece, which inspired other people to ask him to design a piece. People responded to his authenticity, and then it became all about the product.

When Tony moved to Nashville, he decided to focus on jewelry. It was part, what was he going to do to make a living? Part, honoring his childhood mentor who had made the Indian jewelry. Part passion about his loom, and gradually adding precious metal clay to the mix of media he relied on for his jewelry designs.

Tony:“And I still love it. Exhausted. Up until 3am getting production ready. Fingers chewed up by my drill bits. But I absolutely still love it!

CREATIVE PROCESS

In describing a typical piece, Tony begins with multi-media. This includes some loom bead weaving. He incorporates ball and chain. He likes to use a lot of color and texture, and mix matte and glossy. People respond well to his color sensibility. He uses many square shaped beads with round beads. With the beadwork, he includes a piece of metal, like a sculpted metal clay piece, either an integral part of the piece, or as a pendant. He often includes semi-precious stones. He likes to mix metal finishes. “Silver and Gold is the same conversation as Navy and Black. If it is well-balanced, it makes it very versatile.”

Tony mentions that, to understand his creative process, you have to go back to his goal of trying to meld together all his creative worlds. His creative process is not a linear process.

He cites as an example a very successful pair of earrings he designed which are precious metal clay based. But they were flowers, which is very specific seasonal iconography. When he started thinking about what he wanted to do the next season, he thought about how he could adapt these earrings. He mentioned that a lot of his pieces and his bead weaving have an almost art deco or art nouveau feeling to them. At the time, there was an Egyptian revival style that was prominent because of a world wide tour of Egyptian antiquities.

He reflected on his artistic style and the current revival trend, and asked himself: This was a successful piece. I’m thinking business here. How do I creatively then come up with the next version of it? So for the Fall holiday he explored hieroglyphics and lotus flower motifs. And for the following Spring, he thought about incorporating the scarab and other Egyptian touches.

Tony: “Things started to trend in High Fashion — snakes, beetles, insects, and bees. I have a scarab beetle tattooed on my back that is about 14″ long, the whole width of my back. It’s an icon that is important to me. It symbolizes the sun god Ra. It represents newness and renewal, and I have chronic back pain, so it was interconnected. It started from something that was authentic and meaningful for me, and which started to become a trend years after I had gotten my tattoo. I introduced this sculpt and coupled it with beadwork. People responded to it. Then I started thinking how to tie this all up from a business perspective. If we’re just creating ‘pretty’, who cares? You have to be able to speak to an audience.”

Tony discussed that jewelry artists have to be able to synergize the Business-Creative Mind. Both worlds need to be respected. It’s a hard business, he agrees. Artists have to monetize their creative output and still remain authentic to themselves.

Frequently, he asks himself: Do I need to break up with my design? It is OK, he indicated, to say Yes! His scarab beetle was a good idea, but some reality testing was in order. Was it too early before the trend? Would it be marketable?

On a second business level, Tony poses the question: Can I stand behind my product? Can the store that sells his pieces be able to stand behind his products?

A third major consideration is whether he has successfully differentiated his products from the mass market. That is one reason he incorporates glass seed beads and Czech beads within his work. Glass beads allow him to inject colors, where more mass market pieces are mostly metal and look very machine made.

MOVING ALONG

Tony reflects daily how art jewelry, as opposed to jewelry mass produced overseas, will be accepted by the general public.

Tony: “Art Jewelry is a term I use a lot in my marketing. At an apparel show, where people are used to mass produced jewelry, it’s starting to change in perception and openness to my product.”

Warren:“Is the world helping you change people’s perceptions, or do you feel you are out there alone doing this?”

Tony:“It will be four years in September since I started pursuing jewelry as a business. In my microworld, there has always been acceptance. My wife is very accepting, but at first was hesitant. I said, Let’s look at this year by year and see what happens. She gets it now.”

Warren:“And in the broader world?”

Tony:“In the macro level, I think it’s interesting. I think if you look at the culture today, with technology and oversaturation and what is happening in mass market production, and fast fashion, which is down-trending, I think you’re having baby boomers that are looking for nostalgia in terms of smaller, handmade jewelry.”

He sees that consumer demand for artisan jewelry is on the rise, but there are still nagging questions whether you can make a viable business out of it. Can you make enough product? Can you do it efficiently? Can you transition from a one person designer business to having staff make the pieces, as well? Meeting business goals gets more complicated if you are not going to produce your jewelry overseas.

One of his biggest challenges coming up is to create sufficient infrastructure — studio space, supplies and personnel — to be able to easily kick out 30 pieces of 20 styles on demand.

MARKETING

Tony is natural marketer, so I asked him what kinds of things he does to reach his target audience. The extent of things he does can provide a lot of ideas and insights for all of us.

Tony:“I always try to make marketing creative so I still enjoy it.”

Things Tony Does…

– trunk shows at boutiques

– pop-up shows

– collaborates with fashion designers and creates evening events with them

– collaborates with sculptors, painters, and ceramic artists to do a joint show, say in a donated gallery space

– always thinking about marketing ideas which merge his interests in dance, photography, jewelry and sculpture

– for people who have bought, or even collect, his jewelry, he sends snail-mail postcards, hand-written notes, email blasts, and personal emails

– posts images with captions on instagram

– follows other people’s instagram sites with whom he feels some kind of fit or opportunity

– sometimes buys ads, but has not seen a risk/reward balance from purchased ads

– puts himself in situations where he can meet people, shake their hands, and talk with them

– develops relationships and works at maintaining them

– plays the “6-degrees of separation” game, identifying among his network of friends and relationships, who they know, who those people know, who those people of those people know, and so forth, to search for opportunities

– develops different strategies for returning customers as opposed to new customers

– visibly creates understanding that he sticks behind his products, and will immediately fix something if it breaks

– works with “influencers” — people who, usually in return for some free jewelry, will promote your products and show images of people wearing your products in social media sites

– looks for examples of “market-disrupters” — people who disrupt the market to be noticed — that he can be inspired by

– always carries samples with him

FUTURE PLANNING

Tony is a planner. He’s developed a clear vision for the future. Some of the things he wants to accomplish over the next 3 years include,

– maintaining a 60% year-over-year rate of growth

– grow from a more regional line to a national one

– focus on his infrastructure — studio space, materials and personnel — to keep production, shipping/receiving, website and marketing all on track

The big questions before him: How does he meet demand that he has created for his jewelry? How does he enhance his brand? How does he grow his ability to distribute his products?

He wants to contine to be flexible, given the instability of our economy. He wants to maintain his constant rate of sales so his business can sustain itself. He sees, perhaps, his line represented in a showroom. Perhaps he can gain more presence in museum shops.

Tony:“I have a lot of jobs right now and it would be great to have one focus. Or add a couple hours to the day.”

FINAL WORDS

Tony: “The true test of a good designer is an ability to sell it.”

Tony: “If I don’t get that gut feeling that my piece is going to be successful, it’s time to move on.”

Tony has had to create the opportunities himself. This has involved a lot of reflection, reality testing and planning. He has created a business plan framework with year over year goals for design, production, and distribution.

Tony:“In today’s world, you always have to be creating your own rules to stay on your feet. There is wide competition. Email inundation. I like the challenge but it’s exhausting.”

Tony: “Whether or not these jewelry artists work professionally, they need patrons, and that sometimes is even more important than being an artist.”

Tony wishes there was more of a connected jewelry designer/artist community in Nashville. It is still very fragmented. He finds that politics gets in the way of creative collaboration.

Tony:“There’s room at the table for everyone.”

He wants to call artists attention to the Arts and Business Council of Nashville, as well as their Periscope program. There are opportunities for networking, expanded contacts, a support system of creatives and their ideas, developing business skills and confidence.

Jewelry designers in Nashville still need a more functional, consistent support system, particularly to thread the business-needle better. Help to find studio space. Getting a small business loan. Finding an angel investor. Connecting to mentors. This is all important, and we need more organized systems to make these kinds of things easier, smoother and more reliable.

WHERE TO FIND TONY’S JEWELRY

Tony has taken a shot-gun approach to getting his jewelry out there. He does a little direct retail through an e-commerce site. He finds that this is a great billboard for him, but not a great selling outlet. He does art and craft festivals. He likes to focus on juried or well-curated shows in particular.

He wholesales his products to stores. Sometimes this involves cold-calling on stores, with product in hand. But he also does wholesale markets, like the Atlanta Gift and Apparel Market. In 2017, he did 2 shows there; in 2018, he plans on doing 4 shows. His pieces currently are in 28 stores in the United States and the Virgin Islands. He is looking at other wholesale markets. He is exploring options to lock in with a jewelry rep or a jewelry show room.

You may find Tony’s jewelry locally at:

Two Old Hippies (the Gulch)

401 12th Ave S, Nashville, TN 37203

Stacey Rhodes Boutique (Brentwood)

144 Franklin Rd Suite A, Brentwood, TN 37027

T. Nesbitt & Co. (Franklin)

2nd Ave N, Franklin, TN 37064

Kitty (East Nashville)

521 Gallatin Ave #2, Nashville, TN 37206

Tony has an eye out to find his ideal studio-showroom. He pictures it full of natural light. Small and intimate. A low wall separating the front from the studio. Inspirational and calming. A sancturary.

Find Tony online at www.lockandkeydesign.com

Visit BE DAZZLED BEADS online to view our classes, jewelry clinics, mini-lessons, and jewelry design discussion seminars!

Shop with us online at Land of Odds

Talk with us about Custom Jewelry Design
and Jewelry Repairs

Visit us in Nashville

718 Thompson Lane, Ste 123

Nashville, TN 37204

615-292-0610
(across from 100 Oaks Mall where the Applebees Restaurant is)

Posted in business of craft, design management, jewelry making, Stitch 'n Bitch | Tagged: business of craft, design management, jewelry making | Leave a Comment »

RETHINKING THE TEACHING OF “COLOR” IN JEWELRY DESIGN or, HOW JEWELRY DESIGNERS SHOULD APPROACH COLOR by Warren Feld, Jewelry Designer

Posted by learntobead on May 31, 2018

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An Article For You from Land of Odds-Be Dazzled Beads by Warren Feld, 2018

RETHINKING THE TEACHING OF “COLOR” IN JEWELRY DESIGN
or,

HOW JEWELRY DESIGNERS SHOULD APPROACH COLOR

by Warren Feld, Jewelry Designer

Abstract

Color is the single most important Design Element, whether used alone, or in combination with other Design Elements. Yet, the bead, and its use in jewelry, – its very being – creates a series of dilemmas for the colorist. And each dilemma is only overcome through strategically making choices about color and design. This article reviews the basic concepts in color theory and suggests how to adapt each of these to the special requirements of beads and jewelry. This paper seeks to answer how the bead (and its use in jewelry) asserts its need for color. Special attention is paid to differentiating those aspects of color use we can consider as objective and universal from those which are not. The fluent designer is one who can maneuver between universality and individuality when selecting and implementing colors, color combinations and color blends.

RETHINKING THE TEACHING OF “COLOR” IN JEWELRY DESIGN

Color is the single most important Design Element.   Color concepts and theories form a language about how to best make choices about picking and using colors for universally attracting and involving both the wearer and the viewer.   The artist who is fluent in design will be very aware of how the bead and other materials assert their needs for color, and how to strategically compose, construct and manipulate them.

I’m always thrilled when someone tells me “I never thought of using those colors before, …But they work!”    I like to push the envelop with color, and incorporate some subtle tricks such as the use of “grays”, the selection of tertiary or “just-off” colors, the strategic use of color proportions, and the combinations of finishes and effects which often don’t get combined, but, from a color-theorist’s perspective, can be made to work, and made to work quite well.    As my friend Vera always tells me, “You have a way of using a lot of “pukey” colors, and making something spectacularly beautiful with them.”

But I also have this tendency, that I keep having to fight, to want to “paint” with the beads.   Painting with beads doesn’t work. The colors don’t blend, don’t merge, don’t spill over, don’t integrate.    You can’t create the millions of subtle color variations that you can with paint.    Plus the beads are curved or faceted or otherwise shaped, and the shape and texture and dimensionality affects the color, its variation and its placement and movement on the beads surface. They affect how light reflects and refracts, so depending on the angle at which you are standing, and how you are looking at the bead, you get some unexpected, unanticipated, sometimes unwanted colors in your piece of jewelry.   There are many gaps of light between each pair of beads, and you can’t paint these in.

So, when I plan a piece or visualize it in my mind, I have to fight this tendency to see things as a painter, or approach design from a painterly way.    It doesn’t work well.   You need to bring an understanding of both color and beads, not just color, to the project.   You need to understand how the bead asserts its need for color.   Contemplate.    You need to approach the subject of color as a jewelry designer who uses beads, not a painter who uses paints.   Additionally, you need to anticipate how the bead, when worn, can alter its color, depending on the source of light, the type and pace of movement of the wearer, and how the eye interacts with the bead at any point of time or positioning.

Beaders should not be afraid of colors, but should embrace them. They should learn insights into understanding colors. They should be inspired by colors.   They should express their artistic and creative selves through color.    They should use color palettes to their fullest.

In some sense, however, the approaches of most bead artists and jewelry designers are still somewhat painterly – too routed in the Art Model.    The Art Model ignores things about functionality and context.    It diminishes the individuality of the designer, and the subjective responses of the wearer and viewer.   As a result, color theories get oversimplified for the jewelry artist.   “Value” is barely differentiated from “Intensity”.   Color selection focuses too much on harmony, and too little on edginess. It too often steers jewelry designers towards a step-by-step, paint-by-number sort of approach to color selection and application.   The co-dependent relationship between Color and other Design Elements is downplayed and glossed over.    This is a major disservice.

So, I’ve tried to re-think how we could and should teach “color” to jewelry artists.     Not easy.   Art and Design Theory suggests that, in order to teach designers to make good choices, we need to break down color concepts and theories into teachable and digestible groups of skills.    And then show how the next set of skills builds upon the first.    We need to show jewelry artists what kinds of choices they will be making as they create pieces of jewelry, and then put them in situations where they are forced to make these kinds of choices.     We need to think of colors as “building blocks”, and the process of using colors, as one of creative construction.

We need to add a sense of realism and practicality to what we teach. I doubt most beaders and jewelry makers start with the Color Wheel or Color Schemes when they pick their colors.    They start with colors they like, and then keep tweaking them until they feel the mix of colors are right.    So we should add some behavioral reality to how we teach about color and how we teach how/when/why to use the Color Wheel and Color Schemes.

So, that’s where we’ll begin with color:   Delineating the types of choices that the jewelry artist needs to make, starting with choices about picking colors.

Picking Colors

There are many different kinds of choices involved, when using Color:

Choices about colors based on our understanding of…

– Personal strategies for picking colors or finding inspirations for colors
– Color theories and concepts
– How the bead asserts its needs for color
– How color affects the viewers of color
– Designing jewelry with color
– The situation or context within which the jewelry is to be worn

How do you actually go about picking your colors, and then deciding on your final colors for your piece? What kinds of things influence you in choosing colors? What inspires you? Where do you look for inspiration? Do you have favorite colors and color combinations? Or colors and color combinations that you detest?

Most people pick colors a little like they pick lottery tickets – they rely on a random numbers generator, OR, choose the same numbers like birth dates over and over again, OR use some kind of mystical “system”, the logical basis of which is never quite fully known and seems too good to be true.

Picking colors is about making strategic choices. And picking Bead Colors is about understanding how the bead (and other materials) asserts its needs for color.

[If you are in your bead or jewelry making room, you might pause a few minutes, and go pick out three colors of beads that you feel go together well.    Try to be very conscious of why you picked them.

Then pick a fourth color that you think goes with the first three.

Take away one of the four colors, and see if you like a combination of 3 better than that of 4, or better than any other combination of 3.   Re-arrange the order of the cords.   Make a difference in how you like them?

Try to think about why you prefer one combination or arrangement over another.]

Recently, I asked three of my students to pick 3 colors, and then a fourth. One student picked pink and light purple colors.    She explained that these colors were bright and matched everything she wore.    Her mom had made her wear dark navy clothes, and only dark navy clothes, when she was a girl, so as an adult, she picked colors as different from navy as she could get.

Another student had been up all the previous night making Easter-themed gifts for the customers of a store she worked at.    At class, she picked pastel pink, pastel purple and pastel green, as her first 3 colors.    At first, she said these were colors she liked, and they were very spring-like.   But after thinking how she had lived with these colors for the past 24 hours, she remarked that these were the colors on her brain, and that’s probably why she picked them.

The third student picked colors with high contrast, and, searched for a fourth color that would tone them down or balance them off.   One color was Capri silver lined, and a 2^nd was a metallic hot coral pink.   Her additional colors were gold and brown.    She did a lot of ballroom dancing and made her own costumes.   Her choice of colors anticipated what she felt she needed for these costumes.    She discussed at length how the costumes moved as she danced, and what her goals for color and bead embellishment were, given the movement.

I know I like to pick one or two colors to begin with, and then tweak them.    Based on my knowledge of the Color Wheel and Color Schemes, I might pull another 5 or 6 colors.    Then I narrow my choices. I play with different shades and tones of these colors. I rearrange the order of them.   I reposition their orientation – horizontal, vertical, diagonal.   I test whether an AB-effect (or other effects or finishes) works with or against my developing ideas.    As I settle in with a more limited number of colors, I try to play with proportions.    At this point, I start to lay out the beads into some kind of design and arrangement.

About Yellow

The great colorist debates about yellow in the latter part of the 19^th century were whether urine could be a component, and if so, who’s.    People do have a lot of time on their hands.

Tales from Pakistan and India told of secret animal urine added to the spice turmeric to create the basis of yellow pigment.   This was difficult to duplicate.   Camel or Cow or, Please-Don’t-Say-Human?   One scientist happened upon a farm in India that made this “puree of India”.   Here the cows were fed mangos, and their urine was very yellow.    But there were not enough cows to account for all the yellow pigment available in India at the time.    Whatever the recipe, production ceased around 1908, in favor of other methods.

Yellow is an attention getter.    It is often used to signal “caution”, as in a yield sign, or as in the “yellow” in yellow fever.    People lose their tempers more often in yellow rooms, and babies cry more.

I know I’m yellow-phobic, and, am not alone.    I can only use it in small doses.

Color Choices

Choosing Colors is an involved exercise.     Most people avoid this kind of exercise, and settle for a set of colors that match.    But, in design terms, Colors are used by the designer to clarify and intensify the effects she or he wants to achieve.

What does it mean to “clarify and intensify” the effects you might want to achieve?   For example, the artist may use color to clarify and/or intensify any of these kinds of things…

– delineation of segments, forms, themes, areas
– expressions of naturalism or abstraction
– enhancing the sense of structure or physicality (forward/recede; emphasize mass or lines or surfaces or points)
– playing with light   (surprise, distort, challenge, contradict, provoke)
– altering the natural relationship between the jewelry and the situation it is worn in (context, clothing, setting)

Color is the primary Design Element designers choose to express their intent, establish unity, create rhythm, set movement and dimensionality in place, enhance shape, make points, lines and planes come alive, and the like.    Alas, too few people apply this kind of thinking and make this kind of effort when choosing colors.

One designer I know – Jenna – spends an agonizingly amount of time trying to match colors within her pieces, but never tries to clarify and intensify her jewelry.    Her necklaces and bracelets are strings of matched colors.    Anyone could have strung them. Anyone can wear them.   No one wearing them should expect to attract the kinds of compliments, interest and attention a well-designed piece should command.    These are pieces of jewelry best viewed through cataract’d eyes.    Acceptable, yet not appealing.    Wearable, but not exciting.   Matching, yet not wowing.

We refer to her jewelry, with some sarcastic bite, as “Old Lady” jewelry – jewelry for older ladies who were used to having someone else make the decisions about color and design for them.    Older ladies who settled for blander necklaces which were not threatening, and jewelry which did not enhance or detract from their identities and places in the social scheme of things.   Adornment without emotion.     Art without intent.

Jenna could have done lots of things with color, though she didn’t.   She could have delineated segments within the piece and establish a rhythm.   She could have selected colors which emphasize a naturalism, or conversely an abstraction.   Colors recede, project forward, have warmth, are cold, have tensions between mass, line and point, surprise, distort, challenge, contradict, provoke.   Colors intentionally designed can even alter the natural relationship between jewelry and the situation it’s worn in.
Jenna did none of this.

Annisette was a slave to fashion colors.     On her web-blog, she bookmarked every reference she could find to the current fashion colors for Spring, then for Summer, then for Autumn, then for Winter, and once again for Spring.    She was determined to make and sell jewelry that was up-to-date and current.    Never mind that different fashion magazines and other fashion sources often disagreed on what were the “IT” colors of the moment.   Annisette would usually pick one, just because.

In reality, while some people follow color trends, most do not.   Most people wear similar colors from year to year.   They don’t change much.    And while fashion excitement might originate in New York and Los Angeles, it doesn’t necessarily trickle down to anywhere else.

For myself, I know that as I start to play with my design arrangements, I also begin to identify potential color issues.    Designs are imperfect.   Beads are imperfect. Colors are imperfect.   With each issue, I try to figure out solutions – other things I can do with colors to make everything work.   My choices begin with scientifically proven color theories – shared universals that virtually everyone has about picking colors.   In literacy terminology, this is called decoding. Then I begin to personalize my choices so that my results show more of my individuality as an artist.   Some of these latter choices do not necessarily reflect shared universal understandings about color and its use.   In literacy terminology, my ability to move back and forth between the objective and subjective is called fluency.

About Red

Red is emotionally intense, full of itself, causing the heart to beat faster and the lungs to breathe faster, as well.   Red can be an extreme color.

The ancient Egyptians wrote their curse-words in red ink.   I guess now we know that ancient Egyptians had curse-words.

Red can evoke love, and anger.    Red can indicate a person (or people) is in control, and challenge others to question that control.

Red can be destructive, as well as signify re-birth.    Red stimulates appetite.   Red does a lot – a lot of extreme things.

I like working with red to a point.    But I’m uncomfortable sitting in an entirely red room.

Bead Choices

The bead – its very being – creates as series of dilemmas for the colorist. And each dilemma is only overcome through strategically making choices about color and design.

Such dilemmas include things like…

Beads are not the same as using paints
Can’t blend beads
Boundary issues
Issues associated with shapes, faceting, edges, crevices
Limits in the range of colors (and color tones) you can pick from
Issues associated with the fact that jewelry as worn, takes many shapes/positions, as the person moves, and the color appearance may change or vary
Beads are parts in whole compositions, and juxtaposition of 2 or more beads may change or vary the colors’ appearance
Jumping from bead to bead within the composition, means the viewer’s mind has to fill in where there are gaps of color to give the illusion there is a continuance of color throughout the composition

Yet most people do not recognize or anticipate these kinds of dilemmas.    They ignore the bead, instead of contemplating it.   The bead is a spiritual void, without much impact or consequence.    They look at color wheels, read color guides, and rely on a Pantone’d world – “from Pantone ^[1], the world-renowned authority on colour and provider of colour systems and leading technology for the selection and accurate communication…”.    Each season’s fashion colors are reduced to Pantone codes, and beads are forced to conform to Pantone.   But this never works out well.

The bead is reduced to a flat circle in a diagram or in a photo.    It’s colored in with Crayola pencils or jet-dry inks.    It is static on the page.   Lifeless.   It makes no shifts.   The spaces between beads are white and show no shadows.    The threads are shown as lines at the beginning and end of the piece, and maybe a dotted line, if any, through the beads as they line up and progress along.   The bead is a monolith.    It’s trapped in a spatial odyssey, computer-designed, and reduced to a 1 and 0, Yes and No, black and white.

So, when someone like Esther, always chooses blue, she does the bead a disservice, almost a put-down.   Blue, for Esther, is a safe choice, but it’s not necessarily a designed choice.   And it’s not a choice about beads.

Beads are not paints. They are not inks, or colored pencils or magic markers.    You can blend paints, and inks and stains. You can’t blend beads.   Beads do not come in every color.    Bead colors do not necessarily coordinate with similar palettes and in tones, shades or tints.

Beads have boundaries.   They have curvatures, other shaping, faceting, edges, crevices.

Beads reflect and refract light, and this reflection and refraction changes as the wearer moves from space to space, lighting to lighting, shade to shadow, angle and perspective to another angle and perspective.

Beads are parts in whole compositions.    The sum of the parts may not add up to the value of the whole.

Jumping from bead to bead within the composition – almost like your mind/eye jumping off a cliff — means the viewer’s mind has to fill in where there are gaps of color and light.   This requires some work.   It is effort.   What color choices – selections, combinations, arrangements — would motivate the person to be actually willing to jump off a cliff?   How many people will have the necessary energy it will take to intellectually work their way through a composition of beads, so that they can make sense of it and appreciate it?    That means filling in the gaps of light with color.    That means responding to all the myriad color choices – good, bad, incomplete, redundant or indifferent — in the composition.   Jewelry has to be really special to have this kind of motivating power.

And jewelry must be appreciated as it is worn.   That means the colors must be appreciated as well – as the person moves up and down, and side to side, and back and forth, and cattycorner to cattycorner.    The jewelry and its associated colors have to maintain their “power and appeal”, no matter what.   No matter if the person is working at a desk. No matter if the person is dancing on the dance floor.   No matter if the person is negotiating a contract. No matter if the person slips on a banana peel.

About Blue

It’s always disturbed me that there are virtually no blue fruits and vegetables. Blue is so calming. Did Nature not want us to be calm when we ate fruits and vegetables? Blue is so In Nature, but seems so out of it as well. The contradiction is disturbing. The skies are blue, the ocean is blue, some flowers are blue. Yet when we hear of a blue lobster or blue spider monkey, we are somehow surprised and taken aback by their “blue-ness”. Don’t they have a right to be blue? Shouldn’t we be calm about it?

Blue is the most popular color for fashion. It shows loyalty, honesty, calmness, reliability. It should come as no surprise – although it did to me – that people are most productive in rooms that are painted blue. Even weight lifters can lift heavier weights in blue settings, than in non-blue settings. Have you checked the color of the walls at your local gym lately?

Emotions, Moods and Choices

The emotional and psychological effects of color are undeniable. These effects are usually felt through processes of color comparisons and contrasts. The better designer anticipates the goals of the wearer, and what emotions and moods the wearer wants to evoke in all that see the jewelry as worn. This might be appeal, beauty, trust, power, wealth, intelligence, and the list goes on.

About Green

Green was once the preferred color choice for wedding gowns and veils.   I wonder at what point brides-to-be decided that looking like a tree was no longer a positive thing.    They jumped ship and went to white.

Green has so many good feelings going for it.   It brings you closer to nature. It refreshes you.   It has a sense of renewal.   So it always seems so out of place to go from saying someone has a Green Thumb, to saying someone is Green With Envy or Green With Jealousy.

Did you know that people in green rooms experience fewer stomach aches than people not in green rooms? Or that if you lay a green transparent piece of plastic over a page in a book, you can read more attentively, and retain more of what you read?

Designing With Color – Many Choices

The jewelry designer must be strategic with color, which comes down to..

Selection
Placement
Distribution
Transition
Proportion

Designers must be intentional, not only with the selection of colors, but in the placement of color within the piece, as well. The designer achieves balance and harmony, partly through the placement of colors. The designer determines how colors are distributed within the piece, and how colors transition from one color to the next. And the designer determines what proportions of each color are used, where in the piece, and how. These kinds of choices affect movement and rhythm, dimensionality, and resonance.

About Orange

Orange is another color, like Yellow, that is difficult for me to work with.   I like burnt oranges and hyacinths, but a simple bright orange is not usually my thing.   I hear that I am not alone. Orange, it appears, is the least favorite color on earth.

The Sumptuary Laws in Elizabethan England dictated who could wear orange in their clothing, how much, and in what areas of the clothing.     This inclusion and placement of orange signaled to others the social status of the wearer in terms of wealth, social status, and religious conviction.     The Laws applied to the lower classes, as well as the upper classes.

It seems fascinating that the dye used to make orange at the time was very cheap and bled out and faded over time.    I guess this allowed for a little bit of democracy in action, ups and downs in class status, and some avoidance of class warfare, as well.     But I’m glad we get to pick our own colors to wear, and no longer have any limits proscribed by law.

Subjective or Objective Choices?

Can choices about color(s) ever be objective? Or are they primarily subjective?

If there are no objective, scientific, universally accepted understandings about color, can you ever teach jewelry artists to be better users of colors, that is, to clarify and intensify the effects the artist is trying to achieve?

Much of choosing colors is very subjective.    Different people prefer different colors and combinations of colors.   There are socio-cultural, preset expectations about colors, as well, where some colors are used to reaffirm membership in a larger group, or exclude others.   Some people like certain colors when part of a vertical positioning and arrangement, but may dislike those same colors when organized horizontally.   Some people gravitate to pristine colors, with little shading, and sharp boundaries, where others prefer shading and tinting, and blurred boundaries.    Some people prefer very rhythmic arrangements of colors where others are more satisfied with pieces which are more subdued and measured.

However, if we are to teach the use of color, and give students tools toward that end, we want some things which can be seen as objective and universally understood.    There has to be a set of objective, grammatical rules, for using and combining colors that have been proven over time, are workable, and good rules of thumb to use when selecting colors for any design.

Here we can turn to some research history on color and universals about how people recognize color and satisfying color combinations. We can begin to know that there is an “Objective, Grammar of Color” by exploring some of the research on our reactions to color.    Understanding how viewers react to color helps us make choices.   Research shows us Universals – how everyone seems to be pre-wired to experience color and relationships between and among colors.     We find that there are certain universally agreed upon ways that people decode color, its selection and its expressive use in art and jewelry.   As teachers, we can think aloud and demonstrate for our students how to decode and become more fluent with design and color.

SOME TOOLS FROM ART THEORY

Many people are often skeptical that you can choose colors with any basis of rationality.     Choosing colors is intuitive, subjective, personal.    You can’t teach people to be better users of colors, because you’re either born with a sense of color, or you are not.

People seem to have cultural or social expectations about the meanings of some colors.   When Vanderbilt students see gold, they associate it with school colors.   When others see gold, they associate it with something else.    The same goes for University of Tennessee Orange, and so forth school to school.

I remember when I was a kid, I worked in my father’s pharmacy. His pharmacy was in an old-world Italian community in central New Jersey.   One of the things I did was manage the Hallmark cards section.    I noticed that in the general cards, as well as the seasonal ones, we seemed to always be stuck with brown cards.   These old-world Italians did not like brown.   No brown. No way.

To save us from ending up with all brown cards in every general card slot, and in every seasonal card slot, I frantically called Hallmark. How can I bypass your system, so I can weed out brown cards? I asked.   They told me how I could alter the computer codes.   I did. And success.    In about a year’s time, I had weeded out all the unsalable brown cards.

And I got rid of brown wherever it predominated, (and wherever I could) – no brown earring cards, no brown cosmetic packaging, no brown displays, no brown bags, no brown stationery or stationery ink.    Again, big success.

But this doesn’t mean that all people, or even all Italians, have a distaste for brown.

If we are to be able to teach jewelry makers and beaders to be more scientific in their choices of colors, and be able to anticipate how their various audiences respond to colors, then we would need to have some objective rules, rules that refer universally to just about everyone. Rules that inform people what colors are best.   What colors go together, which ones do not.   Rules that show how to manipulate color and its expression in perfect and predictable ways.   But everything seems so subjective.

About Purple

Purple has always been the color of royalty.    This was probably because purple dyes were very expensive.    One source was mollusk shells, and it took something like 10,000 crushed shells to produce enough purple dye to make a simple scarf.

The color purple is associated with spirituality, psychic powers, and healing.
I love the poem by Jenny Joseph called Warning, in which she writes, “When I am an old woman, I shall wear purple, with a red hat that doesn’t go, and doesn’t suit me.”    Later this line in the poem was used to expand on a collection of writings about growing older.
There are many famous purple stories in literature.   There is the story of the two Japanese girls who went to Australia to see the purple kangaroos, only to be told that they were just two people, and that “two” people was not enough to warrant the opening of the zoo’s gates.
There is the little girl whose parents told her to go to the forest to wait for the purple wood.    The girl is still waiting.
And there is the story of purple friends who look green.    Too gory to go into the details.

When people see colors on the vertical, they may respond very differently than when they see these same colors on the horizontal.

Look at flags of countries around the world.   Many flag colors are red, white and blue.     If you look at France’s flag, you have red/white/blue on the vertical.

French Flag

Russia’s flag has red/white/blue on the horizontal.

Russian Flag

Do French people turn their head to the side when viewing the Russian flag?   Do French think Russians are gloomy and do not know how to have fun, because the rhythm on their flag, as suggested by the horizontal layout, is so much less energetic than the vertically organized colors on the French flag.

Or do Russians, because of the color layout on the flags, have a great deal of suspicion about the French, when they see their flag?    Are the French too indecisive and too ready to change their minds?

You frequently find that people might like a color arrangement in a vertical organization, but feel very uncomfortable, or have much disdain for those same colors, when found in the horizontal.

The same might be said of objects.    People often tend towards themes when buying jewelry, and collect jewelry which are all Native American, or all Wicca, or all Horses, or all Wolves, or all something.     The Fish people are especially interesting.   Some Fish people prefer to wear Dead Fish (hanging vertically), and others Live Fish (swimming horizontally).

Debby was a student of mine. She related to colors as if they were notes in a marching band’s score. Sharp cacophony! Sharp boundaries. No color shall begin before the next color ends. Each color’s note should be pure and clear. COLOR A, COLOR B, COLOR A, COLOR B, COLOR A, COLOR B, Left, Right, Left Right. Debby, in fact, goes ballistic over blurring, and shading, and tinting. Any color pattern that isn’t the One-Two variety, is very disconcerting. She doesn’t like it.

Again, the world and all its people seemed so preset to be biased in viewing colors, opinionated in understanding colors, and subjective in choosing colors. Is there no place for Art Theory, Science, and the Objective Way?

Color Research suggests that there is.

About Black

Some fashion experts say a woman wearing black implies submission to men.   I’d don’t know about that.   A lot of women wear black.   Dracula wears black.   Villains and bad cowboys and mobsters wear black.    Priests and nuns wear black.

Wearing black with another color can enhance that color’s energy, just like wearing black can enhance your body’s energy.      Black can convey an inner strength and control.

I like to use black a lot.   I use it to create shadows, to frame things, to back up things, to create borders, to create a sense of negative spaces.    Black is a great non-color color.

Some Research History on Color

Color research over the past 100 years or so suggests that there are many universals in how people perceive, understand and respond to colors. My favorite book on this research is by Johannes Itten ^[2] called
The Elements of Color. The most important color universals for jewelry designers, I feel, include,

After Images
Simultaneity Effects
Color Proportions
Color Schemes
Use of the Color Wheel

(1) After Images

The first research had to do with After Images. If you stare at a particular color long enough, and close your eyes, you’ll begin to see the color on the opposite side of the color wheel. So, if you stare at red, close your eyes, and you’ll see green.

I know you want to do this, so stare away:

Everyone seems to see after images and see the same after images.    It seems that the eye/brain wants somehow to neutralize the energy in color to achieve some balance or 0.0 point.      The brain always seeks a balanced energy in light and color.   The human eye is only “satisfied” when the complementary color is established.    [This is the basis underlying the various color schemes below.]

If red had an energy of 10 (I’m making up this scale), and the eye/brain then convinced your psyche to see green, then I would suppose that green would have an energy of -10.   Hence, we reach a 0.0 point.     Again, the brain wants balance, harmony, beauty, non-threatening situations.   The brain does not want anxiety, feel, ugliness.

And we can continue to speculate that your eye/brain does Not want you the designer to overly clarify and intensify, should this result in a more resonant, perhaps edgy, composition.   This takes you too far away from 0.0 energy, and starts to become threatening.   It might excite you.   It might revolt you.   In either case you would react, feel, sense the power of color.

Your eye/brain does Not want you to push yourself and your jewelry to the edge with color.   The eye/brain wants balance, harmony, monotony.     Red and green can seem so much fun at Christmas time.    But if you put your red and green necklace on a copy machine, and took a photocopy of it, it would all look like one color of black.    Red and green will always copy as the same color black.

And that is how we perceive them.    And cognate them.   We see red and green as the same.   As the same color black.    And if we assign red a 10 score, and green a -10 score, the eye/brain is happy to end up with a 0.0 score. This combination can be boring and monotonous.   If, in reality, something doesn’t balance off the color red, in this case, the brain will create its own after image to force that balance.   The brain wants to feel safe.    Everyone’s brain seems to operate similarly so that this aspect of perceiving color is universally employed.

How far the jewelry designer should fight this universal tendency is up for debate.    However, when initially picking colors to combine in a piece, we might try to achieve this 0.0 balance score, and then, by clarifying and intensifying, deviate from it a little bit, but always with an eye on that 0.0 – what anyone’s eye/brain is driving it to do.    We want the eye/brain to feel satisfied and “safe”, but as a designer, we also want to give the jewelry a punch, a wow, and edge.    There are many color tricks and techniques that the designer can apply here.

(2) Simultaneity Effects

A second line of research dealt with Simultaneity Effects.   Colors can be affected by other colors around them.    Colors in the presence of other colors get perceived differently, depending on the color combination.

Simultaneity effects are a boon to the jewelry designer.   They are great tools for such things as…

Filling in the gaps of light between beads
Assisting in the blending of colors or the sense of movement of colors along a line or plane
Assisting in establishing dimensionality in a piece that otherwise would appear flat
Harmonizing 2 or more colors which, on as a set, don’t quite match up on the color wheel

For example, a White Square on a Black background looks bigger than a Black Square on a white background. White reaches out and overflows the boundary; black contracts.

Gray always picks up some of the color characteristics of other colors around it.

Existence of these simultaneity effects is a great piece of information for the designer. There will be gaps of color and light between beads.   Many bead colors are imperfect, particularly in combination.    Playing with what I call “grays” [thus, simultaneity effects] gives the designer tools to overcome some of the color limitations associated with the bead.

Simultaneity effects trick the brain into filling in those gaps of light between beads. Simultaneity effects trick the brain into believing colors are more connected and mutually-supportive than they would, if separately evaluated.    Simultaneity effects trick the brain into seeing satisfying arrangements, rhythms, and dimensionality, where, without them, things would be unsatisfying instead.

A final example of simultaneity effects has to do with how people sense whether colors are warm or cool.   In one composition, depending on the color mix, a particular color might be felt as “warm”.   In a second composition, with a different color mix, that same color might be felt as “cool”.

Here the yellow square surrounded by white feels lighter, brighter and a different temperature than its counterpart.    The red square surrounded by the black feels darker, duller, and a different temperature than its counterpart.

Again, simultaneity effects give tools to the jewelry designer for intensifying and clarifying the design, without disturbing the eye/brain pre-wired fear and anxiety responses. These allow you to “blend” and build “bridges” and create “transitions.” You have a lot of tricks to use here which enable you to push the envelop with your designs. And still have your piece be judged as beautiful and appealing.

About White

Don’t wear white after Labor Day.    This is a rule among rules among rules.   It’s an instructive piece of advice to help the fashionista and colorist to maneuver their what-with-alls and get through the remainder of the year.

White is neutral. It goes with everything.   And I extend the idea of White to that of Clear, Crystal, and Transparent.

White can also be used to frame and boundary.   It can be used to fill negative space.

I once read an article about Europeans’ impressions about Americans.   One of the comments always stuck in my mind.    “WHITE TEETH”.     Americans have White Teeth, implying that Europeans don’t, and don’t care.    The article was illustrated, and next to this comment was a picture of ruby red lips and very white teeth.

(3) Color Proportions

A last series of research on color focused on balance and harmony by proportion of color use. These scientifically derived proportions show the joint effect of 2 or more colors, if the brain is to score their sum as a value of 0.0. (Again, I’ve made up this scoring, but you get the point about reaching equilibrium).

And again, I’ll make the point that not all compositions have to be harmonious.

You can play with these concepts about proportions most easily with the colors Purple and Yellow.

Using your Yellow and your Violet pencils, color each row in with the following pattern:
First row:    alternating Yellow/Violet/Yellow/Violet etc.
Second row:   set this pattern: Violet/Yellow/Violet/Violet/Violet/Yellow/Yellow/Violet/Violet/Violet/Yellow/Violet

Third row:   Violet/Violet/Yellow/Violet/Violet Violet/Yellow/Violet/Violet/Violet/Yellow/Violet

Which arrangement do you find most attractive or satisfying?

Yellow is very bright and draws your attention immediately. You don’t need much yellow to make your point. In fact, the scientific formula which balances yellow with purple is 1:4. This is read as “1 in 4”, and means that given 4 parts, 1 should be yellow and the remaining 3 should be purple. (This is the pattern in Arrangement 3/Third Channel above).

Some other harmonious proportional relationships:
Orange to blue, 1:3
Red to green, 1:2
Yellow to orange: 1:1.3

Itten has a picture of the relative proportions of colors.

(4) The Color Wheel

With almost every book about color, there is a Color Wheel.   Some are more detailed than others.   Some are easier to turn and manipulate.    They all have different colors at the North, South, East and West points, but it is the same series of colors, ordered in the same way, color to color.

It is important to understand how to use the Color Wheel. The Color Wheel is a tool and a guide.   It’s not an absolute.   A rainbow bent into a circle is a color wheel.   This curtain of color provides the insights for selecting and arranging colors that might go together well.   But beads don’t always conform to the colors on the wheel; nor do they reflect light and color in ways consistent with how these colors appear on the wheel.

Look at this color wheel:

Get some color pencils, and color in all the colors around the wheel.

Science and Art Theory have provided us with tools to help us pick and combine colors.    One tool is the Color Wheel.   This curtain of color provides the insights and tools for selecting and arranging colors in jewelry design.    The color wheel helps us delineate what color choices we can make, and which combinations of colors might work the best together.

There are 12 colors arranged into
three families of color.

The Primary Color family includes three colors:   yellow, blue and red.     These colors present the world as Absolutes. They are definitive, certain, and steady.   They convey intelligence, security, and clarity.

The Secondary Color family includes those colors you can make by mixing any two primary colors.   These three colors are: green, orange and violet.    These colors present the world as Contingencies. They are situational, dependent on something, and questioning.   They convey questioning, inquiry, risks assessed against benefits.

The Tertiary Color family includes six colors.    Each of these colors is a mix of one of the primary colors and one of the secondary colors. These include: red-violet, yellow-orange, blue-green, blue-violet, yellow-green, red-orange.   These colors show Transitions.   These colors are useful for transitioning from one primary or secondary color to the next.    They bridge, integrate, tie things together, stretch things out.   They give a sense of before and after, lower then higher, inside and outside, betwixt and between.    They convey ambiguity or a teetering on fulcrum of a scale.

In fact, you can create your own chart of colors, if you wish.   Perhaps your Color Wheel should show Winter, Spring, Summer and Fall quadrants of colors and transitional colors.    After all, we frequently name our fashions and cosmetics and moods after the seasons and their colorations.    What should you wear in May, and how would that differ than what you should wear in June?    What should someone with a Winter skin tone wear in July?

Or perhaps your Color Wheel should show Earth, Wind, Fire and Water quadrants of colors and transitional colors.      Take Water, for example, what colors would be Fish (water) or Mermaids (water-air) or Flying Birds (air-water) or Turtles (water-land)?    How would you color-illustrate a Surf N’ Turf necklace?     Or, Fire and Ice?    Our color and design choices are so often influenced by our experiences of nature and natural phenomenon, why not Earth, Wind, Fire and Water?

Whatever your take on The Color Wheel, the wheel provides you some ways to view and interrelate colors.   But remember the power to pick colors is in your hands – you have the power. The Wheel is not the power.

As you begin to pick colors, you will also want to manipulate them – make them lighter or darker, brighter or duller, more forward projecting or more receding, and the like.   Expressions of color are referred to as attributes. Expressive attributes are the ways you use color as building blocks in design.   So, here are some important building block/color terms and vocabulary.

Expressive Attributes of Color:
Important Color Terms and Vocabulary

Each color on the wheel is called a HUE.     Hues are pure colors – any color except black or white.    And if you look again, there is no black or white on the Color Wheel.

BLACK is the absence of color.   We consider black to be opaque.   Usually, when people see black, they tend to see shadows.   With black, designs tend to feel older, more antique’y, richer, more traditional and solid, and seem to have a patina around them.

WHITE is all the colors merged together.    When all colors in “light” merge, you get White. When all the colors in paints or pigments are merged, you get a neutral gray-black or beige.   With White, designs tend to feel sharper, brighter, more contemporary.

INTENSITY and VALUE. Better jewelry designers are those who master how to play with INTENSITIES and play with VALUES.   This means they know and are comfortable with manipulating bright and dull, and light and dark.    They know the subtle differences among red, pink and maroon, and how viewers react to these.    They know how to punctuate – BAM! – with Yellow and EASE… with purple and CALM… with blue.

The contrasts between Bright and Dull or Light and Dark are not quite the same.    Bright and Dull (intensity) has to do with how much white, gray or black underlay the Hue or pure color.    Low intensity is duller; high intensity is brighter.    Think of a Stop Sign.   It could have just as easily been Red, Pink or Maroon.    Red is the most intense – the brightest of the 3 – and hence the sign is Red.   You can see red from the farthest distance away.   Red is “Bright (intensity)”, but not necessarily “Lighter (values)” than the other colors.

The contrasts between Light and Dark are called VALUES. A lower value is darker, though not necessarily duller (intensity).

Pink has a higher value than maroon, because it is lighter.   Yellow is the lightest color; violet is the darkest.    Yellow has a higher value than violet.

Unfortunately, in many texts and guides written by Bead Artists and Jewelry Designers, they combine the concepts of intensity and value into a single concept they refer to as “Values”.   Bead Artists and Colorists often write that the “secret” to using colors is to vary “values”.     When they refer to “values”, they are actually combining these two color theory concepts – “values” and “intensities”.    Both are really different, so this combined meaning is a disservice to the bead artist and jewelry designer trying to learn to control color choices and color expression.

INTENSITY AND VALUES EXERCISE

Intensity Exercise:

Use your Blue Pencil, as well as your White, Gray and Black Pencils, to color in the 2^nd column. Start by coloring in all the squares with a medium shade of blue.

Using your white, gray and black pencils, now vary the darkness of the blue to approximate the darkness of the grays in the 1^st column.

Values Exercise:

Using your Blue Pencil only, color in each cell in the table below, making the top cell the lightest (highest value), subsequent cells darker than the previous ones, and the last bottom cell, the darkest (lowest value). [Press lightly on the pencil when coloring in the first cell, and then harder and harder as you go down the column.]

So, as you work with people to create jewelry for them, you make choices about, and then manipulate:
– colors
– simultaneity effects
– balance and harmony (distribution, placement, and proportions)
– intensities
– values

Let’s say you wanted to design a necklace with blue tones.   If you were designing this necklace for someone to wear at work, it would probably be made up of several blue colors which vary in values, but Not in intensities.   To give it some interest, it might be a mix of light blue, blue, dark blue and very dark blue.    Thus, the piece is pretty, but does not force any power or sexuality issues on the situation.

If you were making this same necklace for someone to go out on the town one evening, you might use several blue colors which vary in intensity.    You might mix periwinkles and Montana blues and cobalt blues and blue quartzes.     You want to make a power or sensual statement here, and the typical necklace someone would wear to work just won’t do.

Let’s continue with some more important color building blocks or concepts.

TINT, SHADE and TONE are similar to values and intensities.    They are another way of saying similar things about manipulating color Hues.    TINTS are colors with white added to them. Pink is a tint of Red.    SHADES are colors with black or gray added to them.   Maroon is a shade of Red.    And TONES define the relative darkness of a color.    Violet is a dark tone and yellow is a light tone.    Red and green have the same tonal value.   “Tones” are what copy machines pick up, and the depth of the black on a photocopy relates to the tonal value of the colors on the original paper you are copying.   Red and green photocopy the same black color.   They have the same tonal value.

TEMPERATURE. Colors also have Temperature.   Some colors are WARM.   The addition of black tends to warm colors up.   Warm colors are usually based in Red.   Red-Orange is considered the warmest color.   Warm colors tend to project forward.

COOL colors are usually based in Blue.   Green-blue is the coldest color.   Addition of white often cools colors.   Cool colors tend to recede.

Juxtaposing colors creates MOVEMENT and RHYTHM. By creating patterns, you guide the brain/eye in its circuitous route around the piece, as it tries to make sense of it. Juxtaposing Warm with Cool colors increases the speed or sense of movement.

Some colors tend to PROJECT FORWARD and others tend to RECEDE. Yellow is an advancing color. Black recedes. You can play with this effect to trick the viewer into seeing a more MULTI-DIMENSIONAL piece of jewelry before her. By mixing different colors and different finishes, you can create a marvelous sense of dimensionality.

Faceted, Glossy beads will tend to look closer and capture the foreground
Smooth, Glossy beads will tend to capture the middle ground
Matte, Dull, Frosted, or Muted beads will tend to fall into the background

Colors Have Quirks

Color names have always fascinated me, but they are a bit quirky.    When I started in the bead business, many colors went by names I had never heard of before – like Smaragd (Kelly green) or Chroust (a brown tiger eye looking color), or were colors that I did not associate with the color name, like Hyacinth (which was orange) and Amber (which was a bright yellow).   There are over 12,000 named colors.

Glass beads, particularly glass seed beads, are created in so many colors, that you can’t make every color using glass alone.   Some of the processes used to make some of the colors are unstable.   That means, the color can fade, bleed out or rub off.    That could end up as a nasty surprise. And somewhat quirky.

And each time the factory makes a batch of a particular color, that same color but next batch, may be different.   The color of the beads is affected by the barometric pressure outside the factory when they are made.   This is something the factory cannot control.

Traditionally in Europe, transparent color names were given jewel tone names and opaque color names were given what I call crayon color names.    So we have Amethyst and Purple, Sapphire and Blue, Rosaline and Pink, Ruby and Red, Emerald and Green, Jet and Black, Black Diamond and Gray, Hyacinth (for the orange version of Zircon) and Orange, and so forth.     But this tradition, however elegant, is not kept to very much these days.   Things are quirkier.

The violet and blue violet colors of purple were reserved for European royalty, so today, we find very few choices of beads in this part of the color spectrum.    Too bad, because people seem to love purples.

The Japanese like to rename their colors every two years.   They view color naming in a similar way to “fashion”, and, they reintroduce colors in new names every two years or so.    Over the years, I’ve seen “yellow-lined crystal” become “transparent yellow Ceylon” become “daffodil lined transparent crystal” become “daffodil Ceylon lined crystal” become “luminescent yellow lined Ceylon crystal”.    The color names don’t make it seem like the bead is the same color.   Ceylon means “pearlized”, but none of these color names are used with pearlized beads. The beads are clear with a yellow lining.   And so this changing-name-thing is quirky.

The Czechs started doing this.    Smaragd is now Kelly.   Chroust is now Tiger Eye.   Sphinx first became Hematite.   More recently, Hematite has become Gunmetal.   With some lines, Gunmetal is morphing into Antique Brass. Amber is Citrine.     It’s very difficult keeping up when you don’t deal with these quirks of naming on a day-to-day basis.

I came to find out over the years that people claim to own certain colors.   This sounds strange, but it’s true.    Like in, “Janice, here’s your brown.”   Or, “Elaine, come quick, this was the red you wanted.”    Or, “Cynthia, that’s not my purple.   That’s Ellen’s purple. You know she’ll only work with that one purple color.   And I don’t like it. It’s not for me.   I don’t even think it’s for Ellen, but God knows, she sure loves that purple. No, it’s not mine.   It’s hers.   Not mine. No.”

Other quirky things come up with color as well.   A lot of people get unpleasantly surprised when they cut seed beads off the hank, or pour them out of the tube.    The color of 1 bead alone is often different than when bulked up together.

You cannot easily mix Czech glass and Japanese glass.    They use different color palettes.   This is most noticeable with the purple color.   The Czech purple is reddish; the Japanese purple is dark bluish/black.     There is a similar problem with seed beads and delica beads.   Again, look at the color purple iris in each.    These don’t mix.

Nor can you easily mix Swarovski crystal with glass, or different Swarovski crystal colors with each other, because Swarovski doesn’t coordinate the tones/shades/tints of all the colors.   Your eye/brain also wants to blend all the crystal colors, when confronted with more than one color in a composition.    It’s very difficult to work with Swarovski Crystallized Elements and control your colors, as a designer should, would, and can.

And it’s difficult to mix crystal beads made in different countries.   Swarovski, the Czechs and the Chinese do not use the same color palettes.     Swarovski’s color palette is more intense.   Swarovski and the Czechs use more lead so their beads are brighter; the Chinese less lead, so their beads are duller. Swarovski modifies the shapes of their beads so that the light refracts through the glass differently than similar beads made in other countries.   This altered shaped – a 4mm bicone is 3x4mm, a 10mm round is 9.5x10mm – also changes the way the light refracts through the glass, and results in an intensifying of the bead color.

Familiarity with these different quirks about color make it a little easier to apply and interpret color schemes and theories to beads.

The Kayapo

The Kayapo live in villages in the Amazon River basin in Brazil.     One of my anthropology friends studied them for awhile.    An interesting thing that she found was a peculiar cultural behavior related to naming colors.

The Kayapo have three names for colors: White, Black and Red.    They can see and recognize all the colors of the rainbow, but have not found the cultural or social need to have specific names for them all.   So some colors might be light white, or dark white, or very dark white, off-white, and so forth.

When the Kayapo perform ritual feasts and ceremonies, they drop one of the color names – the name for Red.   So during rituals, they use White and Black for all colors.   During non-ritual times, they use White, Black and Red for all colors.

During the rituals, and I was lucky to watch hours of video on this, when the anthropologist points to red, and asks what color it is, the Kayapo will say Black. If you tell them, that an hour earlier before the ritual, they called this Red, they look at you quixotically and wonder what planet you live on.   It’s clearly Black, at least at this moment.     During non-ritual times, when you ask them about what just happened, they still think you’re crazy.    It’s obviously Red, at least at this new moment.

These naming behaviors triggered several lines of inquiry.   One of them was to see if there was a predictable ordering to when color names are created for specific colors.   It turns out that you can highly correlate the level of technological development to the number of colors which have specific names.   Moreover, every society in the world seems to find the need to name colors in the same order.

So, the least technologically developed cultures have two names – Black and White.   Again, they can see and describe all colors, but only have the need for two color names.    The next color to be named is Red.   Red, then, is the first true Hue or color that people recognize and want the kind of control over it, that giving a name to it would provide.    We can only speculate Why.    Perhaps it is a color that is easy to make and the materials to make it are readily at hand.   Perhaps it relates to the color of blood or the color of something else that is particularly important in society.

Nevertheless, after Red comes Yellow.    Then it’s a toss up. Some groups go with Green, then Blue. Other groups go with Blue, then Green.    Finally then, comes Orange, and last Purple.

As a jewelry designer, your choice of colors might mimic some of this naming behavior.   If you wanted to do a more primitive look, you might emphasize Black, White and Red.    An ancient Egyptian piece might emphasis White, Red, Yellow and Blue.   A contemporary piece might emphasize Green, Orange and Purple.

(5) Color Schemes – Rules of Composition

Color schemes are different, proven ways to use and combine colors, in order to achieve a pleasing or satisfying result. Good color combinations based on color schemes have balanced, harmonious tonal values – their light energy levels balance out at the zero-zero (0.0) point. Better designers like to tweak these combinations a bit, in order to evoke an emotional and resonant response to their work.

You can place geometric shapes inside the Color Wheel, and rotate them, and where the points hit the wheel, you have a good color combination. For example, if you place an equilateral triangle (all sides are equal length) within the circle, as in the diagram below, the points touch Yellow, Red and Blue. If you rotate it two colors to the right, it touches Orange, Violet and Green.

Different color schemes are associated with different geometric shapes that you can overlay within the wheel, and rotate, thus helping you select colors that work well together.

With color schemes, you always need to think about things like:

Whether one color should predominate, or all colors should be more or less equal
Whether there should always be a “splash of color”, as interior designers like to say. Do you always need a “drama” color to achieve exciting, focal, look at me first effects?
If symmetry works with or against your color choices
If you need to adjust intensity or value in each color, to get a better sense of satisfaction
If you need to adjust the proportions or distributional patterns or arrangements of each color used; that is, experiment with same colors, different placement

With any Color Scheme, you not only pick particular colors to play with, but you also must decide if one is to be Predominant, and the others Subordinate, or not.   Some Color Schemes work best if one color is dominant; others work best where all the colors are co-equal.

With some Color Schemes, symmetrical arrangements are more satisfying and asymmetrical ones are less.

When you select a Color Scheme, sometimes tweaking the intensities and/or values of some of the colors you’ve chosen, will end up with a more satisfying outcome.

In a similar way, when you select a Color Scheme, sometimes tweaking the proportions or placement of colors will end up with a more satisfying outcome.

When you study Interior Design, there is a rule accepted by most Interior Designers about always adding a “Splash of Color.”   I don’t know if this is critical to jewelry design, or not.    A room will not look right without some drama, some focal point, some surprise.      Does jewelry need the equivalent of that Splash of Color?    If so, how does this relate to choosing colors on the Color Wheel?   Or is it to be some afterthought – some fourth color from the fourth dimension?     Is there a science here, or some intuitive emotional irrational choice?

We’re not going to find the answer to this mystery today.    So let’s look at the three most popular, often-used Color Schemes – Analogous, Complementary, and Split Complementary.

Analogous

The analogous color scheme is where you pick any 3 hues which are adjacent to one another on the color wheel.   For example, you might pick yellow-green, yellow, and yellow-orange.   This scheme is a little trickier than it seems.    It works best when no color predominates.    Where the intensity of each color is similar.   And the design is symmetrical.   I also think this scheme works best when you have blocks of each color, rather than alternating each color.   That is, BETTER: color 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 2, 2, 2, 2, 3, 3, 3, 3 rather than WORSE: color 1, 2, 3, 2, 1, 2, 3, 2, 1, 2, 3, 2, 1.

Exercise: Test drive the Analogous Color Scheme. Take 10 beads of each of 3 analogous colors, and arrange them on the bead board into a pleasing analogous design. Try changing the proportions of each color, and then evaluate which arrangement seems more satisfying.

Complementary   (also known as “true complementary” or “dyadic”)
The complementary color scheme is where you pick any 2 colors which are the direct opposite on the color wheel.   For example, you might pick yellow and violet.   To use this color scheme effectively, you would balance the contrast of the colors by value (lightness/darkness) and/or intensity (brightness/dullness).   In this color scheme, one color has to predominate.

Try these exercises:
Exercise: Take 15 beads of each of two complementary colors, and arrange them on the bead board into a pleasing design.

Exercise: Now put back 10 beads of one color, and replace with 10 beads of the other color, so you now have 5 beads of one color and 25 beads of the other. Arrange them on the bead board into a pleasing complementary design.

Which arrangement is more satisfying?

Split Complementary

This is the most popular color scheme. Here you choose a hue and the hues on either side of its complement. For example, you might choose yellow and blue-violet and red-violet. In this scheme, one color needs to predominate. This scheme works well with both symmetrical and asymmetrical designs. You can use an isosceles triangle (has two sides with equal length) within the Color Wheel to pick colors.

One thing I like to do with this scheme is arrange all my beads, then replace one color with one of the others, and vice versa. Let’s say you had 20 blue-green (aqua), 10 orange, and 5 red beads, which you had laid out in a satisfactory arrangement. You could change it to 20 orange, 10 blue-green, and 5 red beads, and it would look just as good. A lot of people have difficulty using the color orange in jewelry designs, but find it easy to use blue-green. Here’s a nifty way to trick them into using orange, and liking it. Do the composition with blue-green dominant, then switch out all the blue-green for orange, and any orange you used for blue-green.

Exercise: Choose a hue and its two split complements. Take as many beads of each of these three colors as you like, up to a maximum of 30 beads, and arrange them on the bead board into a pleasing split complementary design.

Play with these beads awhile. Take some away. Add some. Replace one color with another. Change patterns. Change rhythm. Which approaches feel more satisfying than others?

There are many other color schemes.   Some examples:

Analogous Complementary.(3 analogous colors, and one complement of one of these 3).             Example: blue-violet, violet, red-violet with yellow-green.

Triadic: (3 tertiary hues equidistant on the color wheel.)             Example: red-violet, yellow-orange, and blue-green. You can use an equilateral triangle within the color wheel to help you pick choices.

Tetradic:   (Using 4 colors, a double complementary scheme).   Example:   Yellow-green, orange, red-violet, and blue.   You can use a square or rectangle within the color wheel to help you pick choices.

Hexadic:   (Using 5 colors).   Can use a pentagon within the color wheel to select your colors.

Monochromatic:   (A single hue, though with different intensities, tints and shades)

Achromatic: (black and white and gray (without color))

Neutrals:   (mixes of hues to get browns (or grays))

Clash: (combines a color hue with a color on either side of its complement).
            Example:   blue w/red-orange or orange-yellow

There are many books, as well as free on-line color scheme designer apps to check out and play with.

BEADS AND COLOR

The bead presents greater complexity and depth, in terms of color, than any flat surface, like paint.   We need to know how the bead asserts its need for color.   We need to spend some time contemplating this. [In fact, we need to know how all the materials we use in our jewelry compositions assert their needs for color and spend time in contemplation.]

After you thread the needle and pierce the hole of a bead, you are eyeball to Bead.   You cannot fail to notice the sharp and steady interplay of color that rushes to your eye and your brain.   That interplay could be subtle, as shadows and subtle differences in shade and tone.   Or it could be dramatic, as an Aurora Borealis effect on the bead opens up like a silk and paper fan across the lenses of your eyes.    That interplay is often unexpected, as if directed by “someone else’s hand”.

Before you know it, your needle is through this bead and on to the next.   You almost gasp, to take in all the color, its powers and effects.    As you string or weave more beads together, the developing composition provides more intellectual challenges and stimulations to your mind and eye.   Beads demand much more commitment, they are much more assertive, they require much more attention, than paint.   And you are there to provide it.

Bead shapes, dimensionality, and movement-when-worn create shadows and highlights.    They force you to perceive and have to interpret your perceptions.    They offer many plays on light, reflections and refractions, some anticipated, others not.

The Bead has many levels upon which to target your eye.     There is the surface.   There are the outer edges.   There are the inner edges that come with faceting, and texturing, and crevicing.   There are the layered inner spaces you see in opalescents and micas and color lined and quartzes and Picassos and hurricanes and tortoises and cubas and conglomerations.    There are many other applied effects from aurora borealis to celsian to valentinit to azuro to Labrador to clarit to vega.

And there is the hole, its rim, its recesses, and its channel through the object we call Bead.    And as the eye and brain try to target the eye on the bead, it is important to realize that some materials of beads restrict the eye to its surface colors; other materials bring the eye into the bead to different levels or layers below the surface and within the bead itself.

Although many people try to “paint” with beads, you really can’t.    Beads don’t come in every color, and they don’t “blend” like paints.   Often, you have to make work the limited color palette you have with beads on hand.   You rely on techniques based in proven color theories to trick the brain and steer the brain into seeing blends, seeing coherence, seeing continuity, seeing unity of effect.

Each bead already presents some color variation in terms of intensity and value, as the viewer experiences the bead in its entirety, examining the bead over and around each curve and surface. The intensity of value of the bead color may be more or less near the curvature or hole, and more or less at its center.

Sometimes this works to the artist’s advantage, in that the color as experienced on, with, within, through and around the bead might be more “forgiving” than picking a paint color. On some beads, you find color effects fired on to one side, but not the other, and this affects intensity and value, as well.

Color must “jump a cliff” in the spaces between any two beads. The smaller the bead, the less “gap” created between beads, and the more intense and sharper the colors. A composition with 15/0 seed beads would be viewed more favorably, than if the same piece had been done with 11/0 seed beads or 8/0 seed beads. Smaller gaps.

The color and its effects with a bead, as you hold it in the air, may vary considerably than when you place it over cloth. In a similar way, the color of beads on hanks or in tubes or on strands, may be very different than when used within a particular composition.

The time of day, the brightness or dimness of the sun or moon, the casts of shadows along the landscape – these all affect perceptions of color, and the bead, its shape and texturing and coloration effects only makes these perceptions more complex and multi-plex. The color of lighting in a room – fluorescent day, cool or white, or incandescent yellow – and the colors of the walls and floors and ceilings, and the amount of windows, and their positioning – these all affect perceptions of color, as well. The list can go on – the direction of lighting, directed lighting, filtering of lighting, and so forth. The good jewelry designer needs to understand these things.

COLOR MATCHING

With Beads, to understand color combination, you must also understand the materials the beads are made of, and how the materials contribute to or work against such combinations. Whether the material is of the bead itself, or of the stringing material, the light-conveying and light-inhibiting qualities of these materials will also be critical, when choosing color combinations.

One time, we were experimenting with making simple beaded beads.    Traditionally, you would use a wooden bead as the “core”, and bead weave all around it.    Usually, you would color the wood bead with magic markers or paint, in a color similar to the beads you were weaving with.   We tried doing the same beaded bead, first around an acrylic bead, and then around a glass bead.    Bead weaving around the acrylic bead seemed more attractive and satisfying than around the wood one.   Bead weaving around the glass bead had a considerably bigger and more positive impact on the result.

With the wood core bead, the beaded bead looked a little listless, with little resonance.   With the glass core bead, the beaded bead had a lot of resonance.   Light flashed all around and through the bead from side to side.   The colors seemed more vibrant.   With the acrylic bead, the resonance seemed in between that of wood and glass.

It’s very difficult to mix materials within the same piece of jewelry.    The eye/brain interacts differently with different materials.     When you mix materials, it can get awkward for the eye/brain to perceive and interpret what it’s seeing.   When this happens, you begin to trigger our pre-wired fear and anxiety response. This makes the brain edgy because the brain always prefers harmony and balance.   So things start to get translated as ugly, boring, monotonous, unsatisfying and the like.

With most glass, the eye/brain sees the outer surface.   The light travels to the surface and reflects back from the surface. With most gemstones, the eye/brain sees the surface, as well as sees into the bead and below the surface among many levels and layers.   The light travels below the surface, and then is reflected back from below the surface.

When you mix glass and gemstones, you need to try to pick glass that duplicates the eye/brain/gemstone interaction.   Opalescent colors of glass work well.    Matte transparent beads with color lining, or color effects beneath the surface layer work very well.

It’s also difficult to mix glass and glass crystal (leaded glass) within the same piece.   Swarovski crystals use a very different color palette than Czech glass and from which to work.   Crystal beads draw the eye/brain deep within the bead and below the surface.   Light diffuses, and often, with crystal beads, we see the brightness before we recognize the color itself.   This is a very different dynamic than our brain/eye/material interactions associated with most glass and most gemstones.

Each color within the Swarovski crystal line does not seem to be from the same color palette when compared to each other, either – they don’t have the same underlying tones/shades/hues. When mixed, many colors become muted, and less distinct, then when separated.   There are many color boundary issues – your eye wants to merge/blend/wash the colors together. Some lighter colors seem to fade or wash out, when next to others, or in a finished piece.

Mixing fibers and other related stringing materials have big impacts on perceptions of color and color combinations.     In transparent or translucent beads, the color of the stringing material, or its finish, (glossy, matte, waxed, metallic, dull), can affect the perception of the bead color. Your eye/brain can actually see the stringing material between each pair of beads butted up against each other.   This affects color.

How you finish off your necklace or bracelet, and attach a clasp – The Clasp Assembly – can affect perceptions of color.   This can be as simple as a gold clasp vs. a silver clasp, or it could be more involved.

The Color Effects of Threads

The color of the stringing material has a big impact on color perceptions of the piece as a whole.

With Black Thread, you see shadows.   Black seems to make things look richer, older, more antique-y, with a patina.   Black Thread works in most pieces.

With White Thread, you can see the white, where you tie knots.   White seems to make things look sharper, brighter, more contemporary.

Most people, when using color threads, match the color of their thread to the predominant color in their piece. In this case, there is little color effect. However, you can get very strategic with color threads. You can take an amethyst colored thread and an olivine colored bead, and get a neat color-lined effect.    There is no reason that you have to use the same color of thread throughout your piece. You can change colors, and also get unusual color effects.

Mixed Media Projects

When you mix Beads and Other Media, like fibers, in the same composition, the different materials compete for attention and dominance.     The Designer leads the way in how this unfolds.    Frequently, though, the person making the jewelry loses control over the materials, their powers, their essence, their color.    One of the major things that goes wrong here is a failure to control the colors and the light reflections and refractions.

Say you were creating a felted piece with some additional braiding on it, and embellished the piece with crystal beads.   You might have created some fascinating scroll work and layering with your fibers.     The brightness of the beads, however, might distract the viewer, or the experiencing of colors within each material might be distracting, making her turn her head.   The crux of your piece, then, goes unnoticed.

The Use of “GRAYS” (simultaneity effects) to tie things together – Blending and Bridging

With beads, the eye often needs to merge or coordinate colors, as it scans any piece. And then there are the gaps of light between beads. The eye needs help in spanning those gaps.   The Artist needs to build color “bridges” and “transitions”, so that the eye doesn’t fall off a cliff or have to make a leap of death from one bead, across the gap, all the way to the next.

One easy technique to use is to play with simultaneity effects. One such effect is where gray takes on the characteristics of the color(s) around it.

In beads, there are many colors that function as “grays” – gray, black diamond, alexandrite, Montana blue, Colorado topaz – colors that have a lot of black tones to them.    Most color lined beads result in a gray effect.    Metallic finishes can result in a gray effect.

In one piece I made, for example, I used 11/0 peach lined aqua beads as a “gray” to tie in larger teal and antique amethyst beads together.    Gray colors pull from one bead, and transition to the next in a very subtle way, that tricks the brain, but does not disturb it.

Framing

I like to put “frames” around things.    I like to frame segments of beads in my pieces, to delineate sections, forms and themes. I like to frame pendant drops so that there is a clear top and bottom, beginning and end.   I like to frame color blocks to play with line, silhouette and boundaries.

Framing means using colors on either end of something, so that you establish a start and stop, a beginning and end, a top and bottom, or some related boundary.   For example, you can put two black seed beads on either side of an 8mm round red bead, to frame the bead, not detract from it, and enhance the viewer’s experience with it.

Need Focal Point In Piece

Not necessarily a “splash of color”, but there is some need to create a sense of drama, life, excitement, a look-at-me-first bead or color.   These could be high contrast, or a monochromatic piece. But something because of size or pattern or texture needs to draw focal interest.

Color Blending

Every so often, you might want to create a rainbow, or some sequencing of colors, say from light to dark, where all the colors seem to emerge from the last, and bleed into the next.    This is much more difficult with beads than with paints for all the usual reasons discussed above.

A “Random” selection or placement of colors doesn’t usually work. “Alternating” or “graduating” colors doesn’t always work well.    You must create a more complex, involved patterning.   You must choreograph the layout of colors, so that, from a short distance, they look like they are blending, and gradually changing across the length of your piece.

One way to choreograph things, is to play with color proportions.   Go bead by bead or row by row, and begin with the ideal proportionate relationship between two colors.    Gradually manipulate this down the piece by anticipating the next ideal proportionate relationship between the next two colors that need to follow.

DESIGNING JEWELRY WITH COLOR

QUESTION: If your jewelry needs something else, how do you make these choices…That color’s not right, what’s not right about it? I want to add a color, which one?   My colors are not working 100% within the composition, what can I tweak?

When we study color from a design standpoint, we think of color as part of the jewelry’s structure. That means, color is not merely a decorative effect.    It is more like a building component.    The specific term is “Design Element”.    Color is the most important Design Element.      It can both stand alone, as well as easily be combined with other Design Elements.

We use color to express elements of the materials used, like glass or gemstone.   We use color to express or emphasize elements of the forms we are creating.   We use color to enhance a sense of movement or dimension.   We use color to express moods and emotions

Often, the first problem with color in design is the distribution of lights and darks.      Using the same colors, you can get very different results, based on how the colors are arranged.    When you have questions, it is useful to take a black and white photocopy of the different patterns, and to choose, based on the black and white image.

The second problem is creating a focal point with color.

The third problem is creating a rhythmic feeling, using the distribution of colors and their proportions.

Better pieces are either
(a) those with a dominant color, and some variation in values or intensities, or
(b) those that are dominant in 1 or 2 complementary or analogous colors, with some change in values and/or intensities

Better designers are able to decode the use of color and its expression within any piece.   This means being able to determine which colors were selected, define the intensity of values of these colors, determine whether placement, distribution and proportion is applied well, identify where color combined with other Design Elements creates additional expressive qualities, such as movement, dimension, and balance.    Fluent designers can decode intuitively and quickly, and apply color in more expressive ways to convey inspiration, show the artist’s strategy and intent, and trigger an especially resonant, energetic response by wearers and viewers alike.

Good Jewelry Design has:
1. Resonance
2. Strategic Use of Line
3. Strategic Placement of Colors and Proportions of Colors
4. The Use of Shapes, Forms and Themes
5. The Power To Affect the Viewer’s Emotions, Moods and Understandings of the Situations Around Her
6. Parsimony (knowing when enough is enough)

1. Resonance

Resonance is the energy the jewelry exudes.   Without resonance, jewelry is lifeless and listless.   Resonance reflects the jewelry designer’s control of light and shadow, warm and cold, receding and extending out.

Resonance doesn’t mean “sparkle.”   It doesn’t mean “bright”.   It means the mood, the rhythm, the tonality.    It means that the piece of jewelry reflects a sense of design, and a sense of the designer.    Not just art. And definitely not just craft.    Resonance is the reason why some jewelry gets your attention, and others do not.    Pick up a fashion magazine or a bead magazine, and page through it.    Which pieces catch your eye, and which ones do not?

The jewelry designer is responsible for creating jewelry which resonates.   That is, the jewelry reflects the artist’s intentions, and fully utilizes the powers of color, their combinations, their variations, their arrangements, and distributions with their pieces.

2. Strategic Use of Line

A second aspect of good jewelry design is the strategic use of line. First off, most jewelry is, in essence, a line. Things are lined up. They are organized into a line. They are worn as a line. You don’t necessarily want that line to be creepy or disjointed or disconnected.

The line has many points along it. It outlines things. It sets boundaries. It separates things which are above it from things which are below it.

The line can come to a point.   It can curve.   It can undulate.   It can snake in and around things.

It can be very long.   Or it can be short.   It can serve alone, or be joined by other lines in sequence or opposition.

The use of line accomplishes two goals.

First, the use of line creates an outline or a shape or boundary. We call this “silhouette”. Usually the silhouette identifies for the viewer, where the wearer feels comfortable accepting the viewer’s gaze, and where she does not. Can/Should the viewer gaze upon the wearer’s face, neck, breasts, belly button, wrist, elbow, upper arm, ankle, knee, thigh, groin? The line demarks the acceptable paths for gazing.

Second, the use of line creates a contour, as the eye moves all around the piece as it is worn; the line and the use of color choreographs the sense and direction and speed of movement that the viewer’s eye follows.    This choreography reveals part of the wearer’s personality, moods, and aspirations.    It can excite the viewer, or bore her.   It can resonate power, or be demure.    It can command the viewer to step forward, follow, hesitate, wait, or turn around.    It can affect self-image or social class.

Many women are afraid to wear jewelry which does not conform to a straight line.   They don’t know how to wear it.     They seek the simple straight line, over the multiple straight lines.   They seek the simple straight line, over non-straight lines.   They seek parallel lines over ones which are skewed.

It’s the jewelry designer’s duty to make the wearer comfortable with whatever line(s) the jewelry embodies.   Often this is done with the use of color.

3. Strategic Placement of Colors and Proportions of Colors

A third aspect of good design is the placement and proportions of colors.   Colors and their placement work best when they appear to have been coordinated, not necessarily matched perfectly, but neither as afterthoughts.   Everything must feel balanced and harmonious, even when the piece is asymmetrical.   Placement shows purpose.   It reflects choice.   It provides a mechanism for the viewer to evaluate the success of the piece, therefore, the success of the wearer.   It is very signifying.

4. The Use of Shapes, Forms and Themes

Interpretations and experiences with colors may change, when the color is presented within a shape, or is part of a form or theme within your piece.   After all, clusters of Design Elements can have synergistic or antagonistic effects.

Shape is an important Design Element, made up of lines and points, yet different than lines and different than points, when these stand apart from shape. Shapes serve to provide positioning, direction and orientation to the pieces, often better than lines and points. This is an important psychological function.

Shapes provide more dimensionality to pieces.   Greater dimensionality is often perceived as more contemporary, smarter, wealthier, higher status, more creative, more beautiful.

Shapes convey symbolic meanings.   Triangles suggest action. They are dynamic. They are directional. They seem purposeful and strong. They have a power over the viewer, in that they can control the viewer’s process of perception.   Triangles can be made into pyramids, flags, arrows, beacons. They are often used as elements in religious symbols.

Square shapes denote honesty and stability. They are trusted, familiar, safe, comfortable. Most shapes we encounter are squares and rectangles. Squares could also symbolize rigidity and uniformity. [An unexpected placement of squares within a piece, could evoke the opposite feelings and symbols.]

Circle shapes suggest infinity. They are associated with protection (you’re inside the circle or outside). They are associated with movement and freedom. They suggest completeness.

5. The Power To Affect the Viewer’s Emotions, Moods and Understandings of the Situations Around Her

Color affects the viewer.   It affects the viewer’s perceptions about reality.   If affects the viewer’s understandings of social relationships, power relationships, sexual relationships.   It orients the viewer to what is up and down, and left and right, and skews the viewer’s interpretations about right and wrong, beautiful and ugly, satisfying and unsatisfying, that which is to be feared and that which is to be approached.

Some colors get very associated with certain moods.   These include,

1.        Power/Highly Emotional (red)
2.        Rich (burgundy; red with black)
3.        Romantic (pink, red with white)
4.        Vital (red-orange)
5.        Earthy (red-orange with black)
6.        Friendly (orange-yellow)
7.        Soft (peach)
8.        Welcoming (amber)
9.        Moving   (yellow)
10.      Elegant (pale yellow)
11.      Fresh (green)
12.      Traditional (green with black)
13.      Refreshing (blue-green, teal, aqua)
14.      Tropical (blue-green or teal or aqua with white)
15.      Classic (royal blue)
16.      Dependable (navy Blue)
17.      Calm (pale blue, blue with white)
18.      Regal (deep blue-violet)
19.      Magical (deep red-violet
20.      Energetic (fuchsia)
21.      Subdued (any color with gray, like mauve)
22.      Professional/Corporate (gray)

But it is so easy to make a misstep with color.     The choice of the wrong color, or wrong intensity or wrong value can lead to misunderstanding, anxiety, stress, avoidance, diminished social status, destroyed relationships, and the like.    So, if you have the time, you might want to practice a little with color and evoking moods and emotions.

6. Parsimony

Parsimony means that the designed piece is finished and successful, and should the artist add or subtract one more element, the piece would be less so.    Parsimony signals when enough is enough.    The artist has not overdone or underdone the selection or application of colors.

Don’t get into a Color Rut

And a last piece of advice.
Don’t get into a color rut. Experiment with different colors. Force yourself to use colors you usually do not use or avoid. If it’s too psychologically painful, make a game of it.

_________________________________________
FOOTNOTES

^[1] Pantone website   https://www.pantone.com

^[2] Itten, Johannes. The Elements of Color: A Treatise on the Color System of Johannes Itten, NY: John Wiley & Sons, 2001

Color References Worth Checking Out

Rockport Publishers, Color Harmony Workbook, Gloucester, MA: Rockport Publishers,
                 1999.

Deeb, Margie. The Beader’s Guide to Jewelry Design, NY: Lark Jewelry & Beading,
                 2014.

Posted in Art or Craft?, art theory, beads, beadwork, design management, design theory, jewelry design, jewelry making | Tagged: art theory, beading, color theory, jewelry design | Leave a Comment »

The Goal-Oriented Designer: The Path To Resonance

Posted by learntobead on May 18, 2018

THE GOAL-ORIENTED DESIGNER:

The Path To Resonance

by Warren Feld, Designer

“Vestment”, Warren Feld, 2004, Miyuki cubes, seed beads and delicas, Austrian crystals, with 14KT, gold filled, sterling silver, and antiqued copper chain, clasps and other findings, lampwork bead by Lori Greenberg

Abstract:

Jewelry Designers want to be successful. But things can get a little muddled when thinking about how to get there. Our teachers, our friends, our colleagues often disagree on this point, and tell us to look for conflicting measures of success. We can often lose sight of what we want to end up with. The Goal-Oriented Jewelry Designer has but one guiding star: To achieve Resonance. Everything else is secondary. We achieve Resonance by gaining a comfort in communicating about design. This comfort, or disciplinary fluency, translates into all our composing, constructing and manipulating choices. This is empowering. Our pieces resonate. We achieve success.

THE GOAL-ORIENTED DESIGNER:

The Path To Resonance

Jewelry Designers want to be successful.

But things can get a little muddled when thinking about how to get there. Where should they start? What should they learn first? What materials should they accumulate? What techniques should they start with? Should they focus on the process of designing jewelry? Or moreso on making jewelry? Or still yet, on achieving certain target measures, such as numbers of pieces made, or numbers of sales, or numbers of venues in which their jewelry is sold? Are there qualitative things which are important to accumulate, such as self-satisfaction or customer-satisfaction? Or style? Or recognition? Acceptance? Understanding?

Our teachers, our friends, our colleagues often disagree on how to get there, and tell us to look for“Vestment”, Warren Feld, 2004, Miyuki cubes, seed beads and delicas, Austrian crystals, with 14KT, gold filled, sterling silver, and antiqued copper chain, clasps and other findings, lampwork bead by Lori Greenberg

Abstract:

Jewelry Designers want to be successful. But things can get a little muddled when thinking about how to get there. Our teachers, our friends, our colleagues often disagree on this point, and tell us to look for conflicting measures of success. We can often lose sight of what we want to end up with. The Goal-Oriented Jewelry Designer has but one guiding star: To achieve Resonance. Everything else is secondary. We achieve Resonance by gaining a comfort in communicating about design. This comfort, or disciplinary fluency, translates into all our composing, constructing and manipulating choices. This is empowering. Our pieces resonate. We achieve success.

THE GOAL-ORIENTED DESIGNER:

The Path To Resonance

Jewelry Designers want to be successful.

Our teachers, our friends, our colleagues often disagree on how to get there, and tell us to look for, what turn out to be in effect, conflicting measures of success. We can often lose sight of what we want to end up with. We get a lot of contradictory advice. How should we organize our creative work and our time? How should we select materials and techniques? How do we know when our piece is finished? How should we anticipate our client’s desires? How should we showcase our jewelry? How should we be judged and evaluated? We need to perform, we want to perform authentically, but how – how should we perform as a jewelry designer? The search for answers can be very frustrating, confusing, even demoralizing.

But it shouldn’t be. Every jewelry designer should have but one guiding star – Resonance. If our jewelry does not have some degree of resonance, we keep working on it. If the process of creative exploration and design does not lead us in the direction of resonance, we change it. If the results we achieve – numbers of pieces made and numbers of pieces sold – is not synced tightly with resonance, we cannot call ourselves designers.

The Goal-Oriented Jewelry Designer specifies those goals about performance which will lead to one primary outcome: To achieve Resonance. Everything else is secondary. Design elements are selected and applied with that idea of Resonance in mind. Principles of Composition, Construction and Manipulation are applied with that idea of Resonance in mind, with extra special attention paid to the Principle of Parsimony – knowing when enough is enough.

People may approach the performance tasks in varied ways. For some this means getting very detailed on pathways, activities, and objectives. For others, they let the process of design emerge and see where it takes them. Whatever approach they take in their creative process, for all designers, a focus on one outcome – Resonance – frees them up to think through design without encumbrance.

This singular focus becomes a framework within which to question everything and try to make sense of everything. Make sense of what the materials and techniques can allow them to do, and what they cannot. Make sense of what understandings other people – clients, sellers, buyers, students, colleagues, teachers – will bring to the situation, when exploring and evaluating their work. Make sense of why some things inspire you, and other things do not. Make sense of why you are a jewelry designer designing jewelry. Make sense of the fluency of your artistic expression, what works, how it works, why it works.

We achieve Resonance by gaining a comfort and ease in communicating about design. This comfort and ease, or disciplinary fluency, has to do with how we translate our inspirations and aspirations into all our compositional, constructive and manipulative choices. It is empowering. Our pieces resonate. We achieve success.

Resonance, communication, success, fluency – these are all words that stand in place for an intimacy between the designer and the materials, the designer and the techniques, the designer and inspiration. They reflect the designer’s aspirations. They reflect the shared understandings of everyone the designer’s jewelry is expected to touch. They reflect the designer’s managerial prowess in bringing all these things together.

Resonance and disciplinary fluency result from a well-managed jewelry design process ^[3]. This process of creativity involves artist, audience and context. It is very interactional. Transactional. Integrative. Contingent.

For the artist, this process functions on several, coordinated levels, including…

Contemplation
Inspiration
Aspiration
Anticipation
Specification
Application
Fluency and Empowerment

CONTEMPLATION: An Intimacy with Materials and Techniques

Contemplation is a mystical theology.

Beads have a mystique to them. You stare at a bead, and, ask what it is. You put some thread on a needle, then the bead on the needle, and ask what to do. You stitch a few beads together, and wonder what will become of this. You create a necklace, and, ask how it will be worn. And you stare at each bead again, and, think where do all these feelings welling up within you come from – curiosity, beauty, peace and calm, reflection, satisfaction, magic, appeal, a sensuousness and sexuality. Your brain and eye enter into this fantastic dance, a fugue of focusing, refocusing, gauging and re-gauging light, color, shadow, a shadow’s shadow, harmony, and discord.

You don’t just bead and make jewelry. There’s a lot involved here.

You have to buy (or fabricate) beads and findings and stringing materials, organize them, buy some extra parts, think about them, create with them, live with some failed creations, and go from there. If there wasn’t something special about how our materials translate light into color, shade and shadow, then jewelry making would simply be work. But it’s not.

You have to put one piece next to another…and then another. And when you put two beads next to each other, or one on top of the other, you’re doing God’s work. There’s nothing as spectacular as painting and sculpting with light.

This bead before you — why is it so enticing? Why do you beg it to let you be addicted? An object with a hole. How ridiculous its power. Some curving, some faceting, some coloration, some crevicing or texturing, some shadow, some bending of light. That’s all it is. Yet you’re drawn to it in a slap-silly sort of way.

When you arrange many beads, the excitement explodes geometrically within your being. Two beads together are so much more than one. Four beads so much more than two. A hundred beads so much more than twenty-five times four. The pleasure is uncontainable. You feel so powerful. Creative. You can make more of what you have than with what you started.

You need to select a method or strategy for arranging your beads. There are so many choices. Your organization should be appealing. It must enhance the power the bead has for you, then transcend as a power the bead has for others. It must be architecturally correct because this architecture determines the wear, drape and flow where the jewelry meets the person at the boundary between bead and body.

And this assembling — another gift. String through the hole, pull, tug, align, and string through the hole, pull, tug, align, and string through the hole, pull, tug, align, and string through the hole, pull, tug, align. So meditative. Calming. How could beads be so stress-relieving, other-worldly-visiting, and creative-exciting at the same time?

Contemplation. To contemplate the bead is to enter the deep reaches of your mind where emotion is one with geometry, and geometry is one with art, and art is one with physics, and beads are one with self.

Designing jewelry is an authentic performance task. This involves a profound intimacy with the materials (and techniques) the artist relies on. This intimacy means understanding how to select them, how to leverage their strengths and minimize their weaknesses, and how to manage their ability to enhance or impede resonance.

INSPIRATION: Becoming One with What Inspires You

Inspirations are sacred revelations you want to share through art and design.

The word inspiration comes from the Latin roots meaning “to breathe into.” But before you can breathe your inspiration into your jewelry, you need to become one with it.

There are these wonderfully exciting, sensually terrific, incredibly fulfilling things that you find as you try to imagine the jewelry you will create. They come from many sources: ideas, nature, images, people, behaviors. They might be realistic or abstract. They may be the particular color or pattern or texture or the way the light hits it and casts a shadow. They may be a need for order over chaos. They may be points of view. They may flow from some inner imagination.

For some reason, these inspirations take on a divine, sacred revelation for you – so meaningful that you want to incorporate them somehow into what you do. A fire in your soul. You want to translate these inspirations into colors, shapes, lines, patterns and textures. You want to impose an organization on them. You want to recapture their energy and power they have had over you. You feel compelled to bring these feelings into ideas.

There are many challenges to inspiration. That which we call “inspiring” can often be somewhat fuzzy. It might be a feeling. It might be a piece of an idea, or a small spot on an image. You might feel inspired, but, cannot put the What or the Why into words or images. On the surface, it may seem important to you, but unimportant to others. You the artist may not feel in control of the inspiration in that it seems like it is something that is evoked, not necessarily directed, by you.

When inspired, artists perceive new possibilities that transcend that which is ordinary around them. Too often, the artist feels passive in this process. This transcendence does not feel like a willfully generated idea. However, it needs to be. The successful artist – one who eventually can achieve a level of resonance – is one who is not only inspired by, but also inspired to. This all requires a great deal of metacognitive self-awareness. The artist must be able to perceive the intrinsic value of the inspiring object, and how to extend this value in design, where the piece of jewelry becomes its expression.

Inspiration is motivating. Inspiration is not the source of creativity; creativity does not come from it. Inspiration, instead, should be viewed as a motivational response to creativity. It motivates the artist, through jewelry and its design, to connect this inspiration with others. It serves as a mediator between the self and the anticipated shared understandings of others. The jewelry encapsulates the artist’s ability to make this connection. When the connection is well-made, resonance follows.

But finding inspirations is not only personal, but more importantly, it is an effort to influence others. It is an act of translating the emotions which resonate in you into some object of art which, in turn, will inspire and resonate with others. How does the inspiration occur to you, and how do you anticipate how this inspiration might occur to others?

Too often we lose sight of the importance of inspiration to the authentic performance task of creating jewelry. We operate with the belief that anyone can be inspired by anything. There’s nothing more to it. Moreover, inspiration gets downplayed when put next to the discussion of the effort of making jewelry itself. But it should not. Inspiration is not less important than perspiration. It plays an equal role in the creative process. The artist’s clarity about why something is inspiring, and why this inspiration motivates the artist to respond, will be critical for achieving success, that is resonance.

ASPIRATION: Translating Creativity into A Technical Product Design

Aspiration motivates the artist to actualize inspiration.

Aspiration is where the artist translates inspiration into a completed product design. The artist begins to control and regulate what happens next. This involves selecting Design Elements^[1] and clustering them to formulate meaningful expressions. The artist then applies Principles of Composition, Construction and Manipulation^[2] for organizing and arranging things into a more complete whole with more elaborated expressions. The greater value the artist places on resonance, the stronger the aspiration will be to achieve it.

Aspiration is future-oriented. It requires a stick-to-it-ness. The artist must be sufficiently motivated to invest the time, energy and money into designing and making the jewelry that will not necessarily be finished, displayed or sold right away. It may require some additional learning and skills-development time. The artist may need to find a level of creativity within, and discover the kinds of skills, techniques and insights necessary for bringing this creativity to the aspired task at hand.

Aspiration requires the calculus: Is it worth it? It adds a level of risk to the project. It forces the artist to pay attention to the world around her or him. This world presents dynamic clues – what I discuss below as shared understandings – about opportunities, constraints, risks, contingencies, consequences, strategies and goals, and likely successes.

For some artists, motivation primarily is seen as instinctual. Think of seat-of-the-pants. Emergent, not controlled. A search for harmony, balance, rhythm, unity as something that feels right and looks right and seems right with the universe. Expressive, yes. Imaginative, yes. But not necessarily resonant.

Achieving resonance, however, is, for the most part, more than instinctual. It has some deliberate quality to it. It is communicative. It requires a purposeful act on the part of the artist. It is a different type of motivation — intentional. The artist might want to convey a specific emotion. Or advocate for some change. Or illustrate a point of view. The artist may want to entertain or teach. Heal. Attract mates. Propagandize. Where a jewelry’s design is not reflective of an artist’s intent, there can be no resonance.

ANTICIPATION: Shared Understandings^[4]

Shared understandings dictate opportunities, contingencies and constraints.

The question of whether the audience correctly infers the presence of the artist’s inspiration, and the sense of how the artist’s hand comes into play within the design, remains. The answer revolves around a dynamic interaction between artist and audience, as they anticipate understandings they share, and ones they do not.

Shared understandings should be enduring, transferable, big ideas at the heart of what we think of as good jewelry design. These shared understandings are things which spark meaningful connections between designer and materials, designer and techniques, and designer and client. We need, however, to recognize that the idea of understanding is very multidimensional and complicated.

Understanding is not one achievement, but more the result of several loosely organized choices. Understanding is revealed through performance and evidence. Jewelry designers must perform effectively with knowledge, insight, wisdom and skill to convince us – the world at large and the client in particular — that they really understand what design is all about. This involves a big interpersonal component where the artist introduces their jewelry to a wider audience and subjects it to psychological, social, cultural, and economic assessment.

Understanding is more than knowledge. The designer may be able to articulate what needs to be done to achieve something labeled good jewelry design, but, may not know how to apply it.

Understanding is more than interpretation. The designer may be able to explain how a piece was constructed and conformed to ideas about good jewelry design, but this does not necessarily account for the significance of the results.

Understanding is more than applying principles of construction. It is more than simply organizing a set of design elements into an arrangement. The designer must match knowledge and interpretation about good jewelry design to the context. Application is a context-dependent skill.

Understanding is more than perspective. The designer works within a myriad of expectations and points of view about good jewelry design. The designer must dispassionately anticipate these various perspectives about design, and, bring some constructed point of view and knowledge of implications to bear within the design and design process.

We do not design in a vacuum. The designer must have the ability to empathize with individuals and grasp their individual and group cultures. If selling their jewelry, the designer must have the ability to empathize with small and larger markets, as well. Empathy is not sympathy. Empathy is where we can feel what others feel, and see what others see.

Last, understanding is self-knowledge, as well. The designer should have the self-knowledge, wisdom and insights to know how their own patterns of thought may inform, as well as prejudice, their understandings of good jewelry design.

How the jewelry designer begins the process of creating a piece of jewelry is very revealing about the potential for success, and ultimately achieving a level of resonance. The designer should always begin the process by articulating the essential shared understandings against which their work will be evaluated and judged. For now, let’s refer to this as Backwards Design^[5]. The designer starts with questions about assessment, and then allows this understanding to influence all other choices going forward.

Some essential shared understandings for good jewelry design, I would posit, might include the following:

Every designer has some creative ability, but may need to learn concepts and techniques and ways to apply them
Some understandings are universal and objective, particularly in reference to the selection, clustering and application of various Design Elements, such as color, shape, movement and dimension.
Other understandings are both objective and subjective. There is universal acceptance of what various organization and arrangement schemes — Principles of Composition, Construction and Manipulation – might be applied by the artist. However, how they are actually applied, and how satisfying that is to various audiences, is very personal and subjective.
The strengths and limitations of various materials or techniques should be respected, maximizing the strengths and minimizing the limitations
Jewelry should communicate and reflect the artist’s intent
Jewelry should affirm the wearer’s purpose and identity in context
Jewelry can only be considered as art, as it is worn
We know the jewelry is finished and successful when the choices made and the tradeoffs among appeal, function, and context are implemented to the point we see parsimony and resonance.

SPECIFICATION: Goal-Orientation

It’s not just what you do…it’s how you get there.

Jewelry designers are too quick to focus on the outcome, and too lax to focus on the process. It’s always things like getting it done. Getting it to the client on deadline. Ending up with something concrete to show someone. Too much concentration on outcome can lead to taking shortcuts. Shortsightedness. Inflexibility. A misunderstanding, perhaps illusion about, whether the piece is finished and successful.

Artists more appropriately should focus on goals. Artists who are focused on goals tend to embrace process. It’s about all the smart choices regarding composition, construction and manipulation you made at each increment along the way. By specifying goals, the artist is encouraged to find connections, and be connected to and aware of shared understandings and their impact on perceived success. When problems arise, a goal-oriented focus allows the artist to be flexible and problem solve. The artist is present from contemplation to inspiration and through to aspiration, anticipation, specification and application. The goal-orientation prevents the artist from becoming lost or paralyzed with inaction.

The jewelry artist pursues several goals at once. The jewelry should be both appealing and functional. It should evoke emotion, elicit response, and resonate. The piece should show both unity and variety. The piece should create opinions, validate status, and reconfirm a cultural and social identify. The piece should be reflective and communicative. It should be pleasurable to the maker, the wearer and the viewer alike.

When specifying goals, it is important to remember that not all goals are alike. The goals I am discussing here are the essential elements related to effective performance. That effective performance results in a finished and successful piece of jewelry reflective of the artist’s hand and which resonates among a varied set of audiences.

The artist needs to set goals which clarify what results need to be accomplished by the time any piece of jewelry is finished and showcased. Goals provide perspective. They are there to prevent the artist from achieving anything less than resonance. These goals relate to generating deep understandings and competence at performance. They are not results-specific per se; they are overarching. They serve as sign-posts to point to and highlight what jewelry designers need to engage with when thinking through and implementing design.

The jewelry designer specifies goals as standards of professional performance, such as…

Leveraging the strengths and minimizing the weaknesses of desired materials and techniques
Discussing and reflecting upon inspirations and motivations toward the expression of the creative self
Defining aspirational intent, point of view, and what it means to connect to various audiences
Delineating shared understandings among self, wearer, viewer, student, master, buyer and seller, in relationship to how the jewelry will be observed and assessed and worn within a context
Elaborating on all artistic and architectural elements and principles which should come into play, and why
Reflecting on personal learning throughout the process, particularly as it relates to developing and expanding on skills related to fluency in design
Determining how skills, insights and lessons learned from the current project might be transferred to your next one

Within each generalized performance goal, the designer can further identify particular tasks, knowledges and skills required in order to accomplish them. Often, with too many choices about what to do, what to include, and how to proceed, priorities and timeframes will need to be set, as well.

Resonance is more easily achieved when the designer approaches design as a process, an understanding of the myriad sets and levels of choices as made within a coherent system of creative thinking and activity, and with clear performance goals to guide the way.

APPLICATION: Unity, Emotions, Resonance

Think like an assessor^[6]…find evidence related to desired results.

What is the evidence we need to know for determining when a piece is finished and successful? What clear and appropriate criteria specify what we should look at?

There are different opinions in craft, art and design about what are the most revealing and important aspects of the work, and which every authentic jewelry design performance must meet.

The traditional criteria used in the art world are that the designer should achieve unity, variety and evoke emotions. These, I feel, may work well when applied to paintings or sculpture, but they are insufficient measures of success when applied to jewelry. Jewelry involves the creation of objects where both artistic appeal as well as practical considerations of use are essential. The artistry of jewelry cannot be distinguished from that jewelry as it is worn, and the context within which it is worn. So, when referencing any jewelry’s design, I prefer to use criteria of parsimony and resonance, instead. We know when a piece is finished and successful when the choices of the artist are deemed parsimonious, and the various audiences perceive the piece to resonate.

Parsimony vs. Unity/Variety

In art, the traditional measure of completion and success is a feeling or sense of “Unity.” Unity signifies how everything feels all right. All the Design Elements used, and how they were coordinated and placed, are very coherent, clear, balanced, harmonious and satisfying. I think the idea of unity begins to get at the place we want to end up. But this concept is not concrete enough for me.

What bothers me the most is that you can have unity, but the piece still be seen as boring when there is no variety. Criteria provided from the art perspective recognizes this. But somehow tempering unity with variety starts to add some ambiguity to our measurements of finish and success. This ambiguity is unacceptable as a principled outcome of jewelry construction.

Another concern I have, is that you can have unity with variety, but, from the art perspective, these assessments rely too much on universal, objective perceptions of design elements and their attributes (for example, the use of color schemes). Resonance is not about picking the correct color scheme. It is more about how that color scheme is used, manipulated, leveraged or violated within the piece. We must not leave the artist, the wearer, and the situation out of the equation. We must not minimize the artist’s hand – the artist’s intent, thinking, strategizing, arranging, pushing the boundaries, even violating the universal, objective rules.

Jewelry creation usually demands a series of judgment calls and tradeoffs. Tradeoffs between aesthetics and functionality. Tradeoffs between artist goals and audience understandings and expectations. Tradeoffs between a full palette of colors-shapes-textures and a very limited one. Any measure of completeness and success needs to result from the forced choice decisions of the artist. It needs to account for the significance of the results, not just the organization of them. It needs to explain the Why, not just the What.

For me, the more appropriate concept here is Parsimony. Parsimony is when you know enough is enough. When the finished and successful piece is parsimonious, the relationship of all the Design Elements and their expressed attributes will be so strong, that to add or remove any one thing would diminish, not just the design, but rather the significance of the design.

Parsimony is sometimes referred to in art and design as Economy, but the idea of economy is reserved for the visual effects. The designer needs to be able to decide when enough is enough. For jewelry designers, we want that economy or parsimony to apply to functional and situational effects, as well.

Parsimony…

– forces explanation; its forced-choice nature is most revealing about the artist’s understandings and intentions

– relies on evidence moreso than assumptions to get at criticality

– focuses examination of the few elements that make a difference

Resonance vs. Evoking Emotions

Finished and successful jewelry should not only evoke emotions, but, should resonate.

Resonance is something more than emotion. It is some kind of additional energy we see, feel and otherwise experience. Emotion is very reactive. Resonance is intuitive, involving, identifying. Resonance is an empathetic response where artist and audience realize a shared (or contradictory) understanding without losing sight of whose views and feelings belong to whom.

Resonance results from how the artist controls light, shadow, and their characteristics of warmth and cold, receding and approaching, bright and dull, light and dark. Resonance results from how the artist leverages the strengths of materials and techniques and minimizes their weaknesses. Resonance results from social, cultural and situational cues. Resonance results from how the artist takes us to the edge of universal, objective understandings, and pushes us every so slightly, but not too, too far, beyond that edge.

Jewelry which resonates…

– is communicative and authentic

– shows the artist’s hand as intention, not instinct

– evokes both an emotional as well as energetic response from wearer and viewer

– shows both degrees of control, as well as moments of the unexpected

– makes something noteworthy from something ordinary

– finds the whole greater than the sum of the parts

– lets the materials and techniques speak

– anticipates shared understandings of many different audiences about design elements and principles, and some obvious inclusion, exclusion or intentional violation of them

– results from a design process that appears to have been more systemic (e.g., ingrained within an integrated process) than systematic (e.g., a step-by-step approach)

– both appeals and functions at the boundary where jewelry meets person

FLUENCY[7] AND EMPOWERMENT: Managing Choices In Expression

Empowerment is about successfully making choices. These are choices about expressing one’s intent through art and design.

These choices could be as simple as whether to follow through on some inspiration. They might involve selection of elements of design, or principled arrangements of beads, forms and components. The designer will make choices about how to draw someone’s attention to the piece, or, present the piece to a larger audience. The designer will make choices between aesthetics and functionality. She or he may decide to submit the piece to a magazine or contest. She or he may want to sell the piece and market it. The designer will make choices about how a piece might be worn, or who might wear it, or when it might be worn, in what context.

The fluent designer will be adept at making these choices. The better designer is able to bring a high level of coherence and consistency to the process of managing all this – intent, shared understandings, knowledge and skills, evaluative review, and reflection and adjustment. This is called “fluency in design”.

Fluency is the ability of the designer to select and connect Design Elements smoothly, in visually and functionally and situationally appropriate ways with understanding. The idea of understanding is broadly defined, to include the artist’s personal goals for expression, as well as the expectations of all the audiences – the wearer, the viewer, the buyer, the seller, the student, the master. The better designer achieves a level of disciplinary literacy where fluency becomes automatic, accurate, and rapidly applied.

The better, more fluent jewelry designer is able to anticipate how others will come to understand these mechanisms and the implications for applying them in one way or another. For example, the better and more fluent designer would be able to select and combine design elements to appropriately differentiate jewelry that would best be worn at work, and jewelry that would best be worn, say, when someone was going to a night club for dancing and socializing.

Lastly, fluency means that the designer has also been taught to look for, anticipate and incorporate context clues. Design does not occur in a vacuum. It has implications which become realized in a context. That context might be historical, cultural or situational.

More proficient, fluent jewelry designers will be comfortable

and somewhat intentional and fluid in their abilities to…

Leverage strengths and minimize weaknesses of materials and techniques.

Decode, select, cluster and apply Design Elements, and implement and apply various organizational arrangements related to Principles of Composition, Construction and Manipulation.
Work within shared understandings about jewelry and its successful design.
Apply key knowledge and skills to achieve the desired result.
Anticipate how their work will be reviewed, judged and evaluated by criteria reflective of these same shared understandings.
Communicate their intent.
Step back, reflect, and validate all their thinking to reject any misunderstandings, and make adjustments accordingly.

RUBRIC^[8] AS THINKING ROUTINE

Designers need a simple map to all these ideas about literacy and fluency – something they can easily review and determine where their strengths and weaknesses are as they gain proficiency and fluency in design. One type of map is a rubric.

A rubric is a table of criteria used to rate and rank understanding and performance. A rubric answers the question by what criteria performance should be judged. The rubric provides insightful clues for the kinds of evidence we need to make such assessments. The rubric helps us distinguish degrees of performance, from the sophisticated to the naïve. The rubric encapsulates what an authentic jewelry design performance would look like.

Such a rubric is presented below for the artist to use as a thinking routine.^[9] Here I have used one rubric to represent both (1) understanding and (2) performance, but, I could have easily created two separate rubrics toward this end. In this rubric table below, the rows represent contemplation, inspiration, aspiration, anticipation, application, and fluency and empowerment. The columns represent the degrees of understanding and performance along a continuum, from proficient on one end to not there yet on the other. By way of example, I use the rubric to assess my performance with a piece I created called Vestment (Feld, 2004).

RUBRIC: How Proficient Am I In Achieving Resonance?

The Rubric…

UNDERSTANDING

PERFORMANCE

4- Proficient

Insightful, intuitive understanding, effectively established, with clear intent, and well supported by details

3-Capable

Well-considered understanding, appropriately established and supported by details

2-Shows Potential

Some plausible understanding, some consistency established and supported by details, but not always sustained

1-Not There Yet

Superficial or no understanding, not consistent or sustained, perhaps vague or incomplete

CONTEMPLATION

Exhibiting an intimacy with the materials and techniques

Purposeful in selection of materials and techniques which synergistically work together

Insightful understanding and clear ability to leverage strengths and minimize weaknesses of materials and techniques

Selects materials appropriate for technique used, and select technique appropriate for task at hand

Some ability to leverage strengths and minimize weaknesses of materials and techniques

Selects materials and techniques for which may have some fit the task at hand, but could not articulate the reasons why

Has limited understanding of the strengths and weaknesses materials and techniques bring to the task at hand

Does not understand the relationship between the selection of materials and techniques and the task at hand

Has no understanding of the strengths and weaknesses materials and technique

INSPIRATION

Sharing sacred revelations art and design

Clearly recognizes intrinsic value between inspiration and the design of finished piece; applies inspiration

Deliberately reflects on using inspiration and the design of the piece to motivate and energized others to so be inspired

Some recognition of the connection between inspiration and the design of finished piece; applies inspiration

Thinks how others might be inspired by and emotionally connected to the piece as well

Passively responds to inspiring objects while designing piece with some intent to evoke a personal emotion but limited intent to evoke that emotion in others; consumes inspiration

Does not think deeply about how the piece might inspire others

Either does not begin with an inspiration, or only a weak connection between an inspiring object and the design of a piece

Does not think about how the piece might inspire others

ASPIRATION

Actualizing inspiration into a design

Can clearly and intentionally

translate a feeling or idea into a jewelry design or model; With considerable intention and control, select and arrange Design Elements, Principles of Composition, Construction and Manipulation resulting in an inspiring design which resonates

Can clearly determine risk-calculus comparing all costs associated with constructing piece relative to all benefits from how the finished piece will be received

Can, with some clarity, translate a feeling or idea into a jewelry design or model, and select Design Elements and Principles of Composition, Construction and Manipulation which come together well and evokes emotion

Has an intuitive feel for the risk-calculus, comparing all costs associated with constructing piece relative to all benefits from how the finished piece will be received

Can translate a feeling or idea into a jewelry design or model, but mostly based on instinct rather than intent; can select Design Elements and Principles of Composition, Construction and Manipulation which results in a satisfying design

Has not taken the time to think about the risk-calculus for implementing a design

A jewelry design emerges somehow, but there is little obvious connection to an inspiration or an artist’s intention

Does not know how to think about the risk-calculus for implementing a design

ANTICIPATION

Awareness of shared understandings

Shows empathy;

can anticipate others’ points of view, and how to incorporate them with his/her own

Can engage with others around this project

Can delineate misunderstandings

Can explain how a piece and its construction conforms to others’ ideas of good jewelry design, and shows some evidence in applying this

Anticipates some understandings, but is somewhat reactive to them

Can explain, in an academic sense, how a piece fits broad understandings about good design, but is weak in applying this

Is weak, in reality, at anticipating others’ understandings about design and is very reactive to them

Cannot explain or apply understandings of how a piece fits a definition of good design

Does not anticipate others’ understandings about design, nor responds to them in any significant way

SPECIFICATION

Clarifying what results need to be accomplished

Can clearly define and articulate those performance goals necessary to achieve resonance

Can implement a coherent process and system of creative thinking and activity as a series of smart choices leading up to the finished product

Can make visible the consequences of his/her design process choices

Can identify what it will take to overcome misunderstandings, and flexibly problem solve, when necessary

Can define some performance goals necessary to achieve resonance

Can implement an organized process of creative production

Can identify some consequences related to his/her design process choices

Can identify misunderstandings and determine some strategies in response, when necessary

Does not overtly define performance goals necessary to achieve resonance; however, may have an intuitive sense of some performance goals which need to occur

Does not work within an organized process of creative production

Does not identify consequences related to his/her design process choices

Does not identify misunderstandings, nor develop strategies for overcoming these when they occur

Is not yet performance goal-oriented.

Does not understand how to define or work within an organized process of creative production

Cannot identify consequences related to his/her design process choices

Does not recognize, or incorporate shared understandings or misunderstandings into the creative process

APPLICATION

Strategically and parsimoniously selecting Design Elements and applying of Principles of Composition, Construction and Manipulation

Provides in-depth, coherent, insightful, and credible reasons, based on evidence and both art and design theory, for all design choices, particularly tradeoffs among aesthetics, function and context

Argues what is central to piece that makes it work; emphasizes application in context

Uses materials, techniques, design elements and principles in an especially novel way

Determines confidently that piece is finished and successful, that is parsimonious and resonant

Provides coherent, insightful reasons based on evidence in art theory for all design choices

Weak or no tradeoffs among aesthetics, function and context.

Uses materials, techniques, design elements and principles in novel way

Judges based on personal and art theory assumptions when piece is finished and successful, that is unified with some variety, and evokes emotions

Provides justifications for design choices, but not grounded in art or design theory and perspective

Does not make any accommodations among aesthetics, function and context

Uses materials, techniques, design elements and principles in interesting or generally appealing way

The piece is finished when the artist stops working on it; no judgements related to success

Does not recognize the design process as a series of choices, or in any way rooted in art or design theory and perspective

Does not understand that tradeoffs may need to get made among aesthetics, function and context

Does not show significant understanding about materials, techniques, design elements, principles, and how to choose, cluster them

Shows no confidence in determining whether piece is finished or successful.

EMPOWERMENT

Managing design process and demonstrating disciplinary literacy

Intuitive; metacognitive; can make choices based on intent, and anticipate implications of choices; can take a critical stance; can

recognize personal and situational biases

Effective and appearing almost effortless decoding Design Elements and applying Principles of Composition, Construction, and Manipulation; has complete and extensive knowledge about Elements and Principles and their application in context

Somewhat intuitive; can articulate some of the intentional choices and their implications made in design process; may not be fully aware of personal and situational biases

Understands what is required for decoding Design Elements and applying Principles of Composition, Construction, and Manipulation, but does this with some effort and some varying degrees of effectiveness; has extensive knowledge of Elements and Principles

Weak demonstration of process management; typically following step-by-step process outline or instructions where most choices have been made for the artist; unaware of implications of choices

Doing some decoding of Design Elements and some applying of Principles, but with some difficulties or misconceptions; may have considerable but not full knowledge of Elements and Principles

No demonstration of process management; requires others to delineate the necessary design and implementation choices; unaware that there are implications for any choice

Noticeable difficulties (or unable to do) decoding Design Elements and applying Principles; generally unfamiliar with full range of Elements and Principles

RUBRIC: How Proficient Am I In Achieving Resonance?

The piece…

“Vestment”, by Warren Feld, 2008

I was contracted to do a series of workshops on Contemporizing Etruscan Jewelry. “Vestment” was one of the pieces I created as a contemporized version of a traditional Etruscan collar. Contemporized refers to drawing inspiration from a traditional piece, not reviving or imitating it per se.

With my contemporized version of this Etruscan Collar, I’ve used bead weaving techniques (Ndebele stitch and Petersburg chain stitch) to get a more dimensional effect, stronger color play, and a more contemporary sense of fashion and wearability.

The piece shown uses Miyuki cubes, seed beads and delicas, Austrian crystals, with 14KT, gold filled, sterling silver, and antiqued copper chain, clasps and other findings. With some pieces, I include artist-created handmade lampwork beads made by Lori Greenberg.

My Etruscan VESTMENT is worn like a scarf. It is meant to present a different jewelry profile than a typical necklace. It is at once formal and relaxed, complementing the body and fashion, rather than competing with it. The Vestment fastens in the front.

The main strips of the vestment are created using a double-layered, Ndebele stitch. These strips are attached to the clasp with an assemblage of pieces created using the Petersburg chain stitch.

Detail 1

Detail 2

Traditional Etruscan Collar

If I were using the Rubric above to evaluate my conception, design and implementation of this piece – Vestment – I would be thinking about the following…

CONTEMPLATION Score 4

Exhibiting an intimacy with the materials and techniques

The Ndebele stitch allows a fluidity and draping while still maintaining the basic shape. Using two small beads and a cube to make the Ndebele stitch, rather than the traditional four small beads to complete the stitch, adds resonance. Creating two overlapping layers of stitching creates unusual color/shadow effects while the piece is worn.

INSPIRATION Score 4

Sharing sacred revelations art and design

This piece draws inspiration from form, cultural color preferences, yet results in a very contemporary piece with more fluidity, dimensionality, movement, and sensual appeal.

ASPIRATION Score 4

Actualizing inspiration into a design

The design shows considerable intent and forethought in bringing together color, materials, techniques, forms, in a coherent arrangement.

ANTICIPATION Score 3

Awareness of shared understandings

The piece is generally well-received, with some questions about how and when it is to be worn, and whether it is sufficiently contemporary in design.

SPECIFICATION Score 3

Clarifying what results need to be accomplished

At the time I created this design, my process was generally organized but with considerable trial and error. Tried to get result of appealing piece, had difficulty making tradeoffs between aesthetics and functionality. Did not have a clear understanding of resonance.

APPLICATION Score 3

Strategically and parsimoniously selecting Design Elements and applying of Principles of Composition, Construction and Manipulation

Was primarily driven by art theory, with more last minute choices about functionality. Otherwise, made strategic choices in selecting materials, construction techniques, and meeting most contemporary expectations.

EMPOWERMENT Score 3

Managing design process and demonstrating disciplinary literacy

Was not fluent in design at this point in time. Most of my great strategic choices were more intuitive than intentional.

_________________________________________________________

WARREN FELD, Jewelry Designer

warren@warrenfeldjewelry.com

615-292-0610

His pieces have appeared in beading and jewelry magazines and books. One piece is in the Swarovski museum in Innsbruck, Austria.

He is probably best known for creating the international The Ugly Necklace Contest, where good jewelry designers attempt to overcome our pre-wired brains’ fear response for resisting anything Ugly.

_________________________________________________________

FOOTNOTES
^[1] Feld, Warren. “Jewelry Design Composition: Playing with Building Blocks Called Design Elements,” 3/17/2018

^[2] Feld, Warren. “Jewelry Design Principles: Composing, Constructing, Manipulating,” 4/25/2018

^[3] Feld, Warren. “Jewelry Design: A Managed Process,” Klimt02, 2/2/18. https://klimt02.net/forum/articles/jewelry-design-managed-process-warren-feld

^[4]Shared Understandings. In another graduate education class, the major text reviewed the differences between understanding and knowledge. The question was how to teach understanding. Worth the read to gain many insights about how to structure teaching to get sufficient understanding to enrich learning.
Understanding by Design by Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe, 2^nd Edition, Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 2005.
^[5] Backwards Design. One of the big take-aways from
Understanding by Design (see footnote 3) was the idea they introduced of “backwards design”. Their point is that you can better teach understanding if you anticipate the evidence others will use in their assessments of what you are trying to do. When coupled with ideas about teaching literacy and fluency (see footnote 2), you can begin to introduce ideas about managing the design process in a coherent and alignable way.
^[6]
Understanding by Design by Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe, 2^nd Edition, p. 146, Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 2005.
^[7]Fluency. I took two graduate education courses in Literacy. The primary text we used was Literacy: Helping Students Construct Meaning by J. David Cooper, M. Robinson, J.A. Slansky and N. Kiger, 9th Edition, Cengage Learning, 2015. Even though the text was not about jewelry designing per se, it provides an excellent framework for understanding what fluency is all about, and how fluency with language develops over a period of years. I have relied on many of the ideas in the text to develop my own ideas about a disciplinary literacy for jewelry design.

^[8]Rubrics.
Understanding by Design by Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe, 2^nd Edition, p. 146, Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 2005.
^[9] Thinking Routines. I teach jewelry design. I find it useful to engage students with various ways of thinking out loud. They need to hear me think out loud about what choices I am making and what things I am considering when making those choices. They need to hear themselves think out loud so that they can develop strategies for getting more organized and strategic in dealing with information and making decisions. My inspiration here was based on the work done by Visible Thinking by Project Zero at Harvard Graduate School of Education .

Posted in Art or Craft?, art theory, beads, beadwork, design management, design theory, jewelry design, jewelry making, Learn To Bead, Stitch 'n Bitch | Tagged: art theory, beading, design process management, design theory, jewelry, jewelry design, resonance | 1 Comment »

Jewelry Design Principles: Composing, Constructing, Manipulating

Posted by learntobead on April 24, 2018

JEWELRY DESIGN PRINCIPLES:

COMPOSING, CONSTRUCTING, MANIPULATING

by Warren Feld, Designer

Abstract:

It is not happenstance that some pieces of jewelry draw your attention, and others do not. It is the result of an artist fluent in design. That fluency begins with selecting Design Elements, but it comes to full fruition with the application of Principles of Composition, Construction and Manipulation. This is where the artist flourishes, shows a recognition of shared understandings about good design, and makes that cluster of jewelry design choices resulting in a piece that is seen as both finished and successful. These Principles represent different organizing schemes the artist might resort to. Jewelry artists translate these Principles a little differently than painters or sculptors, in that jewelry presents different demands and expectations on the artist. The better artist/designer achieves a level of disciplinary literacy – selecting Design Elements and applying Principles — where fluency becomes automatic, accurate, and rapidly applied.

JEWELRY DESIGN PRINCIPLES:

COMPOSING, CONSTRUCTING, MANIPULATING

Some pieces of jewelry draw your attention. Others do not.

This is not a matter of happenstance. It is the result of an artist fluent in design. That fluency begins with the selection of Design Elements – the smallest meaningful units of design. But it comes to full fulfillment with the application and manipulation of Principles of Composition, Construction and Manipulation. These “organizing schemes” reflect what the individual artist wants to express, and how the individual artist anticipates how others will understand and respond to this expression.

Design Elements, which I have discussed in an earlier article ^[1], are like building blocks and function a bit like the vowel and consonant letters of the alphabet. They have form. They have meaning. They can be assembled into different arrangements which extend their meaning and usefulness in expression. Examples: color, shape, texture, point/line/plane, movement, dimensionality, and the like. Each Design Element has a set of expressive attributes. Color can be expressed as a color scheme, or as proportions, or as simultaneity effects. Shape can be geometric or dimensional or recognizable or symbolic. And so forth.

Design Elements function like a vocabulary. They represent universally accepted expressive content. Visualize the analogy between design elements and vocabulary. Picture a “t”, perhaps combined with an “h”, and then with an “e”. Or, picture the difficulty in trying to combine a “th” with a “z”. Or, still yet, picture how the “c” in “cat” is pronounced differently than the “c” in “sense”, yet still recognized as a “c”. In similar ways, the artist might decide to use the design elements of “color” and “line,” and combine them to yield another design element of “movement.” Literacy begins with the ability to decode, and this ability centers on the selection and use of Design Elements.

Principles of Composition, Construction and Manipulation function more like a grammar. Given the Design Elements selected by the artist, Principles represent organizing strategies to which the artist resorts when attempting to achieve a piece that will be seen as both “finished” and “successful”, both by the artist, as well as that artist’s audience. The artist might arrange several design elements and their expressive attributes to yield a higher level organizing principle. For example, the artist might combine color(intensity)+line(direction)+

shape( geometry)+placement(symmetry)+balance+material” to yield a sense of “rhythm.”

To continue our analogy with vocabulary, grammar and literacy, picture our “t”, “h” and “e” put together to form a full word like ”thesaurus”, then expanded into an idea, like “teachers like to use a thesaurus”, and further expressed, in anticipation of a response, to something like “but students hate when the teacher asks them to use a thesaurus.”

Literacy goes beyond decoding; it includes a fluency in how the Design Elements are organized to evoke an emotional response. This involves an intuitive understanding of Principles of Composition, Construction and Manipulation, and how to apply them. While Design Elements are selected primarily based on shared, more universal understandings of what they express, often, Principles are applied in ways more reflective of artist’s hand, and its subjective expression.

The successful jewelry designer has developed a fluency in the Disciplinary Literacy of jewelry design. Fluency is the ability of the designer to select and connect Design Elements smoothly, in visually and functionally and situationally appropriate ways with understanding. The idea of understanding is broadly defined, to include the artist’s personal goals for expression, as well as the expectations of all the audiences – the wearer, the viewer, the buyer, the seller, the student, the master. The better designer achieves a level of disciplinary literacy where fluency becomes automatic, accurate, and rapidly applied.

This Disciplinary Literacy in jewelry design has a structure all its own. There are four main components to it:

1) Vocabulary: Design Elements As The Basis Of Composition

2) Grammar: Principles of Composition, Construction and Manipulation

3) Strategy: Project Management^[2]

4) Context/Culture: Shared Understandings^[3]

This article focuses on the second component – Principles.

What Are Principles of Composition, Construction and Manipulation?

Jewelry Design is the strategic application of basic principles of organization and expression to achieve a piece which evokes emotion, resonates, and is appealing as it is worn. Traditionally the art and design worlds referred to these as “Principles of Composition.” Often artists and designers get tripped up on the word Principles, and jewelry designers get a bit confused or frustrated with the word Composition.

The use of the word “Principles” in art and design can be somewhat confusing. These Principles do not represent a set of universal, dependable and repeatable standards to strive for, which we might assume, at first.

A different meaning about “Principles” applies here. A Principle is an organizing scheme as a way to combine design elements into a more pleasing whole composition. The design elements include things which are visual effects; but, for jewelry designers, they also include things which functional, as well as things which are more social, psychological, cultural and situational. Principles inform artists in their expressive, authentic performances. Every artist is expected to apply these Principles, but only in ways the artist chooses. There might be better or worse ways to apply them, but no right or wrong ways.

Another aspect of confusion is the use of the word “Composition”. I’ve expanded the phrase, though somewhat awkwardly, to “Principles of Composition, Construction and Manipulation.” The traditional art and design idea of “composition” covers two very different types of jewelry design literacy skills under a single label, namely decoding (Design Elements) and fluency (Principles). The better jewelry designer needs to learn and apply both aspects of disciplinary literacy, but each involves different ways of thinking. As a teacher, both require different sets of strategies for training and educating jewelry designers.

Jewelry designers, by the nature of jewelry, have to deal equally with functional aspects of design, not just artistic composition. Traditional Principles of Composition need to be re-oriented for the jewelry artist to be more sensitive to the more architectural aspects of design. Design choices are also best understood at the boundary between the art of design and the body it adorns.

Limited to the idea of composition, jewelry might be judged successful as “art”, as if it was displayed on a mannequin or easel. But jewelry, in reality, can only be judged as a constructive, manipulated result situated at the boundary between art and body; that is, jewelry can only be judged as “art as it is worn.”

In this article, I focus on Principles of Composition, Construction and Manipulation. The Principles, as organizing schemes, are intertwined, and, the use of one will often depend on another. Movement might be achieved by the placement of lines, which might also establish a rhythm. Such placement of lines might be symmetrically balanced, with line thinness and thickness statistically distributed evenly through the piece.

These organizing and arranging schemes might include:

the Positioning and/or Ordering of things (white/black/white/black vs. black/black/black/white)
the Volume or Area the piece takes up (one row of beads vs. 3 rows of beads)
the Scale and Size of the pieces (6mm 6mm 6mm vs. 10mm 10mm 10mm)
the Colors, Textures and Patterns of individual pieces, and/or sets or groupings of pieces (matte/matte/shiny/matte/matte vs. shiny/shiny/matte/shiny/shiny)
the Forms (identifiable sets of pieces, highly integrated)
the Materials
the interplay of Light, Dark, Shadow, Reflection and Refraction (dark/dark/transparent/dark/dark vs. transparent/transparent/dark/transparent/transparent)

the clasp assembly and other supporting systems

Some of these design Principles are applied in similar ways to all art forms, such as painting and sculpture, no matter what the medium.

For other Principles, jewelry creates its own challenges, because all jewelry places some different demands and expectations on the artist than painting or sculpture does. Jewelry…

functions in a 3-dimensional space, particularly sensitive to position, volume and scale
must stand on its own as an object of art
but must also exist as an object of art which interacts with the body, movement, personality, and quirks of the wearer
serves many purposes, some aesthetic, some functional, some social, cultural or situational
has a much more integrated and inter-dependent relationship of the center piece, strap, fringe, edge, bail and surface embellishment – an arrangement that traditional Art theory rejects. Art sees the center piece as the “art”, and these other things as supporting, not artistic details, like a frame for a painting or a pedestal for a sculpture.

Good jewelry should exude an energy. It should resonate. This energy results from how the artist applies these Principles to compose with, construct and manipulate light and shadow, and their characteristics of warmth and cold, receding and approaching, bright and dull, light and dark. The artist’s piece is judged on whether the resulting piece feels coherent, organized, controlled, and strategically designed, again, as the jewelry is worn. Successful application of these Principles results in a piece which feels finished and successful.

The Principles include,

Rhythm
Pointers
Linear and Planar Relationships
Interest
Statistical Distribution
Balance
Forms, Their Proportions, Distributions and Dimensionality
Temporal Extension: Time and Place
Physical Extension: Functionality
Parsimony (something similar to, but a little beyond harmony and unity)

TABLE OF PRINCIPLES

Principles of Composition, Construction, and Manipulation *(Organizing Schemes)*	What the Principle is About	How Principle Might Get Expressed as Organizing Schema
*Rhythm*	This is how the piece leads the viewer through sequences of steps. It is a measure of the degree the piece engages the viewer’s eye. There is a continuance, a flow or a feeling of movement from one place of the piece to another.	Repetition Pattern Random Regular Alternating Flowing Progressive Vertical, Horizontal, Diagonal, Overlapping, Piercing Placement
*Pointers*	Pointers are places of emphasis, dominance or focus. Certain elements assume more importance than others within the same composition.	Isolating Directional Contrast Anomaly Leading Convergence Size, Weight, Color Gradient Framing Focusing and Depth Absence Implied
*Linear and Planar Relationships*	The degree the piece is not disorienting; obvious what is “up” and what is “down”. Orienting and Directional	Straight or Curved 2-D or 3D Violating, Crossing or Intersecting, Interpenetrating Parallel or Aligned Perpendicular Angular or Diagonal Vector Fixed, Directional, Infinite, or Disappearing Continuous, Broken or Perforated Radial At Edges or Within; Framed or Bound Thin or Thick Textured or Smooth Opaque or Transparent Moving, Rotating, Spinning, Darting, Flashing Silhouette
*Interest*	The degree the artist has made the ordinary…”noteworthy”	Add variety Give person an experience Vibrance, Intensity Unexpected use or positioning Surprise Sense of strength or fragility Symbolic meaning Perspective Inspirational Pattern Clash Juxtaposition Simultaneity effects
*Statistical Distribution*	How satisfying the numbers* and sizes and measures of objects within the piece are*	Equality, Equity, Equal Weight, Mass, Volume, Visual Effect (or the opposite of equality) Randomness Color proportions Scale Measurements Numbers of
*Balance*	How satisfying the placement* of objects (and their attributes) is*	Equilibrium in Weight, Mass, Volume, Visual Effect Symmetry or Asymmetry Pattern or No Pattern Regular or Irregular Equalizing visual forces Scale Permanent, Illusory, Contingent Placement, Alignment, Proximity, Repetition Radial Identical or Similar
Forms, Their Proportions, Distributions, and Dimensionality	Jewelry often can be structured in terms of segments, components or forms. How the pieces get interconnected or amassed is of concern.	Unique, Singular, Parallel/Symmetrical, Repeated, Multiple Evolving Variety Segmentation 2-D or 3-D Realistic or Abstract Geometric or Organic Complete or Incomplete Layering, Overlapping Fringing, Surface Embellishment Continuity Coordinating Clashing, Off-putting
*Temporal Extension: Time and Place*	Any piece of jewelry must be acceptable within a certain historical, social, cultural or situational context.	Visual Expectation Materials Expectation Techniques/Technology Expectation Referents, Inscriptions, Images Symbolism Themes Rule-bound or not Revival style or Contemporized Traditional style Appropriateness/Relevance to situation or context Coordination with situation or context
*Physical Extension: Functionality*	The degree the piece is designed so that it accommodates physical stresses when the piece is worn	Jointedness and Support (links, rivets, hinges, loops, unglued knots, and the like) Drape, Flow, Movement (built-in features allowing adjustment to body shape or body movement) Length, Fit Adjustability Choices of stringing material or assembly strategy Clasp Assembly (how piece attached to clasp) Strap, Bail, Pendant, Fringe, Embellishment Stiffness, Looseness, Bending, Conforming Inclusion of technology Structural Integrity Application of architectural principles of construction Physical mechanics Weight-bearing
*Parsimony (something similar to but beyond harmony and unity)*	There should be no nonessential elements; the addition or subtraction of one element or its attribute will make the piece less satisfying	Length, Volume, Mass, Weight, Visual Effects Goodness of fit Sufficient balance between unity and variety to evoke an emotional response and resonance An economy in the use of resources A result which feels finished and successful, reflecting the artist’s hand, as well as an anticipation of shared understandings among all audiences – viewer, wearer, buyer, seller, student, master

THE PRINCIPLES IN MORE DETAIL

1. Rhythm

Movement is the path our eyes follow when we look at a work of art, and it is generally very important to keep a viewer’s eyes engaged in the work. Without movement, artwork becomes stagnant. A few good strategies to evoke a sense of movement (among many others) are using diagonal lines, placing shapes so that the extend beyond the boundaries of the picture plane, and using changing values.

Rhythm is one Principle used to shape the viewer’s experience with the piece. Rhythm is how the piece leads the viewer through sequences of steps. It is a measure of the degree the piece engages the viewer’s eye.

There is a continuance, a flow or a feeling of movement from one place of the piece to another.

Repetition and pattern are key here. The artist might achieve a rhythm by varying or repeating colors, textures, sizes, forms. The rhythm might be slow, fast, predictable, random, staccato, measured, safe, edgy, and so forth. The intervals between repetitions and patterns can create a sense of rhythm in the viewer and a sense of movement. Repetitions and patterns can be random, regular, alternating, flowing, progressive – there are many directions the artist can go in establishing a rhythm.

When a piece has multiple and coordinated rhythms, we call this Symphonic Rhythm. For example, in a piece, there might be a clear rhythm set by the use of colors throughout the piece, as well as the positioning of definable forms, such as a series of beaded leaves or other shapes.

The Rhythm should assist the viewer in cognitively making a complete circle around the piece. You don’t want the viewer to lose interest, get bored, or fall flat, before the eye and brain can make that complete circle.

Example:

Black-o-Black-o-Black-o-White-o-Black-o-Black-o-Black-o-White-o
Or,

Black-o-White-o-Black-o-White-o-Black-o-White-o-Black-o-White-o

The better designer can empower the design, if using Rhythm in the right way.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

2. Pointers

Pointers are places of emphasis, dominance or focus. Certain elements assume more importance than others within the same composition.

Pointers guide the viewer to a specific place, or focal point. Cognitively, you want to create the place for the eye/brain to come to rest.

Examples:

Something can be centered
The color can be varied, say from dark to light, to serve as an “arrow” or “Pointer” to a section of the necklace
The positioning of the clasp might serve as a pointer
A dangling pendant might serve as a pointer
The size of the beads can be varied, such as smallest to largest, to serve as an “arrow” or “Pointer”
Coordinating the placement of Focal Point on jewelry with the pattern in the clothing upon which the piece will rest
Something can be strategically off-centered.

The better designer is able to capture the viewer’s attention to more important parts of the piece.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

3. Linear and Planar Relationships

This is the degree the piece is not disorienting to the viewer, or particularly confusing in terms of what is up and what is down.

People always need to orient themselves to their surroundings, so that they know what is up and what is down. They usually do this by recognizing the horizontal planes of the floor and the ceiling of a room (ground and sky outside), and the vertical planes of the walls of a room (buildings, trees and the like outside).

Jewelry must assist, or at least not get in the way, of this natural orienting process. It accomplishes this in how its “lines” are arranged and organized. If a piece is very 3-dimensional, then how its “planes” are arranged and organized becomes important, as well.

Design elements we might use to achieve a satisfactory planar relationship within our piece:

– a strategic use of lines and planes

— shapes

— boundaries

– -silhouettes

— contours

– symmetry

– or, more difficult to achieve, a satisfying asymmetry

– a planar pattern in how each section of the piece relates to the other sections

– how sections of the piece interlock

– how we “draw and interrelate” parallel lines/planes, perpendicular lines/planes and curved lines/planes within the piece

Example:

How can a person truly pull off wearing only one earring? After all, visually, it pulls the person off to one side, thus violating the basic orienting planar relationships. What about the composition of the earring, allows this to work; what about the composition doesn’t?

Example:

Wearing a necklace, where the clasp is worn on the side, instead of the back. Again, what about the composition of the necklace, allows this to work; what about the composition doesn’t?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
4. Interest

“Interest” means the degree to which the artist makes the ordinary…noteworthy.

Here the artist demonstrates how to balance off and control “variety” with “unity” and “harmony”. Without unity and harmony, the piece becomes chaotic. Without variety, the piece becomes boring, monotonous and uninteresting.

Arranging and organizing Design Elements might involve:
– selection of materials and mix of materials

– selection of color combinations

– varying the sizes of things

– pushing the envelop on interrelating planar relationships among the sections of the jewelry

– playing with the rhythm

– clever use of a focal point

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

5. Statistical Distribution

The artist is always concerned with the number or size or scale or measurement of things. This principle focuses on these statistics. With this principle, we are not concerned with the placement or balance of things – just the numbers and measurements.

We ask: How pleasing and satisfying are the selection of the numbers, sizes, proportions, volumes/weights, and color/textures of objects the artist wants to use in the piece. The artist might, at this point, anticipate creating a pattern, or not.

Examples:

BIG-o-BIG-o-small-o-BIG-o-BIG-o-small-o-

PURPLE-o-PURPLE-o-PURPLE-o-YELLOW-o-PURPLE-o-YELLOW-o-

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

6. Balance

Balance has to do with placement. How pleasing or satisfying is the placement of objects (and their attributes) within a piece?

Usually, the designer is trying to achieve a feeling of equality in weight, attention or attraction of the various visual design elements. The design attributes would include such things as the positioning or relative positioning of the materials used, the colors, textures and patterns, the sizes and scales.

The artist might play with placement in terms of proximity, alignment or repetition.

There are different types of balance.

(1) symmetry: the use of identical compositional units on either side of a vertical axis

(2) approximate symmetry: the use of similarly balanced compositional units on either side of a vertical axis

(3) radial symmetry: an even, radiating out from a central point to all four quadrants (directions) of the shape’s plane (surface)

(4) asymmetry: even though the compositional units are not identical on either side of a vertical axis, there is a “felt” equilibrium of the total piece. Often, with jewelry, this equilibrium depends on what clothes or other jewelry the person is wearing, or something about that person’s body/body shape.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

7. Forms, Their Proportions, Distributions and Dimensionality

Jewelry often can be structured in terms of segments, components or forms. How are pieces interconnected or amassed? Is this achieved through optical effects or reality?

The designer is concerned with managing these structures in terms of proportions, distributions and/or dimensionality. The artist makes choices about how each part relates to the whole in terms of scale or relevance.

The artist might play with things like:
Layering

Surface embellishment

Fringing

Curvature

Overlapping planes

Balance

The better designer creates pieces where the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.

Example:

Flat loomed bracelet and a button clasp, that sits so high on the bracelet, that it detracts from the 2-dimensional reason-for-being of the piece.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

8. Temporal Extension: Time and Place

Any piece of jewelry must be acceptable within a certain historical, social, cultural or situational context.

For example, is a piece appropriate for a wedding also appropriate for office wear? Is a great University of Tennessee Orange Necklace as successful when worn to a Vanderbilt football game?

Temporal Extension may narrowly refer to one specific wearer in particular, or more broadly to group, situational, social or societal expectations.

Other examples:

white pearls are associated with bridal jewelry
using metalized plastic beads, where the plating chips off in a short period of time, should not be used in an heirloom bracelet
making a matching set of earrings and necklace for jewelry that typically should be worn as a matching set
gifting a carved jade pendant with an message-word carving inappropriate for the religion of the person receiving it

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

9. Physical Extension: Functionality

Any piece of jewelry must be functional when worn.

Functionality has to do with such things as movement, drape, comfort, flow and durability. The piece of jewelry needs to feel comfortable when worn, always look good on the wearer no matter what the wearer is doing, and be durable. This involves a lot of building in understandings of physical mechanics and architectural principles of construction.

When there is (or should be) movement in a piece, there should be clear evidence that the designer anticipated where the parts came from, and where they are going to. Jewelry is worn by people who move, so the design should be a natural physical extension to such movements, and the stress they put on the piece.

For example, in a necklace, the clasp should remain on the neck, even as the beadwork moves with the person, without the necklace turning around on the neck, or breaking.

Example: The dangle earring which has the dangle stuck in a 90 degree angle.

Example: The crimped bracelet which breaks at the crimp.

Example: The bracelet too tight when the design is turned into a circle placed around the wrist

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

10. Parsimony
(something similar to, but a little bit beyond harmony and unity)

At the point where the piece is judged to be finished and successful, there should be no nonessential elements. When the piece is finished and successful, it should evoke emotions and resonate.

The designer should achieve the maximal effect with the least effort or excess.

There is a tendency of beaders and jewelry makers to over-do:

– over-embellish the surface

– add too much fringe

– repeat themes and design elements too often

– use too many colors

Parsimony vs. Unity

In art, the traditional measure of completion and success was a feeling or sense of “Unity.” Unity signified how everything felt all right. All the Design Elements used, and how they were coordinated and placed, were very coherent, clear, harmonious and satisfying.

I think the idea of unity begins to get at the place we want to end up. But this concept is not concrete enough for me. You can have unity, but the piece still seen as boring when there is no variety. This condition is unacceptable as a principled outcome of jewelry construction. Finished and successful jewelry should evoke emotions and resonate. You can have unity, but the assessments rely too much on universal, objective perceptions of design elements and their attributes. The artist, the wearer, and the situation are too easily left out of the equation.

Jewelry creation usually demands a series of judgment calls and tradeoffs between aesthetics and functionality, artist goals and audience understandings and expectations, a full palette of colors, shapes and textures and a very limited one. A measure of completeness and success needs to result from the forced choice decisions of the artist. It needs to account for the significance of the results, not just the organization of them. It needs to explain the Why, not just the What.

For me, the more appropriate concept here is “Parsimony.” Parsimony is sometimes referred to in art and design as “Economy”, but the idea of economy is reserved for the visual effects. For jewelry designers, we want that economy or parsimony to apply to functional and situational effects, as well. When the finished and successful piece is parsimonious, the relationship of all the Design Elements and their expressed attributes will be so strong, that to add or remove any one thing would diminish, not just the design, but rather the significance of the design.

Parsimony…

– forces explanation; its forced-choice nature is most revealing about the artist’s understandings and intentions

– relies on evidence moreso than assumptions to get at criticality

– focuses examination of the few elements that make a difference

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

THINKING ROUTINE^[4]: LOOK – SCORE – EXPLAIN

LOOK:

CLASSICISM NECKLACE

Warren Feld, 2001.

Materials and Description:

Three strands, druk rondelles Czech glass, in matte amethyst, matte olivine, and matte topaz. Center, overlapping agate stones.

At the center, each of the three strands pass through a 3-hole separator bar, and through one of three thin sterling silver tubes.

The centerpiece stones slide over the top and bottom tubes. The middle tube is sandwiched between the stones. These stones can spin around on the tubes, allowing them to adjust to body shape and movement, but the middle tube restricts the movement to maintain the general visual appearance as in the image.

S-clasp in back.

KEY DESIGN ELEMENTS:

(see key at bottom of table for list)

COLOR

BALANCE AND DISTRIBUTION
SHAPE
POINT/LINE/PLANE

MATERIALS

MOVEMENT

DIMENSIONALITY

TECHNIQUE/TECHNOLOGY

KEY ATTRIBUTES OF DESIGN ELEMENTS:

1a. Some Tonal quality and finish

1b. Split Complementary color scheme

1c. Gradation dark to light

2a. Symmetry

3a. Same size druk rondelles

4a. Strong lines core design feature

4b. Overlapping centerpiece stones establishes 2 planes; can move but restricted from violating planes

5a. Mixing glass, metal and gemstone

6a. Center stones allowed to spin on tubes

7a. Layering of center stones

8a. Unexpected connection of strap to centerpiece

SCORE:

SCORE CARD ON PRINCIPLES:

DESIGN CRITERIA	Very Unsatisfying…….Very Satisfying
1. Rhythm	1 2 3 4 5
2. Pointers	1 2 3 4 5
3. Linear and Planar Relationships	1 2 3 4 5
4. Interest	1 2 3 4 5
5. Statistical Distribution	1 2 3 4 5
6. Balance	1 2 3 4 5
7. Forms	1 2 3 4 5
8. Temporal Extension: Time, Place	1 2 3 4 5
9. Physical Extension: Functionality	1 2 3 4 5
10. Parsimony	1 2 3 4 5

EXPLAIN:

RHYTHM:

How you see this playing out in this piece:

One smooth flow from clasp to centerpiece down straps

ESTABLISHED BY KEY DESIGN ELEMENTS:

BALANCE AND DISTRIBUTION

POINTERS

WHAT DESIGN CHOICES MIGHT WEAKEN OR STRENGTHEN THIS….

(examples: change length, shapes, lines, bead size, bead color, bead placement)

Weaken: Mixing different sizes; adding more colors within each strand; changing length

WHAT IF CONTINGENCIES…

(examples: If cannot get some bead, color, size, finish, clasp, what could you resort to instead)

If cannot get any one of 3 colors or finishes or sizes, would have to change to 3 different split complementary colors and new stones for focal point

POINTERS:

How you see this playing out in this piece:

Overlapping stones in centerpiece

ESTABLISHED BY KEY DESIGN ELEMENTS:

POINT/LINE/PLANE

WHAT DESIGN CHOICES MIGHT WEAKEN OR STRENGTHEN THIS….

(examples: change length, shapes, lines, bead size, bead color, bead placement)

Strengthen: better color coordination between center piece and straps

Weaken: mix colors/sizes in strap; change rhythm in strap; add patterns

WHAT IF CONTINGENCIES…

(examples: If cannot get some bead, color, size, finish, clasp, what could you resort to instead)

Would need to have alternative gemstones, similar sizing to original, color coordinated with strap colors

LINEAR/PLANAR RELATIONSHIPS:

How you see this playing out in this piece:

Strong sense of line and downward direction towards centerpiece, represented by 3 strands, strong implementation of 3-color scheme

Overlapping planes in centerpiece

ESTABLISHED BY KEY DESIGN ELEMENTS:

POINT/LINE/PLANE

STRUCTURE/SUPPORT

WHAT DESIGN CHOICES MIGHT WEAKEN OR STRENGTHEN THIS….

(examples: change length, shapes, lines, bead size, bead color, bead placement)

Weaken: have less fluid structure support connecting one side through centerpiece to other side; have only one center stone rather than two which overlap

WHAT IF CONTINGENCIES…

(examples: If cannot get some bead, color, size, finish, clasp, what could you resort to instead)

If hole in center stones not big enough to slide over sterling silver tube, would have to make holes larger, find thinner tubes or alternative stones

INTEREST:

How you see this playing out in this piece:

Overlapping stones in centerpiece

Structure of tubes and stones in centerpiece, particularly in terms of allowing and restricting movement

ESTABLISHED BY KEY DESIGN ELEMENTS:

POINT/LINE/PLANE

MATERIAL

MOVEMENT

STRUCTURE/SUPPORT

WHAT DESIGN CHOICES MIGHT WEAKEN OR STRENGTHEN THIS….

(examples: change length, shapes, lines, bead size, bead color, bead placement)

Weaken: no overlap stones and no movement; put pattern or change bead sizes in strap

WHAT IF CONTINGENCIES…

(examples: If cannot get some bead, color, size, finish, clasp, what could you resort to instead)

If could not create the structure creating the overlapping stone centerpiece, use a centerpiece with some dimension that supports the rhythm of the piece.

STATISTICAL DISTRIBUTION:

How you see this playing out in this piece:

One shape and size of bead in the 3 straps.

Single color within each strand.

ESTABLISHED BY KEY DESIGN ELEMENTS:

SHAPE

COLOR

WHAT DESIGN CHOICES MIGHT WEAKEN OR STRENGTHEN THIS….

(examples: change length, shapes, lines, bead size, bead color, bead placement)

Weaken: vary shape or add more colors

WHAT IF CONTINGENCIES…

(examples: If cannot get some bead, color, size, finish, clasp, what could you resort to instead)

If could not get enough beads in specific size, shape, color for each strap, come up with different design.

BALANCE:

How you see this playing out in this piece:

Single color in each strand

Symmetry

Repeated same length in each strand

ESTABLISHED BY KEY DESIGN ELEMENTS:

BALANCE/DISTRIBUTION

POINT/LINE/PLANE

FORM/SEGMENTS/COMPONENTS

WHAT DESIGN CHOICES MIGHT WEAKEN OR STRENGTHEN THIS….

(examples: change length, shapes, lines, bead size, bead color, bead placement)

Weaken: Make piece unbalanced, or asymmetrical

WHAT IF CONTINGENCIES…

(examples: If cannot get some bead, color, size, finish, clasp, what could you resort to instead)

If could not restrict the movement of the center stones, would lose visual balance; would have to come up with different strategy for restricting movement, or just use one, rather than two stones.

FORMS:

How you see this playing out in this piece:

Clear forms:

– 3 strands, one of each color

– clear sense of right side and left side and center

– segmented centerpiece

ESTABLISHED BY KEY DESIGN ELEMENTS:

FORM/SEGMENTS/COMPONENTS

COLOR

BALANCE/DISTRIBUTION

POINTER

WHAT DESIGN CHOICES MIGHT WEAKEN OR STRENGTHEN THIS….

(examples: change length, shapes, lines, bead size, bead color, bead placement)

Weaken: create a size or color pattern in the straps; additional segmentation

WHAT IF CONTINGENCIES…

(examples: If cannot get some bead, color, size, finish, clasp, what could you resort to instead)

If could not get enough beads in specific size, shape, color for each strap, come up with different design or color scheme.

TEMPORAL EXTENSION:

How you see this playing out in this piece:

Piece has a classical elegance to it. Can picture it worn in a more upscale social setting like a banquet or dinner party.

ESTABLISHED BY KEY DESIGN ELEMENTS:

FORMS/SEGMENTS/COMPONENTS

COLOR

BALANCE/DISTRIBUTION

BEAUTY/APPEAL

CONTEXT/SITUATION/CULTURE

WHAT DESIGN CHOICES MIGHT WEAKEN THIS….

(examples: change length, shapes, lines, bead size, bead color, bead placement)

Weaken: brighter or primary colors; glossy color finishes; shorter or longer length

WHAT IF CONTINGENCIES…

(examples: If cannot get some bead, color, size, finish, clasp, what could you resort to instead)

If could not get enough beads in specific size, shape, color for each strap, come up with different design or color scheme.

PHYSICAL EXTENSION:

How you see this playing out in this piece:

The support structure for the centerpiece which both allows and restricts movement.

The 3 strands on each side of the necklace can move independently and allow better movement, drape and flow.

ESTABLISHED BY KEY DESIGN ELEMENTS:

STRUCTURE/SUPPORT

TECHNIQUE/TECHNOLOGY

WHAT DESIGN CHOICES MIGHT WEAKEN OR STRENGTHEN THIS….

(examples: change length, shapes, lines, bead size, bead color, bead placement)

Weaken: leave out middle tube which lays between top and bottom center stone; connect the 3 strands together at two or more places along their length.

WHAT IF CONTINGENCIES…

(examples: If cannot get some bead, color, size, finish, clasp, what could you resort to instead)

If could not get support structure to work, come up with different design.

PARSIMONY:

How you see this playing out in this piece:

The choice of colors, materials, bead sizes, length of strands, symmetry

ESTABLISHED BY KEY DESIGN ELEMENTS:

SHAPE

COLOR

POINT/LINE/PLANE

MOVEMENT

FORMS/SEGMENTS/COMPONENTS

BALANCE/DISTRIBUTION

MATERIAL

WHAT DESIGN CHOICES MIGHT WEAKEN OR STRENGTHEN THIS….

(examples: change length, shapes, lines, bead size, bead color, bead placement)

Weaken: change any color, material, bead size, length, symmetry

WHAT IF CONTINGENCIES…

(examples: If cannot get some bead, color, size, finish, clasp, what could you resort to instead)

If did not have sufficient access to these resources, would have to come up with a different design.

*KEY DESIGN ELEMENTS:*
COLOR	MOVEMENT	BALANCE / DISTRIBUTION	DIMENSIONALITY
SHAPE	COLOR BLENDING	REFERENTS	FORM, SEGMENTS, COMPONENTS
TEXTURE/PATTERN	THEME/SYMBOLS	CONTEXT, SITUATION, CULTURE	CRAFTSMANSHIP
POINT/LINE/PLANE	BEAUTY, APPEAL	NEGATIVE , POSITIVE SPACES	TECHNIQUE/TECHNOLOGY
MATERIAL	STRUCTURE, SUPPORT	LIGHT, SHADOW

LOOK:

THE BLUE WATERFALL NECKLACE

Warren Feld, 2001.

Materials and Description:

Mix of glass, crystal, and sterling silver beads.

Each segment of beads has a different number of bead, and different sizes/color/finish of beads within it.

The colors are not part of a color scheme, and would be seen to clash if compared one to one outside of their use in the bracelet. Example: sapphire blues and montana blues; golds and silvers; matte and glossy.

The segments nearer the clasp are shorter than those further from the clasp.

The sterling silver tubes are all curved.

There is no focal point per se.

The clasp is an adjustable hook and eye choker clasp.

KEY DESIGN ELEMENTS:

(see key at bottom of table for list)

COLOR

COLOR BLENDING

BALANCE AND DISTRIBUTION
POINT/LINE/PLANE
MOVEMENT
SHAPE

STRUCTURE / SUPPORT

FORM /SEGMENTS/ COMPONENTS

KEY ATTRIBUTES OF DESIGN ELEMENTS:

1a. No conformance to color scheme, though leans toward the monochromatic

2a. Simultaneity effects

3a. Feels balanced though there the distribution of sizes, numbers and segment lengths varies within each strand and between each strand

4a. Brings your eye down to a central place, but no specific focal point

4b. Curved lines distort the linearity

5a. Expresses feeling of moving water, but no moving parts

6a. Curved tubes key element

6b. Bead of different shapes

7a. Adjustable choker clasp allows wearer to adjust necklace to body, to achieve that optimum sense of balance and movement

8a. Consists of each length segments separating unequal length segments.

8b. Important that segments on both strands do not match up with each other, but feel staggered

8c. Important that no segment shows dominance or becomes a clear focal point.

SCORE:

SCORE CARD ON PRINCIPLES:

DESIGN CRITERIA	Very Unsatisfying…….Very Satisfying
1. Rhythm	1 2 3 4 5
2. Pointers	1 2 3 4 5
3. Linear and Planar Relationships	1 2 3 4 5
4. Interest	1 2 3 4 5
5. Statistical Distribution	1 2 3 4 5
6. Balance	1 2 3 4 5
7. Forms	1 2 3 4 5
8. Temporal Extension: Time, Place	1 2 3 4 5
9. Physical Extension: Functionality	1 2 3 4 5
10. Parsimony	1 2 3 4 5

EXPLAIN:

RHYTHM:

How you see this playing out in this piece:

The forms or segments alternate between clusters of beads and a curved sterling silver tube.

The length of each bead cluster varies, with longer clusters furthest from the clasp.

Staggered alignment of forms.

The perceived “weight” of the left side seems the same as the perceived “weight” of the right side.

ESTABLISHED BY KEY DESIGN ELEMENTS:

FORM, SEGMENTS, COMPONENTS

BALANCE, DISTRIBUTION

WHAT DESIGN CHOICES MIGHT WEAKEN OR STRENGTHEN THIS….

(examples: change length, shapes, lines, bead size, bead color, bead placement)

Weaken: making every bead cluster the same length and the same assortment of beads; having a clear focal point; using straight rather than curved tubes; having forms in both strands align more tightly.

WHAT IF CONTINGENCIES…

(examples: If cannot get some bead, color, size, finish, clasp, what could you resort to instead)

Can’t get curved sterling silver tubes, will need to find alternative, either plated, or different sizes

POINTERS:

How you see this playing out in this piece:

There is no specific pointer per se, but piece feels as if it has a definite top and bottom, and brings your eye downward.

ESTABLISHED BY KEY DESIGN ELEMENTS:

POINT, LINE, PLANE

BALANCE, DISTRIBUTION

WHAT DESIGN CHOICES MIGHT WEAKEN OR STRENGTHEN THIS….

(examples: change length, shapes, lines, bead size, bead color, bead placement)

Weaken: Adding too much color/size variation within each cluster of beads.

WHAT IF CONTINGENCIES…

(examples: If cannot get some bead, color, size, finish, clasp, what could you resort to instead)

If desired effect of a waterfall was achieved, would have to rethink the piece.

LINEAR/PLANAR RELATIONSHIPS:

How you see this playing out in this piece:

Piece dependent on staggered clustering of points and connecting curved lines.

The two strands and the forms suggest a greater dimensionality than 2-D.

ESTABLISHED BY KEY DESIGN ELEMENTS:

POINT, LINE, PLANE

FORMS, SEGMENTS, COMPONENTS

WHAT DESIGN CHOICES MIGHT WEAKEN OR STRENGTHEN THIS….

(examples: change length, shapes, lines, bead size, bead color, bead placement)

Weaken: making relationship of parts more consistent, including using straight lines rather than curves; lining up the two strands more symmetrically

WHAT IF CONTINGENCIES…

(examples: If cannot get some bead, color, size, finish, clasp, what could you resort to instead)

If piece felt too flat, work more with sizes and shapes of beads in each cluster.

INTEREST:

How you see this playing out in this piece:

Piece evokes feeling of a waterfall.

Piece feels finished and successful.

ESTABLISHED BY KEY DESIGN ELEMENTS:

COLOR BLENDING

FORM, SEGMENTS, COMPONENTS

SHAPE

TEXTURE, PATTERN

BALANCE, DISTRIBUTION

LIGHT, SHADOW

DIMENSIONALITY

WHAT DESIGN CHOICES MIGHT WEAKEN OR STRENGTHEN THIS….

(examples: change length, shapes, lines, bead size, bead color, bead placement)

Weaken: making piece longer or shorter; making forms more consistent in size and design; giving piece clear focal point

WHAT IF CONTINGENCIES…

(examples: If cannot get some bead, color, size, finish, clasp, what could you resort to instead)

The bead colors are carefully matched and coordinated through simultaneity effects. If cannot get same beads, near very close substitutes, or need to redesign cluster from start.

STATISTICAL DISTRIBUTION:

How you see this playing out in this piece:

Selection of colors, sizes and shapes within and across bead clusters.

Numbers of clusters and numbers of sterling silver curved tubes.

ESTABLISHED BY KEY DESIGN ELEMENTS:

POINT, LINE, PLANE

BALANCE, DISTRIBUTION

WHAT DESIGN CHOICES MIGHT WEAKEN OR STRENGTHEN THIS….

(examples: change length, shapes, lines, bead size, bead color, bead placement)

Weaken: more consistency in size, shape, color, form

WHAT IF CONTINGENCIES…

(examples: If cannot get some bead, color, size, finish, clasp, what could you resort to instead)

The bead colors and sizes are carefully matched and coordinated through simultaneity effects. If cannot get same beads, near very close substitutes, or need to redesign cluster from start.

BALANCE:

How you see this playing out in this piece:

Piece feels balanced, although the forms do not line up, and in reality are made up of different colors/shapes/sizes of beads.

Shorter clusters of beads near clasp; longer near bottom of necklace.

ESTABLISHED BY KEY DESIGN ELEMENTS:

BALANCE, DISTRIBUTION

FORM, SEGMENTS, COMPONENTS

POINT, LINE, PLANE

WHAT DESIGN CHOICES MIGHT WEAKEN OR STRENGTHEN THIS….

(examples: change length, shapes, lines, bead size, bead color, bead placement)

Weaken: more consistency in size, shape, color, form

WHAT IF CONTINGENCIES…

(examples: If cannot get some bead, color, size, finish, clasp, what could you resort to instead)

If the placement of colors/shapes/sizes does not work, have to rethink the design.

FORMS:

How you see this playing out in this piece:

Two types of forms – bead clusters and single sterling silver curved tubes.

Forms vary in length and makeup.

Forms in both strands feel coordinated, but do not align or include the same or parallel colors/shapes/sizes.

ESTABLISHED BY KEY DESIGN ELEMENTS:

POINT, LINE, PLANE

FORM, SEGMENTS, COMPONENTS

WHAT DESIGN CHOICES MIGHT WEAKEN OR STRENGTHEN THIS….

(examples: change length, shapes, lines, bead size, bead color, bead placement)

Weaken: More standardizing of lengths and bead colors, shapes, sizes; changing the patterning from alternating clusters and long curved tubes, to something else

WHAT IF CONTINGENCIES…

(examples: If cannot get some bead, color, size, finish, clasp, what could you resort to instead)

Could not get curved tubes, have to rethink design.

TEMPORAL EXTENSION:

How you see this playing out in this piece:

We expect this piece can be worn both casually and formally.

Piece has a very fluid feel to it, and we expect that this sense of fluidity will always be felt, no matter where the piece is worn.

ESTABLISHED BY KEY DESIGN ELEMENTS:

REFERENTS

POINT, LINE, PLANE

FORM, SEGMENTS, COMPONENTS

WHAT DESIGN CHOICES MIGHT WEAKEN THIS….

(examples: change length, shapes, lines, bead size, bead color, bead placement)

Weaken: More standardizing of lengths and bead colors, shapes, sizes; changing the patterning from alternating clusters and long curved tubes, to something else

WHAT IF CONTINGENCIES…

(examples: If cannot get some bead, color, size, finish, clasp, what could you resort to instead)

Could not get curved tubes, have to rethink design.

PHYSICAL EXTENSION:

How you see this playing out in this piece:

Adjustable necklace clasp allows wearer to adjust the piece, so that both strands lay so that they evoke this feeling of a waterfall. Otherwise, piece would not lay right on every body shape.

ESTABLISHED BY KEY DESIGN ELEMENTS:

TECHNIQUE/TECHNOLOGY

WHAT DESIGN CHOICES MIGHT WEAKEN OR STRENGTHEN THIS….

(examples: change length, shapes, lines, bead size, bead color, bead placement)

Weaken: use of fixed clasp

WHAT IF CONTINGENCIES…

(examples: If cannot get some bead, color, size, finish, clasp, what could you resort to instead)

Could not get an adjustable choker clasp, would have to craft something to be adjustable

PARSIMONY:

How you see this playing out in this piece:

Piece is neither too short or too long.

Forms in piece do not seem to need to be longer or shorter or more consistent or less consistent.

ESTABLISHED BY KEY DESIGN ELEMENTS:

FORM, SEGMENT, COMPONENTS

POINT, LINE, PLANE

BALANCE, DISTRIBUTION

COLOR BLENDING

POINTER

WHAT DESIGN CHOICES MIGHT WEAKEN OR STRENGTHEN THIS….

(examples: change length, shapes, lines, bead size, bead color, bead placement)

Weaken: More standardizing of lengths and bead colors, shapes, sizes; changing the patterning from alternating clusters and long curved tubes, to something else; changing length or silhouette of necklace

WHAT IF CONTINGENCIES…

(examples: If cannot get some bead, color, size, finish, clasp, what could you resort to instead)

Could not achieve color blending, sense of balance, or an up-down orientation, then would need to rethink design.

*KEY DESIGN ELEMENTS:*
COLOR	MOVEMENT	BALANCE / DISTRIBUTION	DIMENSIONALITY
SHAPE	COLOR BLENDING	REFERENTS	FORM, SEGMENTS, COMPONENTS
TEXTURE/PATTERN	THEME/SYMBOLS	CONTEXT, SITUATION, CULTURE	CRAFTSMANSHIP
POINT/LINE/PLANE	BEAUTY, APPEAL	NEGATIVE , POSITIVE SPACES	TECHNIQUE/TECHNOLOGY
MATERIAL	STRUCTURE, SUPPORT	LIGHT, SHADOW

FOOTNOTES
^[1] Feld, Warren. “Jewelry Design Composition: Playing with Building Blocks Called Design Elements,” 3/17/2018
^[2] Feld, Warren. “Jewelry Design: A Managed Process,” Klimt02, 2/2/18. https://klimt02.net/forum/articles/jewelry-design-managed-process-warren-feld

^[3]Shared Understandings. In another graduate education class, the major text reviewed the differences between understanding and knowledge. The question was how to teach understanding. Worth the read to gain many insights about how to structure teaching to get sufficient understanding to enrich learning.
Understanding by Design by Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe, 2^nd Edition, Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 2005.
^[4] Thinking Routines. I teach jewelry design. I find it useful to engage students with various ways of thinking out loud. They need to hear me think out loud about what choices I am making and what things I am considering when making those choices. They need to hear themselves think out loud so that they can develop strategies for getting more organized and strategic in dealing with information and making decisions. My inspiration here was based on the work done by Visible Thinking by Project Zero at Harvard Graduate School of Education .

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Posted in Art or Craft?, design management, jewelry design, jewelry making, Learn To Bead | Tagged: art, design, design management, jewelry construction, jewelry design, principles of composition | 2 Comments »

JEWELRY DESIGN COMPOSITION: Playing With Building Blocks Called Design Elements

Posted by learntobead on March 17, 2018

JEWELRY DESIGN COMPOSITION:
PLAYING WITH BUILDING BLOCKS
CALLED DESIGN ELEMENTS

by Warren Feld, Designer

Abstract:
Jewelry making is a constructive process of expression.   The language of expression begins with the idea of Design Elements.   Design Elements are the smallest, meaningful units of design. Design Elements
function in a similar way as vowels and consonants in a language.   They have form. They have meaning.   They have expression.   Some can stand alone, and others are dependent and must be clustered together. Better jewelry designers are aware of and can decode these expressive aspects of design elements and how they are included within any piece. This is one part of learning a disciplinary
literacy in design. This literacy begins with a process of decoding and builds to an intuitive fluency in design.   This article focuses on this process of decoding.

Jewelry making is a constructive process of expression.

The language of expression begins with the idea of Design Elements. Design Elements are like building blocks and function a bit like the vowel and consonant letters of the alphabet. They have form. They have meaning. They can be assembled into different arrangements which extend their meaning and usefulness in expression.

There is an underlying logic to this process – a vocabulary and grammar, so to speak. Recognizing how this vocabulary and grammar is structured and applied enables the jewelry designer to learn how to be fluent in design. Such recognition is critical in developing a coherent, consistent disciplinary literacy in jewelry design. Such disciplinary literacy is at the heart
of a professional identity for jewelry design artisans. This literacy structure in design has four main components to it:

1) Vocabulary: Design Elements As The Basis Of Composition

2) Grammar: Principles of Construction

3) Strategy: Project Management^[^1]

4) Context/Culture: Shared Understandings^[2]

This article focuses on the first component – Design Elements.

It makes sense for the designer to begin with something like building blocks, which I call Design Elements. Design Elements, like building blocks, are tangible things. They can be visualized. They can be touched and moved around. They can be combined in different arrangements. They can be used to create many types of expressions. Design Elements include things like color, shape, movement, dimensionality, materials, use of space, and the like. Design Elements are the smallest, meaningful units of design.

Not every Design Element is alike.   Color is different than Shape
is different than Texture.     Movement is different than Balance is
different than Dimensionality.    Learning about and understanding the
differentiation among Design Elements becomes very important if the jewelry designer is to have sufficient power and insight over consistency, variation, coherence and unity in their designs.    This power and insight is called decoding. Every jewelry designer needs to learn how to decode, if they are to be successful in design.

Some Design Elements are syllabic meaning they are independent
and can stand alone. Others are non-syllabic, meaning they are dependent and cannot stand alone.

INDEPENDENT DESIGN ELEMENTS

DEPENDENT DESIGN ELEMENTS

Function like vowels in alphabet

Many expressive variations

Syllabic

Can stand alone and be expressive

Expressions sensitive to placement or context

Function like consonants in alphabet

Limited expressive variations if used alone and not in combination

Non-syllabic

Do not often stand alone and more usually require an assist from
an independent design element to extend their expression

Expressions consistent, somewhat insensitive to placement or
context

Design Elements have graphic representations. Graphic representations allow these elements to be recognized symbolically as a sort of short-hand.

Each Design Element also encompasses a range of acceptable meanings, which I call expressive variations. These expressive variations, while different among themselves, are still reflective of that Design Element. They have universal qualities in that people tend to share understandings about what these expressive variations mean and how they are to be used.
Color Schemes, for example, are objective, agreed-upon combinations of colors seen as coherent and unifying. Thus, any color scheme is an expressive variation on the element of Color.

The universal, expressive variations associated with each Design Element are, in effect, attributes of that Design Element. These attributes have an
objective quality to them in that there is general agreement among designer,
viewer, wearer, buyer and seller as to what they express and how they might be used. There is an expectation that whatever role a person plays relative to the piece of jewelry, the Design Elements and their attributes will be decoded in a similar way.

At this stage in the jewelry design process, the focus is on a simple vocabulary. The vocabulary is made up of Design Elements
and their expressive attributes. The vocabulary encapsulates a generally shared understanding of its meaning and how it is to be used. It is
at the point of grammar, thus manipulation and construction, that individual artists get to show their artistic hand in selecting and placing these elements into a finished piece of jewelry.

These Design Elements and their attributes can be arranged in different configurations I call clusters.     Clusters may consist of independent Design
Elements alone, dependent Design Elements alone, or a mix of both.    For example, we may use an arrangement of glossy and matte Color beads to
project Dimensionality.    We may use different Colors of beads, rhythmically arranged, to project Movement.

Combinations of Design Elements into clusters can have different effects, from synergy, antagonism, blending, bounding, freeing and inflection.

Selecting Design Elements and clustering them does not occur in a vacuum.
The designer selects and arranges Design Elements in anticipation of how
these choices will be understood by others in a universal or objective sense.

This is a process which I call “Backwards Designing”.^[^3] The building blocks and their attributes are first selected in anticipation of these shared understandings. For instance, the designer might choose colors by anticipating how others will recognize the legitimacy and appeal of
certain clusters of colors – color schemes.

If the viewer, wearer, buyer or seller of a piece of jewelry cannot understand and relate to its Design Elements and how they are clustered within the piece, they will not understand it. They will not appreciate it. They will not see it as a legitimate piece of artistic expression. It will not
feel authentic. To others, if the piece lacks evidence of shared understandings, this will result in that jewelry (and by implication, the jewelry artisan) getting labeled, for example, as unsatisfying or boring or ugly or monotonous.

DESIGN ELEMENTS COMPRISE A VOCABULARY
OF BASIC ARTISTIC EXPRESSION

Working with Design Elements is not much different than working with an alphabet.

An alphabet is made up of different letters. Each letter has different
attributes – how it is written, how it sounds, how it is used. Configurations of letters result in more sounds and more meanings and more ways to be used.

A person working with an alphabet has to be able to decode the letters, sounds and meanings, as letters are used individually as well as in combination. As the speaker becomes better at decoding, she or he begins to build in understanding of implications for how any letter is used, again, individually or in combination.

This is exactly what the jewelry designer does with Design Elements. The
designer has to decode, that is, make sense of a series of elements and their attributes in light of our shared understandings about which Design Elements are appropriate, and how they should be legitimately expressed.

Let’s examine a set of jewelry Design Elements in more detail and elaboration.

DESIGN ELEMENT

Independent

GRAPHIC

REPRESENTATION

EXPRESSIVE VARIATIONS

Color

Schemes

Hue and Saturation

Simultaneity Effects

Values and Intensity

Temperature

Receding or Projecting

Shape

Recognizable

Focused

Distinct

Blended

Abstract

Filled or Empty

Delimited, fixed, geometric

Infinite, extending

Distorted or overlapped

Masculine or feminine

Organic or mechanical

Background, foreground, middle ground

Texture and
Pattern

Regular, Predictable, Statistical

Repeated or singular

Random, Non-Statistical

Feel or look

Layered or Non-layered

Smooth or Rough

Point, Line,
Plane

2-Dimensional

3-Dimensional

Conform or violate

Connected or Unconnected

Span and distance

Actual or implied

Thickness

Silhouette

Focused or unfocused

Bounded or unbounded

geometric or curved

Material

Natural or Man-Made

Soft or solid

Heavy or light

Single or mixed media

Light refraction, reflection, absorption

Technique and
Technology

Bead Weaving, Bead Stringing, Wire Working,
Fiber, Clay, etc.

With or without application of heat and/or
pressure

Fabricated or Machine Made

Pattern or freeform

DESIGN ELEMENT

Dependent

GRAPHIC
REPRESENTATION

EXPRESSIVE VARIATIONS

Dimensionality

2-dimensional
(volume and mass; weight; density)

3-dimensional (relief, low relief, high relief)

Interior and Exterior Contours

Frontal or in-the-round

Open or closed forms

Static or dynamic forms

Movement

Passive
(ex: use of color guides the eye)

Direction

Linear or wave

Physical
(ex: pieces, like fringe or spinners, actually move)

Stable or erratic

Mechanical
(ex: structure of piece allows piece to
drape and flow)

Color Blending

Simultaneity effects

Value and intensity

Saturation and vibrance

Distinct or blurred

Dominant or recessive

Theme, Symbols

Surface or interpreted meaning(s) or
inflected

Power, position, protection, identification

Clear or abstract referents

Object as whole, or parts of object

Repetition or not

Individual, group, cultural, societal,
universal

Beauty and
Appeal

Sensually pleasing: visual, touch, auditory,
taste, smell

Objective or emotional

Coherence, harmony and unity

Fashion, style, timeliness, timelessness

Structure and
Support

Stiff or flexible

Flow and drape

Linkage, connectivity

Wearability

Display

Organization

Articulation

Autonomy vs. Temporariness

Interactive with wearer, or not

Craftsmanship

Inspiration

Skill and dexterity

With tools, or not

Design acumen

Personality and preferences

Form, Segmentation,
Components

Shape with Volume

Whole or divided

Organized or chaotic

Perspective

2-dimensional or 3-dimensional

Alignment

Shading

Positioning or spacing

Simple or Complex

Balance and
Distribution

Symmetrical (By size, color, or shape)

Visual weight

Visual size

Asymmetrical (By size, color, or shape)

Radial
(By size, color or shape)

Visual placement

Random
(By size, color, or shape)

Stable or unstable

Directed or undirected

Referents to specific
idea or style

Vintage Revival

Direct or implied

Contemporary

Literal or figurative

Symbolic

Context,
Situation, Culture

Economic, social, psychological, cultural,
situational values

Complicit artist, or not

Derived meaning, or objective meaning

Negative and
Positive Space

Figure or ground

Form or no form

Shading

Perspective

Depth

Use of space around an object

Interpenetration of space

Illusion or reality

Placement

Light and
Shadow

Suggestive

Gradient

Perspective

Shading

Illumination

Solid or Cast

Dimensionality

Moon

The Japanese Fragrance Garden Bracelet

“Japanese Fragrance Garden Bracelet”, by Warren Feld, March 2018, photography by Warren Feld

For example, this is the kind of building blocks thinking I did when designing my Japanese Fragrance Garden Bracelet.

This bracelet has a foundation base. The finishes of these beads in the
base are either a luster finish or a dichroic finish. Off the base, I created flower stalks that were 4-6 seed beads tall, and topped with a slightly
larger and more brightly colored seed bead. The colors of the beads in the stalks vary from dark (near the base) to light (near the flower tip). Between
each bed of flowers is a “moon bridge” – the kind you might expect when
meandering through a Japanese garden.

See how I clustered independent and dependent Design Elements to achieve a particular expression.

What I Wanted To Achieve

Design Elements I Thought About

Movement
with flower stalks where they would retain their verticality
(thus not flop over) after the piece was worn.

Technique: Fringing technique
Technology: Use of One-G beading thread which, unlike
all other beading threads, has a springy quality to it. When the fringe is pulled out during
wearing, the thread helps spring it back into place

Color: To mimic how moving
colors will be perceived, I varied color in flower stalks from dark at the
bottom to medium to light at the top, just under the flower, and then used
bright colors for the flowers topping off each stalk
Point, Line: Easy for viewer to perceive and follow
movement of points and lines, which are key elements in the piece

Dimensionality
where the piece would not be seen as flat

Point, Line: Visually, the flower stalks lead the eye from the foundation
base, up the stalks, and to the bright flower colors on top of the
stalks.

Color: I use a reflective foundation base of two types of bead
finishes, (a) luster, and (b) dichroic.
Both have a mirroring effect, making it difficult for the eye to see
the “bottom”, and at the same time reflecting the colors sitting above them.

Color Blending
where as the eye moves up and down any flower stalk, or moves
across the piece from end to end, everything feels coherent and unified

Color: I make a wide use of simultaneity effects, where the placement
of one color affects the perception of the color next to it. This fools the brain into blending colors, which in reality, you cannot do easily with
beads (as opposed to paints).

Shape/Points/Line/Pattern: There is a consistent repetition of shapes, points and lines, and pattern, leading the viewer to be able to predict what should happen next along the bracelet, and again, fooling the brain into doing some color blending perceptual tricks of its own.

How Do You Teach Designers A Vocabulary of Design?

Most designers most likely start theirjewelry making careers taking craft-oriented classes and following instructions in how-to books or online in how-to videos. They learn to repeat a set of steps and end up with something like what is pictured. The whole jewelry making approach assumes that jewelry making is a natural process. Surround the budding artist with patterns, books and videos, and they will somehow become great jewelry designers.

Yet, although the artisans follow a set of steps over and over again, they never learn how to make choices or evaluate implications or get any experience making judgement calls and tradeoffs when designing something that must look good and wear well at the same time. Jewelry making is not a natural skill that is learned automatically. Jewelry designers need to be taught to design.

Towards this end, I think it is much more useful to build an educational curriculum and program around the idea of disciplinary literacy. We need to teach designers to explicitly and systematically think design. Designers need to be able to recognize the elements that make up a piece, how they were used, and how this leads to more or less success in evoking an expression or an emotional response.

Disciplinary Literacy, means, in part, that the designer is aware of the “codes” which were selected for a piece of jewelry. The designer is able to segment the piece and identify its Design Elements. The designer is also able to put Design Elements together and blend them to achieve a desired expression. The better designer is very aware of all the codes, or Design Elements. The better designer is very aware of how the codes, or Design Elements, were selected, combined, blended and expressed. And the designer is very aware of how and why clusters of Design Elements may sometimes get bounded; that is, may be unfortunately stuck within some
indeterminant meaning or expression.

Towards this end, this means first teaching designers how to decode. It means figuring out what universally accepted Design Elements should be used in a piece. It also means recognizing how these elements can vary, and how such variation can change the artistic or design expression
of the piece. Designers need to learn how Design Elements get clustered and constructed to convey certain expressions, and which cannot.

At this stage, we are training the designer to have some comfort recognizing and applying objective, shared understandings about what certain Design Elements mean, and the variations in how they might get expressed within a piece.

As the designer’s education progresses, we would gradually reduce the student’s involvement with decoding, and increase the involvement with tasks involving fluency. This involves more in-depth learning about
manipulation and construction. Here the designer is taught how to define a personal style and approach, and implement it. The designer is guided from creating the merely appealing, to the more resounding resonant. The designer is also taught to look for, anticipate and incorporate context clues. All this gets into the areas of grammar and process management, which I discuss in other articles.^[^1,2]

_________________________________________________________

WARREN FELD, Jewelry Designer
warren@warrenfeldjewelry.com
615-292-0610

His pieces have appeared in beading and jewelry magazines and books. One piece is in the Swarovski museum in Innsbruck, Austria.

He is probably best known for creating the international The Ugly Necklace Contest, where good jewelry designers attempt to overcome our pre-wired brains’ fear response for resisting anything Ugly.

Footnotes

^[1] Read my article Jewelry Design: A Managed Process, Klimt02.net Forum, https://klimt02.net/forum/articles/jewelry-design-managed-process-warren-feld

^[2] I discuss a little about shared understandings in a yet unpublished article I wrote about Contemporary Design. From that article…

“Shared understandings should be enduring, transferable, big ideas at the heart of what we think of as contemporary jewelry. These shared understandings are things which spark meaningful connections between designer and materials, designer and techniques, and designer and client. We need, however, to recognize that the idea of understanding is very multidimensional and complicated.

Understanding is not one achievement, but more the result of several loosely organized choices. Understanding is revealed through performance and evidence. Jewelry designers must perform effectively with knowledge, insight, wisdom and skill to convince us – the world at large and the client in particular — that they really understand what design, and with our case here, contemporary design, is all about. This involves a big interpersonal component where the artist introduces their jewelry to a wider audience and subjects it to psychological, social, cultural, and economic assessment.

Understanding is more than knowledge. The designer may be able to
articulate what needs to be done to achieve something labeled contemporary, but
may not know how to apply it.

Understanding is more than interpretation. The designer may be able to explain how a piece was constructed and conformed to ideas about contemporary, but this does not necessarily account for the significance of the results.

Understanding is more than applying principles of construction.    It is more
than simply organizing a set of Design Elements into an arrangement.     The designer must match knowledge and interpretation about contemporary to
the context.   Application is a context-dependent skill.

Understanding is more than perspective. The designer works within
a myriad of expectations and points of view about contemporary jewelry. The designer must dispassionately anticipate these various perspectives about contemporary design, and, bring some constructed point of view and knowledge of implications to bear within the design and design process.

We do not design in a vacuum. The designer must have the ability to
empathize with individuals and grasp their individual and group cultures. If selling their jewelry, the designer must have the ability to empathize with small and larger markets, as well. Empathy is not sympathy. Empathy is where we can feel what others feel, and see what others see.

Last, understanding is self-knowledge, as well. The designer should have the
self-knowledge, wisdom and insights to know how their own patterns of thought
may inform, as well as prejudice, their understandings of contemporary
design.

How the jewelry designer begins the process of creating a contemporary piece of jewelry is very revealing about the potential for success. The designer
should always begin the process by articulating the essential shared understandings against which their work will be evaluated and judged. For now, let’s refer to this as Backwards Design^[^4]. The designer starts with questions about assessment, and then allows this understanding to influence all other choices going forward.”

^[3] Backwards Design. I had taken two graduate education courses in Literacy and one in Planning that were very influential in
my approach to disciplinary literacy. One of the big take-aways from
Understanding by Design by Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe,
2^nd Edition, Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development,
2005, was the idea they introduced of “backwards design”. Their point is that you can better teach understanding if you anticipate the evidence others will use in their assessments of what you are trying to do.
When coupled with ideas about teaching literacy and fluency (see
Literacy:Helping Students Construct Meaning by J. David Cooper, M. Robinson, J.A. Slansky and N. Kiger, 9^thEdition, Cengage Learning, 2015), you can begin to introduce ideas about managing the design process in a coherent and alignable way.

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Contemporary Jewelry Is Not A “Look” — It’s A Way Of “Thinking”

Posted by learntobead on February 15, 2018

CONTEMPORARY JEWELRY IS NOT A “LOOK” —
IT’S A WAY OF “THINKING”
by Warren Feld, Jewelry Artisan
warren@warrenfeldjewelry.com
718 Thompson Lane, Ste 123, Nashville, TN 37204
615-292-0610

“Canyon Sunrise”, Warren Feld, designer, 2004, Austrian crystal, glass seed beads, 14KT gold chain and constructed clasp, fireline cable thread, photographer Warren Feld

Abstract:
Contemporary Jewelry represents a specific approach for thinking through design. Making jewelry is, in essence, an authentic performance task. The jewelry artisan applies knowledge, skill and awareness within the anticipation of the influence and constraints of a set of shared understandings. Shared understandings relate to composition, construction and performance. These understandings are enduring, transferable, big ideas at the heart of what we think of as “contemporary jewelry”. They are things which spark meaningful connections between designer and materials, designer and techniques, and designer and client. Managing these connections is what we call “fluency in design”.

Jewelry Design is a professional discipline. Every legitimately defined profession has at its core a discipline-specific way of thinking. This includes core concepts, core rules, and core beliefs. And it includes professional routines and strategies for applying, manipulating and managing these. The good designer is fluent in how to think through design, and the good contemporary designer is fluent in how to think through design which earns the label “contemporary”.

But, the jewelry designer can only wonder at this with crossed eyes and bewilderment. As a profession, jewelry design balances a series of contradictions, most notably to what extent the practice is craft, art or design. This works against professional legitimacy.

Jewelry Design, as a discipline, is not always clear and consistent about its own literacy – that is, what it means to be fluent in design. Its core concepts, rules and beliefs are not well-defined, and often break down by medium, by operational location – (visualize museum, gallery, studio, store, factory, workshop, class, home), and by the degree of involvement and commitment to the profession of the jewelry designer him- or herself. The diversity of materials, approaches, styles and the like make it difficult to delineate any unifying principles or professional image.

As designers, we see, feel and experience the evolving dynamics of an occupation in search of a profession. But our profession is still in search of a coherent identify. Perhaps we see this most often in debates over how we come to recognize what jewelry we think should be labeled “contemporary” and what jewelry should not.

On the one hand, the idea of contemporary can be very elucidating. On the other, however, we are not sure what contemporary involves, how the label should be applied, and what the label represents. Yet, our sense-making search for its meaning is at the forefront of the professionalization of jewelry design. Our persistent questioning about “What is contemporary jewelry?” opens up thinking and possibilities for every jewelry designer, working across many styles and with many materials, both experienced and novice alike.

The term “contemporary” is defined as something occurring in our time, and that can be very confusing for the jewelry designer. We get caught in a major Identity Crisis for lack of a clear, agreed-upon definition of contemporary. How we resolve this Identity Crisis around a common understanding of “contemporary jewelry” can go a long way, I believe, towards developing a coherent disciplinary literacy and professional identity for all jewelry designers. Resolution can be very unifying.

Many conceptual questions about contemporary jewelry arise. We need to be very cognizant of how we think through our responses.

Does the label apply to every piece of jewelry made today? We see all kinds of styles, shapes, silhouettes, materials, techniques, fashions all around us. There appears to be no common denominator except that they all have been created in our time.

Should the label be applied to all this variation?

Could it?

Why would we want it to?

Does the label apply to a certain timeframe, with the expectation that it will be supplanted by another label sometime in the future?

What is contemporary jewelry?

“Contemporary” Is A Specific Approach For Thinking Through Design

I suggest that contemporary jewelry is not a specific thing. But rather it is a way of thinking through the design process. It is a type of thinking routine[1] which underlays the universal core of contemporary jewelry design.
Contemporary jewelry is not every piece of jewelry made in our time. It is, instead, jewelry designed and crafted with certain shared understandings in mind – understandings about composition, construction and performance.

Contemporary jewelry is not associated with any particular color or pattern or texture. It is, instead, a strategy for selecting colors, patterns and textures.

Contemporary jewelry is not something that only a few people would make or wear, whether boring or outlandish. It is, instead, something most people recognize as wearable with some level of appeal.

Contemporary jewelry is not restricted to the use of unusual or unexpected materials or techniques. It is, instead, something which leverages the strengths or minimizes the weaknesses of any and all materials and/or techniques used in a project.

Contemporary jewelry is not a specific silhouette, or line, or shape, or form, or theme, but, instead, something which shows the artist’s control over how these can be manipulated, used, played off of, and, even, violated.

Contemporary jewelry is an integral part of our culture. We wear jewelry to tell ourselves and to tell others we are OK. It is reflective of the sum of all our choices about how we think through our place among others, our relative value among others, our behaviors among others, our preferred ways to interact, challenge, conform, question, organize and arrange.

The contemporary jewelry designer is especially positioned to serve at the nexus of all this culture. The designer’s ability to think through and define what contemporary means becomes instrumental for everyone wearing their jewelry to successfully negotiate the day-to-day cultural demands of the community they live in. Designers have a unique ability to dignify and make people feel valued, respected, honored and seen.

Think of all that power!

Each person stands at that precipice of acceptance or not, relevance or not. The jewelry designer has the power to push someone in one direction, or another.
If only we had the established profession and a disciplinary literacy to help us be smart about this.

FLUENCY[2] IN DESIGN: Managing The Contemporary Design Process

Jewelry design is, in effect, an authentic performance task.

The jewelry designer demonstrates their knowledge, awareness and abilities to:

1. Work within our shared understandings about contemporary jewelry.

2. Apply key knowledge and skills to achieve the desired result – a contemporary piece of jewelry.

3. Anticipate how their work will be reviewed, judged and evaluated by criteria reflective of these same shared understandings.

4. Step back, reflect, and validate all their thinking to reject any misunderstandings, and make adjustments accordingly.

The better designer is able to bring a high level of coherence and consistency to the process of managing all this – shared understandings, knowledge and skills, evaluative review, and reflection and adjustment.
This is called “fluency in design”.

Shared Understandings[3]

Shared understandings should be enduring, transferable, big ideas at the heart of what we think of as contemporary jewelry. These shared understandings are things which spark meaningful connections between designer and materials, designer and techniques, and designer and client. We need, however, to recognize that the idea of understanding is very multidimensional and complicated.

Understanding is not one achievement, but more the result of several loosely organized choices. Understanding is revealed through performance and evidence. Jewelry designers must perform effectively with knowledge, insight, wisdom and skill to convince us – the world at large and the client in particular — that they really understand what design, and with our case here, contemporary design, is all about. This involves a big interpersonal component where the artist introduces their jewelry to a wider audience and subjects it to psychological, social, cultural, and economic assessment.
Understanding is more than knowledge. The designer may be able to articulate what needs to be done to achieve something labeled contemporary, but may not know how to apply it.

Understanding is more than interpretation. The designer may be able to explain how a piece was constructed and conformed to ideas about contemporary, but this does not necessarily account for the significance of the results.
Understanding is more than applying principles of construction. It is more than simply organizing a set of design elements into an arrangement. The designer must match knowledge and interpretation about contemporary to the context. Application is a context-dependent skill.

Understanding is more than perspective. The designer works within a myriad of expectations and points of view about contemporary jewelry. The designer must dispassionately anticipate these various perspectives about contemporary design, and, bring some constructed point of view and knowledge of implications to bear within the design and design process.

How the jewelry designer begins the process of creating a contemporary piece of jewelry is very revealing about the potential for success. The designer should always begin the process by articulating the essential shared understandings against which their work will be evaluated and judged. For now, let’s refer to this as Backwards Design[4]. The designer starts with questions about assessment, and then allows this understanding to influence all other choices going forward.

When designing contemporary jewelry, the designer will push for shared understandings about what it means to be worthy of the label “contemporary.” I propose the following five shared understandings as a place to start, and hopefully, to generate more discussion and debate.

These are,

1. Fixed Frameworks and Rules should not pre-determine what designers do.

Rules do exist, such as color schemes or rules for achieving balance or rhythm. But rules may be challenged or serve as guidelines for the designer. In fact, the designer may develop and implement rules of their own.

Designers do not learn understanding if they are only able to answer a question if framed in one particular way. How the designer invents and applies rules for managing design as a process become of primary importance because they reveal design fluency and thinking. And this allows for a variety of approaches as well as an escape from any dominant definitions. Nothing is sacred.

2. Jewelry should extend, rework, and play with, or even push, the boundaries of materials, techniques and technologies.

Contemporary designers are meant to ask questions, evaluate different options and experiment widely. They do this in order to leverage the strengths and minimize the weaknesses of materials, techniques and technologies used. Their jewelry should reflect this.

3. Jewelry should evoke emotions.

The audience is an integral part of the success of contemporary jewelry. The viewer/wearer recognizes things in the piece and is allowed to, (in fact, expected to), react and interpret. The designer’s goal is to achieve a level of resonance.

4. Jewelry should connect people with culture.

Contemporary jewelry is not made for art’s sake alone. Contemporary jewelry is made to connect to the world around us. It is meant to assist a person in recognizing how they want to live their lives, and how they want to introduce their view of themselves into the broader community or communities they live in.

5. Successful jewelry designs should only be judged as the jewelry is worn.

Jewelry is not designed in isolation from the human body. Its design should anticipate requirements for movement, drape and flow. Its design should anticipate the implications of the context in which the jewelry is worn. The implications for all jewelry design choices are most apparent at the boundary between jewelry and person.

Given that the designer “backward-designs [4],” he or she begins the process by anticipating those understandings about how their work will be assessed. The designer then is equipped to make three types of informed choices:

A. Choices about composition
B. Choices about construction
C. Choices about performance

The designer determines (a) what design elements to include in the piece, and then (b) rules for manipulating them. The contemporary designer (c) measures these against our shared understandings about contemporary design. These measures are a continuum – degrees of contemporary, not either/or’s or absolutes. In any given piece of jewelry, some design elements may be very contemporary, and others might not.

GOOD COMPOSITION:
Selecting and Articulating Upon Design Elements and Their Attributes

Jewelry making is a constructive process. It makes sense for the designer to begin with something like building blocks, which I call design elements. Design elements include things like color, movement, dimensionality, materials, use of space, and the like.

Each design element, in turn, encompasses a range of acceptable meanings, yet still reflective of that design element, and which are called attributes.
These design elements can be arranged in different configurations.

The combination of any two or more design elements can have synergistic effects.
Working with design elements is not much different than working with an alphabet. An alphabet is made up of different letters. Each letter has different attributes – how it is written, how it sounds, how it is used. Configurations of letters result in more sounds and more meanings and more ways to be used.

This is exactly what the jewelry designer does with design elements. The designer has to decode, that is, make sense of a series of elements and their attributes in light of our shared understandings about jewelry design. The contemporary designer decodes in light of our further shared understandings about contemporary jewelry design.

The designer might, for example, want to select from this list of design elements I have generated below. I have arranged these design elements into what is called a thinking routine[1]. The designer uses the routine to determine how each element might be incorporated into the piece, and how the desired attributes of each element relate to contemporary design. They might also use the routine to look for issues of true and false. They might use the routine to rate each element as to importance and uncertainty.

DESIGN ELEMENT	LESS CONTEMPORARY	MORE CONTEMPORARY
Dimensionality	Flat; Width/Length focus	Not Flat; Noticeable Width/Length/Height focus
Movement, Moving Elements	Little or no movement, either from the movement of actual components, or from how colors or patterns are used	Great sense of movement, either from the movement of components, or from how colors or patterns are used
Color, Color Blending	Follows color rules, resistant to violate them	Pushes color rules to the edge, or violates them
Light and Shadow	Little sense artist attempted to control light and shadow in a strategic sense	Great sense artist attempted to control light and shadow, strategically
Negative and Positive Spaces	Little sense artist attempted to control negative and positive spaces in a strategic sense	Great sense artist attempted to control negative and positive spaces strategically
Point, Line, Plane, Shape, Form	Conforms to expectations; comfortable working within basic parameters	Violates expectations; challenges basic parameters
Theme, Symbols	If used, themes and symbols are simplistic and readily identified	If used, themes and symbols have a complex relationship to form and structure, and stimulate debate and discussion to fully make sense of them
Beauty and Appeal	Primary goal of piece	Synergistic relationship between beauty and function to achieve designer’s ends
Structure and Support	Little concern with movement, drape and flow; unwilling to sacrifice appeal for function	Considerable concern with movement, drape and flow, and a willingness to make tradeoffs between appeal and function
Materials	Materials are selected for how they look	Materials are selected for how they function; designer leverages strengths and minimizes weaknesses
Craftsmanship	Disconnect from Artist as if Artist was anonymous	Shows Artist’s Hand
Context, Situation, Culture	Pieces created for the sake of making something, or for the sake of beauty and appeal only	Pieces created in anticipation of shared understandings about contemporary jewelry
Balance, Distribution	Conforms to expectations; comfortable working within basic parameters	Violates expectations; challenges basic parameters
Technique(s)	Selected without questioning implications of how technique affects boundary between jewelry and person	Selected after questioning implications of how technique affects boundary between jewelry and person
Texture, Pattern	Conforms to expectations; comfortable working within basic parameters	Violates expectations; challenges basic parameters
Reference and Reinforce an Idea, Style	May or may not reference and/or reinforce symbolic meanings; if so, usually does so in a linear fashion, such as mimicking or repeating them	May or may not reference and/or reinforce symbolic meanings; if so, learns from them, and then, based on this learning, takes the references to another level

Example of some choices I made using the routine when creating my piece Canyon Sunrise:
Canyon Sunrise, Warren Feld, 2004

What are some things which make this piece “Contemporary”?



Dimensionality	Two layers of beadwork. The top layer overlapping the bottom layer, where the first row of the bottom layer is attached to the 2nd row of the top layer, forcing a curvature along the top. The pendant sits on top of bottom layer and in line with top layer.
Moving Elements	The two layers are only connected at their tops. As the wearer moves, each layer can move somewhat independently of the other.
Color, Color Blending	The piece uses a 5-color scheme, but increases the natural proportions of one color relative to the others. There are many gaps of light between all the beads which calls for a color blending strategy(ies). The piece relies heavily on simultaneity effects, as well as the overlapping effects of transparent and translucent beads.
Technique(s)	The bead woven strips are allowed to fan out from the top, thus better accommodating the wearer’s body.

GOOD CONSTRUCTION:
Applying Knowledge, Skills, Competencies for Manipulating Design Elements

Design elements need to be selected, organized and implemented in some kind of satisfying design. Towards this end, the artist, consciously or not, anticipates our shared understandings in order to make these kinds of choices.

These are the most visible choices the artist makes. We can see the finished piece of jewelry. We interact with it. We question it. We get a sense of whether we want to emotionally respond to it. We either feel its resonance, or we don’t.

Most artists manage intuitively, learning to make good choices as they receive feedback and assessment, and adjust their decisions accordingly. The better jewelry designers, however, show “metacognitive awareness” of all the things they have thought of, anticipated, structured, and accomplished during the design process as these relate to larger shared understandings about contemporary jewelry.

Let’s return, for a minute, to the analogy with building blocks and the alphabet. The design elements are building blocks. I compared them to the letters of the alphabet. Building blocks have attributes, and letters have attributes. Attributes further define them and give them purpose.

The novice designer learns to decode these building blocks and their attributes. With more experience, the blocks, just like letters, get combined and constructed into words and phrases and larger, meaningful ideas and expressions.

In essence, the finished piece of jewelry is an exemplar of the jewelry artisan’s vocabulary and grammar of design. The fluency in how the artist uses this vocabulary and grammar in designing their piece should be, I would think, especially correlated with the success and resonance of the piece.

Often, artists implement their design element choices with attention and recognition to Principles of Construction. Principles of Construction are the rules or grammar for using design elements in a piece. Given the artist’s goals for beauty and function, the artist is free to apply the rules in any way she or he sees fit. However, we expect to find this grammar underlaying all pieces of jewelry, whether the piece is contemporary or otherwise.

When we want to apply the label “contemporary,” however, we search for the choices and logic the artist has used for constructing design elements into a contemporary whole, and in anticipation of our shared understandings.

I suggest these 10 Principles of Construction. All Principles need to be applied, yet each is different from and somewhat independent of the others. For example, the colors may be well chosen, but proportions or placement not right.

Principle of Construction	What the Principle is About
Rhythm	How the piece engages the viewer and directs their eye
Pointers	How the piece directs the viewer to a certain place or focal point
Planar Relationships	The degree the piece is not disorienting; obvious what is “up” and what is “down”
Interest	The degree the artist has made the ordinary…”noteworthy”
Statistical Distribution	How satisfying the numbers and sizes of objects within the piece are
Balance	How satisfying the placement of objects (and their attributes) is
Dimensionality	The degree to which the piece is flat or 3-dimensional, how satisfying this dimensionality is to the piece
Temporal Extension	How well the parts are integrated into the whole in anticipation of how, where and when the jewelry is to be worn; the whole should be more than the sum of its parts
Physical Extension/Finishing	The degree the piece is designed so that it accommodates physical stresses when the piece is worn
Parsimony	There should be no nonessential elements; the addition or subtraction of one element or its attribute will make the piece less satisfying

GOOD PERFORMANCE:
Seeking Continual Feedback and Evaluation About Choices and Results

The jewelry designer brings perspective. The designer shows they can rise above the passions, inclinations and dominant opinions of the moment to do what their feelings, thoughts and reflections reveal to be best. And, at the same time, the designer shows that they can strive for a rapport, a sharing of values, an empathetic response, a type of respect deemed contemporary.

If we return to our alphabet metaphor, it is necessary, but not sufficient, for the artist to assemble a palette of building blocks, thus, design elements. It is necessary, but not sufficient, for the artist to apply a vocabulary and grammar for arranging these building blocks, thus for constructing a piece of jewelry.

Most importantly, however, it is both necessary and sufficient for the artist to anticipate how the piece of jewelry will be assessed prior to making any choice about design element or construction. The more coherent and aligned each aspect of this process is, the better managed. To the extent the artist can strategically manage this whole “backwards” design process, the more fluent in design that artist is. The more fluent in design, the more the finished piece reveals the artist’s hand and resonates.

So, there is a very dynamic performance component to design. The contemporary jewelry designer needs to think about what criteria their client and the general culture and market will use as acceptable evidence of “contemporary” and “good contemporary design”, when the piece is introduced. The artist needs to think about things like connection, emotion, resonance, integrity, market.

The designer needs answers to several questions at this point.

What is the designer’s process and routine for thinking about shared understandings and evidence of authentic performance?

How well have they anticipated these criteria of evaluation?

Has the designer created a continual feedback loop so that acceptable evidence is introduced throughout the full process of design?

To what extent will the eventual evaluation of the contemporary jewelry designer and their work be fair, valid, reliable, and a sufficient measure of their results?

_________________________________________________________

WARREN FELD, Jewelry Designer
warren@warrenfeldjewelry.com
615-292-0610

His pieces have appeared in beading and jewelry magazines and books. One piece is in the Swarovski museum in Innsbruck, Austria.

He is probably best known for creating the international The Ugly Necklace Contest, where good jewelry designers attempt to overcome our pre-wired brains’ fear response for resisting anything Ugly.

_________________________________________________________

FOOTNOTES

1 Thinking Routines. I teach jewelry design. I find it useful to engage students with various ways of thinking out loud. They need to hear me think out loud about what choices I am making and what things I am considering when making those choices. They need to hear themselves think out loud so that they can develop strategies for getting more organized and strategic in dealing with information and making decisions. My inspiration here was based on the work done by Visible Thinking by Project Zero at Harvard Graduate School of Education .

2 Fluency. I took two graduate education courses in Literacy. The primary text we used was Literacy: Helping Students Construct Meaning by J. David Cooper, M. Robinson, J.A. Slansky and N. Kiger, 9th Edition, Cengage Learning, 2015. Even though the text was not about jewelry designing per se, it provides an excellent framework for understanding what fluency is all about, and how fluency with language develops over a period of years. I have relied on many of the ideas in the text to develop my own ideas about a disciplinary literacy for jewelry design.

3 Shared Understandings. In another graduate education class, the major text reviewed the differences between understanding and knowledge. The question was how to teach understanding. Worth the read to gain many insights about how to structure teaching to get sufficient understanding to enrich learning. Understanding by Design by Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe, 2nd Edition, Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 2005.

4 Backwards Design. One of the big take-aways from Understanding by Design (see footnote 2) was the idea they introduced of “backwards design”. Their point is that you can better teach understanding if you anticipate the evidence others will use in their assessments of what you are trying to do. When coupled with ideas about teaching literacy and fluency (see footnote 1), you can begin to introduce ideas about managing the design process in a coherent and alignable way.

Posted in design management, jewelry design, jewelry making, Learn To Bead, Stitch 'n Bitch | Tagged: art, beading, craft, design, jewelry, jewelry design, jewelry making | 3 Comments »

JEWELRY DESIGN: A Managed Process

Posted by learntobead on January 4, 2018

“Jewelry is art, but only art as it is worn.”

That’s a powerful idea, — “as it is worn” — but, when making jewelry, we somewhat ignore it. We bury it somewhere in the back of our brains, so it doesn’t get in the way of what we are trying to do. We relegate it to a phrase on the last page of a book we have promised ourselves to read sometime, so it doesn’t put any road blocks in front of our process of creation.

We like to follow steps, and are thrilled when a lot of the thinking has been done for us. We like to make beautiful things. But, we do not want to have to make a lot of choices. We don’t want anything to disrupt our creative process.

We do not want to worry about and think about and agonize over jewelry “as it is to be worn.” Let’s not deal with those movement, architectural, engineering, context, interpersonal and behavioral stuff. We just want to make things.

To most artisans, making jewelry should never be work. It should always be fun.

Making jewelry should be putting a lot of things on a table in front of you, and going for it.

Making jewelry just is. It is not something we have to worry about managing.

It is easy to make, copy or mimic jewelry someone else has designed, either through kits or through imitation.

Making jewelry is doing. Not thinking.

Creating. Not managing.

We prefer to make jewelry distinct from any context in which it might be worn or sold. We don’t want someone looking over our shoulder, while we create. We don’t want to adjust any design choice we make because the client won’t like it, or, perhaps, it is out of fashion or color-shaded with colors not everyone likes. Perhaps our design choices at-the-moment do not fit with the necessities associated with how we need to market our wares to sell them. Our pieces might somehow be off-brand.

All too often, we avoid having to think about the difficult choices and tradeoffs we need to make, when searching for balance. That is balance among aesthetics, functionality, context, materials and technique. And balance between our needs as designers and the wearer’s needs, as well. So, too, we shy aware from making any extra effort to please “others” or “them”. Even though this hardly makes sense if we want these “others” or “them” to wear our jewelry or buy our jewelry creations.

Everything comes down to a series of difficult choices. We are resistant to making many of them. So we ignore them. We pretend they are choices better left to other people, though never fully sure who those other people are. We yearn to be artists, but resign ourselves to be craftspersons. We dabble with art, but avoid design.

We hate to make trade-offs between art and function; that is, allow something to be a little less beautiful so that it won’t break or not drape and move well when worn. We hate to make things in colors or silhouettes we don’t like. We hate to make the same design over and over again, even though it might be popular or sell well.

But make these kinds of choices we must! Your jewelry is a reflection of the sum of these choices. It is a reflection of you. You as an artist. You as a crafter. You as architect and engineer. You as social scientist. You as a business person. You as a designer.

So, the more we can anticipate what kinds of choices we need to make, and the more experience we have to successfully manage and maneuver within these choices, the more enjoyable and successful our jewelry designs become … and the more satisfying for the people for whom we make them.

JEWELRY DESIGN IS A MANAGEMENT PROCESS

Designers who are able to re-interpret the steps she or he go through and see them in “process” terms, that is, with organization and purpose, have the advantage.

There are many different kinds of choices to be made, but they are interdependent and connected. Recognizing interdependency and connectedness makes it easier to learn about, visualize and execute these choices as part of an organized, deliberate and managed jewelry design process.

I am going to get on my soap box here. We tend to teach students to very mechanically follow a series of steps. We need, instead, to teach them “Process”. Strategy. Insight. Connectedness. Contingency. Dependency. Construction. Context. Problem-Solving. Consequences.

Good jewelry design must answer questions and teach practitioners about managing the processes of anticipating the audience, selecting materials, implementing techniques, and constructing the piece from one end to the other. Again, this is not a mechanical process. Often, it is not a linear step-by-step pathway. There is a lot of iteration – that is, the next choice made will limit some things and make more relevant other things which are to happen next.

A “process” is something to be managed, from beginning to end, as the designer’s knowledge, techniques and skills are put to the test. That test could be very small-scale and simple, such as creating a piece of jewelry to give to someone as a gift. Or creating a visual for a customer. Or when you need to know the costs. Or, that test could be very large-scale and more complex, such as convincing a sales agent to represent your jewelry in their showroom.

Better Jewelry Designers smartly manage their design processes at the boundary between jewelry and person. It is at this boundary where all the interdependencies of all the various types of choices we designers make are clearest and have the most consequence.

WELL-DESIGNED JEWELRY MUST BE MANAGED
AT THE BOUNDARY BETWEEN JEWELRY AND PERSON

What exactly does it mean to “manage design at the boundary between jewelry and person?” What kinds of things happen at that boundary?

A person breathes. She moves. She sits at a desk, perhaps fidgeting with her jewelry. She might make sudden turns. She gracefully transitions from one space to another. She has shape, actually many shapes.

Her jewelry serves many purposes. It signifies her as someone or something. It expresses her feelings. Or status. Or future intentions. Or past history. It ties her to people and places, events and times. It suggests power, or lack thereof. It hides faults, and amplifies strengths. It implies whether she fits with the situation.

Jewelry attracts. It attracts seekers of the wearer’s attention. It wards off denigrators. It orients people to the world around them. It tells them a story with enough symbol, clue and information to allow people to decide whether to flee or approach, run away or walk toward, hide or shine.

Jewelry has a feel and sparkle to it. It reminds us that we are real. It empowers a sensuality and a sexuality. It elevates our esteem. Sometimes uncomfortable or scratchy. Sometimes not. Sometimes reflective of our moods. Othertimes not.

Jewelry is a shared experience. It helps similar people find one another. It signals what level of respect will be demanded. It entices. It repels. It offers themes both desirable and otherwise.

Jewelry has shape, form and mechanics. All the components must self-adjust to forces of movement, yet at the same time, not lose shape or form or maneuverability. If a piece is designed to visually display in a particular way, forces cannot be allowed to disrupt its presentation. Jewelry should take the shape of the body and move with the body. It should not make a mockery of the body, or resist the body as it wants to express itself.

Jewelry defines a silhouette. It draws a line on the body, often demarcating what to look at and what to look away from. What to touch, and what to avoid. What is important, and what is less so.

Managing here at the boundary between jewelry and person means understanding what wearing jewelry involves and is all about. There is an especially high level of clarity at this boundary because it is here where the implications of any choice matters.

The choice of stringing material anticipates durability, movement, drape. The choices of color and shape and silhouette anticipate aesthetics, tensions between light and shadow, context, the viewer’s needs or personality or preferences at the moment. The choice of technique anticipates how best to coordinate choices about materials with purpose and objective. The choice of price determines marketability, and where it’s out there, and whether it’s out there.

You choose Fireline cable thread and this choice means your piece will be stiffer, might hold a shape better, might resist the abrasion of beads, but also might mean less comfort or adaptability.

You choose cable wire and this choice means that your piece might not lay right or comfortably. A necklace will be more likely to turn around on the neck. It might make the wearer look clownish. At the same time, it might make the stringing process go more quickly. Efficiency translates into less money charged, and perhaps more sales.

You choose to mix opaque glass with gemstone beads, mixing media which do not necessarily interact with the eye and brain in the same way. This may make interacting with the piece seem more like work or annoying.

The ends of your wirework will not keep from bending or unraveling, so you solder them. Visually this disrupts the dance you achieve with wire bending and cheapens it.

You choose gray-toned beads to intersperse among your brightly colored ones. The grays pick up the colors around them, adding vibrancy and resonance to your piece. The gaps of light between each bead more easily fade away as the brain is tricked into filling them in with color.

You mix metalized plastic beads in with your Austrian crystal beads. In a fortnight, the finish has chipped off all the plastic beads.

You construct a loom bracelet, flat, lacking depth or a sense of movement. Your piece may be seen as pretty, but out of step with contemporary ideas of fashion, style, and design.

If we pretend our management choices here do not matter, we fool ourselves into thinking we are greater artists and designers than we really are.

JEWELRY DESIGN MANAGEMENT:
BUILDING A STRUCTURE AND ORGANIZATION FOR THINKING THROUGH DESIGN

Design management is multi-faceted. We intuitively know that proper preparation prevents piss poor performance. So let’s properly prepare. This means…

PROJECT
Defining what I do as a “Project To Be Managed” — My Project is seen as a “system”, not merely a set of steps. The “system” encompasses everything it takes that enables creativity and leads it to success. These include things related to art, architecture, engineering, management, behavioral and context analysis, problem-solving, and innovation. For some designers, these also include things related to business, marketing, branding, selling and cost-accounting.
INSPIRATION
Documenting, through image, writing or both, the kinds of things that are inspiring me and influencing my design

PURPOSE
Elaborating on the purpose or mission of my Project – why am I doing this Project as it applies to me, and as it applies to others?
SITUATION
Measuring the context and situation as these will/might/could impact my Project

STRATEGY
Developing a strategy for designing my piece — outlining everything that needs to come together to successfully work through my Project from beginning to end
SKILLS
Verifying, Learning or Re-Learning the necessary techniques and skills
SUPPLIES
Securing my supply chain to get all our materials, tools and supplies needed when I need them
CONSTRUCTION
Applying design principles of composition, form and structure. Paying careful attention to building in architectural pre-requisites, particularly those involved with support, jointedness and movement.
SHOWCASE
Introducing my Jewelry Design to a wider audience. This might involve sharing, show-casing, or marketing and selling
REPLICATION
Anticipating all that it will take to replicate the piece, if it is not a one-off, especially if I am developing kits or selling my pieces
REFLECTION
Evaluating whether I could repeat this or a similar Project with any greater efficiency or effectiveness – The better jewelry artist is one who is more reflective.

DESIGN THINKING

Designing jewelry demands that we both do and think. Create and manage. Experience and reflect.

The better Jewelry Designer sees any Project as a system of things, activities and outcomes. These are interconnected and mutually dependent. Things are sometimes linear, but most often iterative – a lot of back and forth and readjustments.

The better Jewelry Designer is very reflective. She or he thinks about every detail, plays mental exercises of what-if analyses, monitors and evaluates all throughout the Project’s management. She or he thinks through the implications of each choice made. The Designer does not blindly follow a set of instructions without questioning them.

At the end of the day, your jewelry is the result of the decisions you made.

Something to think about.

HOW DO WE TEACH JEWELRY DESIGN THINKING
AS A MANAGEMENT PROCESS

We should teach students to design jewelry, not craft it. Rather than have students merely follow a set of steps, we need to do what is called “Guided Thinking”.

For example, we might encourage students to construct and feel and touch similar pieces made with different materials, beads and techniques, and have them tell us what differences they perceive. We should guide them in thinking through the implications for these differences. When teaching a stitch, I typically have students make samples using two different beads – say a cylinder bead and a seed bead, and try two different stringing materials, say Fireline and Nymo threads.

We also should guide them in thinking through all the management and control issues they were experiencing. Very often beginning students have difficulty finding a comfortable way to hold their pieces while working them. I let them work a little on a project, stop them, and then ask them to explain what was difficult and what was not. I suggest some alternative solutions – but do not impose a one-best-way – and have them try these solutions. Then we discuss them, fine-tuning our thinking.

I link our developing discussions to some goals. We want good thread management for a bead woven piece. We want the beads to lay correctly within the piece. We want the piece to feel fluid. We return to Guided Thinking. I summarize all the choices we have made in order to begin the project: type of bead, size of bead, shape of bead, type of thread, strategy for holding the piece while working it, strategy for bringing the new bead to the work in progress. I ask the students what ideas are emerging in their minds about how to bring all they have done so far together.

At this point, I usually would interject a Mini-Lesson, where I demonstrate, given the discussions, the smarter way to begin the Project. In the Mini-Lesson, I “Think Aloud” so that my students can see and hear how I am approaching our Project.

And then I continue with Guided Thinking as we work through various sections of the Project towards completion. Whatever we do – select materials, select and apply techniques, set goals, anticipate how we want the Project to end up – is shown as resulting from a managed process of thinking through our design.

In “Guided Thinking”, I would prompt my students to try to explain what is/is not going on, what is/is not working as desired, where the student hopes to end up, what seems to be enhancing/impeding getting there.

With guidance, demonstration and repetition, it is my hope that such thinking becomes a series of Thinking Routines my students resort to when starting a new project. As students develop and internalize more Thinking Routines, they develop greater Fluency with design.

And that should be our primary goal as teachers: developing our students’ Fluency with design.

Posted in Art or Craft?, bead weaving, beads, beadwork, business of craft, design management, jewelry design, jewelry making, Learn To Bead | Tagged: beading, design management, jewelry design, jewelry design theory | 1 Comment »

5 Questions Every Jewelry Designer Should Have An Answer For

Posted by learntobead on December 14, 2017

Interested in trying your hand at jewelry design? Before you begin, consider the following 5 questions, as outlined by Nashville jewelry designer and teacher Warren Feld (www.warrenfeldjewelry.com)

Susan felt very unsure of herself. And unsure of her jewelry. Would people like it? Was the color mix appropriate? Was the construction secure? Was the price smart and fair? She allowed all this uncertainty to affect her design work – she had difficulty finishing pieces she was working on, starting new projects, and getting her work out there.

Like many of my jewelry and beadwork students, Susan needed to be empowered as a designer.

Empowerment is about making choices. These choices could be as simple as whether to finish a piece or not. Or whether to begin a second piece. The designer will make choices about how to draw someone’s attention to the piece, or present the piece to a larger audience. She or he may decide to submit the piece to a magazine or contest. She or he may want to sell the piece and market it. The designer will make choices about how a piece might be worn, or who might wear it, or when it might be worn, in what context.

And for all these choices, the jewelry designer might need to overcome a sense of fear, boredom, or resistance. The designer might need to overcome anxiety, a sense of giving up, having jeweler’s block, feeling unchallenged, and even laziness.

The empowered jewelry designer should have answers to 5 critical questions:

Question 1: Should BEADWORK and JEWELRY MAKING be considered ART or CRAFT?
The jewelry designer confronts a world that is unsure whether jewelry is “craft” or “art.” This can get very confusing and unsettling. Each approach has its own separate ideas about how the designer should work, and how he or she should be judged.

When defined as “craft,” jewelry is seen as something that anyone can do – no special powers are needed to be a jewelry designer. As “craft,” there is somewhat of a pejorative meaning — it’s looked down upon, thought of as something less than art. But as “craft,” we recognize the interplay of the artist’s hand with the piece and the storytelling underlying it. We honor the technical prowess. People love to bring art into their personal worlds, and the craftsperson offers them functional objects that have artistic sensibilities.

When defined as “art,” jewelry is seen as something which transcends itself and its design. It evokes an emotional response from the viewer. It has more of a sense of clarity of purpose and choice, a sense of presence. As “jewelry art,” things done to improve functionality – durability, movement, drape and flow – should play no role at all, or as a compromise, merely be supplemental.

How you define your work as ART or CRAFT will determine what skills you learn, how you apply them, and how you introduce your pieces to a wider audience.

QUESTION 2: How do you decide what you want to create?
What kinds of things do you do to translate your passions and inspirations into jewelry? What is your creative process?

Applying yourself creatively can be fun at times, but scary at other times. It is work. There is an element of risk. You might not like what you end up doing. Your friends might not like it. Nor your family. You might not finish it. Or you might do it wrong. It may seem easier to go with someone else’s project.

Set no boundaries and set no rules. Be free. Go with the flow. Don’t conform to expectations.
Play. Pretend you’re a kid again. Have fun. Get the giggles.
Experiment. Take the time to do a lot of What Ifs and Variations On A Theme and Trial and Error.
Keep good records. Make good notes and sketches of what seems to work, and what seems to not work.
Evaluate. Learn from your successes and mistakes. Figure out the Why did something work, and the Why Nots.

QUESTION 3: What kinds of MATERIALS work well together, and which ones do not?
The choice of materials, including beads, clasps, and stringing materials, set the tone and chances of success for your piece. There are light/shadow issues, textural issues, and color issues. All of these choices:
… affect the look
… affect the drape
… affect the feel
… relate to the context

I always suggest using the highest quality materials your budget will allow.

Question 4: Beyond applying basic techniques, how does the Jewelry Designer evoke an emotional response to their jewelry?
An artistic and well-designed piece of jewelry should evoke an emotional response. This takes both the successful application of techniques as well as skills.

Unfortunately, beaders and jewelry makers focus too often on techniques and not often enough on skills. It is important to draw distinctions here.

Techniques are necessary but not sufficient to get you there. You need skills. The classic analogy comparing techniques and skills references cutting bread with a knife. Technique: How to hold the knife relative to the bread in order to cut it. Skill: The force applied so that the bread gets cut successfully.

Skills are the kinds of things the jewelry designer applies which enhance his or her capacity to control for bad workmanship. These include:
– Judgment
– Presentation
– Care and dexterity
– Taking risks

QUESTION #5: When is enough enough?
How does the jewelry artist know when the piece is done? Overdone? Or underdone? How do you edit?

In the bead and jewelry arenas, you see piece after piece that is either over-embellished or under-done. Things may get too repetitive with the elements and materials. Or the pieces don’t feel that they are quite there yet.

For every piece of jewelry there will be that point of parsimony, where adding or subtracting one more element will make the experiencing of the whole greater than the sum of its parts.

The empowered jewelry designer will have answers to these questions, though not every designer will have the same answers, nor is there one best answer. Yet it is unacceptable to avoid answering any of these 5 questions, for fear you might not like the answer.

The empowered jewelry designer will have learned the skills for making good choices. These choices include making judgments about combining materials, both physical and aesthetic, into wearable art forms and adornment. This is jewelry making and design.

For Warren F., Jewelry Designer and teacher in Nashville, TN, beading and jewelry making endeavors have been wonderful adventures. These adventures, over the past 25 years, have taken Warren from the basics of bead stringing and bead weaving, to wire working and silver smithing, and onward to more complex jewelry designs which build on the strengths of a full range of technical skills and experiences. Learn more about Warren here!

Posted in Art or Craft?, jewelry design | Tagged: art, bead weaving, craft, jewelry design | Leave a Comment »

It’s not too late to VOTE! for the UGLIEST NECKLACE of 2014

Posted by learntobead on December 4, 2014

OnLine Voting Ends 12/15/2015!
^10th International 2014 The Ugly Necklace Contest
– A Jewelry Design Competition With A Twist

Your expert opinion counts!

It ain’t easy doing Ugly!

Five Jewelry Artists from around the world have been selected as Semi-Finalists of The 10^th International 2014 The Ugly Necklace Contest – A Jewelry Design Competition With A Twist, by a panel of judges from Be Dazzled Beads, The Center for Beadwork & Jewelry Arts and Land of Odds.

Vote Online for your favorites, and help determine who will win the Grand Prize – a $992.93 shopping spree on the Land of Odds web-site (http://www.landofodds.com). Runner Up Prize: $399.07 shopping spree. Voting Ends December 15, 2014

Help the world determine which necklace is the absolutely ugliest necklace in 2014!

More details and images on-line at:
http://www.landofodds.com/store/ugly10contest.htm

2014 Semi-Finalists Announced:

Patricia Parker, Quakertown, Pennsylvania

Joan Veress, Norwood New York

Cecilia Wells, Brentwood, Tennessee

Lynn Davy, Wimborne, Dorset, United Kingdom

Pamela Orians, Zanesville, Ohio

Synopsis:

It’s not easy to do Ugly!

So the many jewelry designers from across America and around the Globe who entered our 10th International 2014 The Ugly Necklace Contest — A Jewelry Design Competition With A Twist, found this contest especially challenging. After all, your brain is pre-wired to avoid and reject things which are ugly. Think of snakes and spiders. And even if you start your necklace with a bunch of ugly pieces, once you organize them into a circle, the very nature of an ordered round form makes it difficult to achieve Ugly. Yes, “Ugly” is easier said than done.

Who will win? We need your help to influence our panel of judges.

Our respected judges evaluated these creatively-designed pieces in terms of hideousness, use of materials and clasp, the number of jewelry design principles violated, and the designer’s artistic control. Extra points were awarded for artists’ use of smaller beads, because it’s much more difficult to do Ugly with these.

Now it’s time for America and the World to help finalize the decision about which of these 8 semi-finalists’ Ugly Necklaces to vote for. The winner will truly be an exceptional jewelry designer. The losers….well….this isn’t a contest where you really can “lose”.

Come see these and the other semi-finalists’ pieces at www.landofodds.com, and vote your choice for the Ugliest Necklace, 2014.

And if you are in the Nashville, Tennessee area, please stop by The Open Windows Gallery (fine art jewelry) at Be Dazzled Beads, where the 8 semi-finalists’ Ugly Necklaces are on display through March 15, 2014.

LAND OF ODDS-BE DAZZLED BEADS
Attention: Warren Feld
www.landofodds.com
718 Thompson Lane, Ste 123, Nashville, TN 37204
Phone: 615-292-0610; Fax: 615-460-7001
Email: warren@landofodds.com

Posted in Contests, jewelry design | Tagged: bead stringing, bead weaving, ugly necklace contest, wire working | Leave a Comment »

GWYNIAN ROPES BRACELET WORKSHOP, 9/27/14

Posted by learntobead on August 20, 2014

Untitled Docum

Be Dazzled Beads and
The Center for
Beadwork & Jewelry Arts
in Nashvile, Tennessee

welcomes

Warren Feld

September 27, 2014
10am-5pm Sat

Gwynian Ropes Bracelet Workshop
Intermediate/Advanced Level

COPPER LIME and CELSIAN Palettes

For more information, Click Here:
GWYNIAN ROPES BRACELET WORKSHOP

1 Day
Saturday, September 27, 2014, 10am-5pm
(with a break for lunch)

FEES: $85.00 plus Kit Fee

[Optional Kit available for puchase from instructor.

Palettes:
Celsian Lime Czech Fire Polish ($140.00)

Dark Amethyst Czech Fire Polish ] ($140.00)

Copper Lime Crystals ($445.00)

Wine Crystals($445.00)

WINE AND DARK AMETHYST PALETTES

Registration
Deposit: $85.00 + Kit Fee

Registration by
September 13th, 2014

For more
information, Click Here:

GWYNIAN ROPES BRACELET WORKSHOP

Posted in beadwork, jewelry design | Leave a Comment »

PRICING STRATEGIES

Posted by learntobead on August 1, 2014

PRICING STRATEGIES

Question: How do you go about figuring how to price your jewelry?

I teach a class on how to best price your jewelry, and I have posted a video tutorial on the CraftArtEdu.com website.
http://craftartedu.com/warren-feld-pricing-and-selling-your-jewelry-with-warren-feld

There are different kinds of pricing strategies.

(1) One type of pricing strategy is called “Keystoning”.

Keystoning is where you multiply your costs by 2, to arrive at your price.

If your costs were $10.00, then your price would be $20.00.

In the Jewelry Industry, you will hear a lot about Triple Keystoning.

Here you multiply your costs by 3. To arrive at your price.

So, if your costs were $10.00, then your price would be $30.00.

Keystoning works well if you are a boutique or gift store buying finished jewelry. You would double (keystone) or triple (triple keystone) the costs of each finished piece. Keystoning, as a pricing strategy, works well when you are dealing with finished goods. The price is simply a multiple of the cost of the Parts. Keystoning assumes that Labor and Overhead costs have already been factored into the cost of the jewelry.

Keystoning is a little more awkward to use, when dealing with manufacturing goods, like most jewelry designers do. Keystoning tends to over-account for the cost of the Parts, but under-account for the costs of your Labor.

Keystoning works well for jewelry stores. Keystoning does not work as well for jewelry designers.

(2) A second type of pricing strategy is called “What The Market Will Bear”

Here, based on your gut feelings, you would set the price at the highest price you think someone might pay for your piece.

You will see this strategy employed in a lot of tourist areas. Businesses in tourist areas usually pay very high rental rates. They are often dependent on making their money in a very defined seasonal timeframe. They assume they will they will never see these customers again.

What happens with a What-The-Market-Will-Bear strategy…

At the point of sale, the customer goes away happy and the business goes away happy. However, when the customer goes home, and they show their purchase to their friends or family, or shop around, they begin to realize they overpaid. So, over the medium and long term, the customer is no longer happy. An unhappy customer can spread bad word of mouth. While that particular customer may never revisit that tourist area. They might convince their friends and families, who may plan a visit, to avoid that particular shop.

(3) The third type of strategy is called “Fair Value”.

This is what I teach in my class, and is detailed in my video tutorial. ‘.

A Fair Price is set, using a formula. This formula requires that the artist manage all the types of costs she or he confronts, when setting a price. These costs include,

COST OF PARTS (P)
LABOR (L)
OVERHEAD (O)

Overhead costs include things like rent, electricity, wear and tear on tools and equipment, telephone, travel – basically everything else associated with making and selling your jewelry.

The basic formula:

MINIMUM FAIR PRICE = (2 times P) + L + O
MAXIMUM FAIR PRICE = 1.5 times the Minimum Fair Price
You gather cost information on your Parts and your Labor. You estimate the Overhead costs based on percentage of your Labor and Parts costs.
This gives you a range of fair prices from which to choose.

With a Fair Price, you may not get the highest amount you possibly can get, but you will get an amount that more than covers your costs, and leaves some money left over to spend on yourself, or re-invest in your business.

With a Fair Price, when you sell that piece of jewelry, both you and your customer go away happy.

And both of you stay happy.

Posted in business of craft | Tagged: business of craft, marketing jewelry, pricing jewelry, selling jewelry | 1 Comment »

The Ugly Necklace Contest – Submission Deadline Approaching

Posted by learntobead on April 28, 2014

THE UGLY NECKLACE CONTEST
– A JEWELRY DESIGN COMPETITION WITH A TWIST
Submission Deadline Approaching: August 31, 2014

QUESTION: Have you ever designed something truly ugly? Look at some of the previous submitted entries to the Ugly Necklace Contest? In your view, and from a design sense, are there any particularly outstanding examples of “Ugly”?

Past Contests — View the Galleries of Entries

2003: http://www.landofodds.com/store/ugliest2003a.htm
2004: http://www.landofodds.com/store/ugliest2004a.htm
2005: http://www.landofodds.com/store/ugliest2005a.htm
2006: http://www.landofodds.com/store/ugliest2006a.htm
2007: http://www.landofodds.com/store/ugliest2007a.htm
2008: http://www.landofodds.com/store/ugliest2008a.htm
2010: http://www.landofodds.com/store/ugliest2010a.htm
2012: http://www.landofodds.com/store/ugly9contest.htm

About The UGLY NECKLACE CONTEST — A Jewelry Design Competition With A Twist
Submission Deadline: August 31, 2014
Enter To Win! http://www.landofodds.com/store/uglynecklace.htm

The UGLY NECKLACE CONTEST is a jewelry design contest with a twist. The contest presents a challenge not often tackled — at least intentionally. The contest draws the jewelry designer into an alternative universe where beautiful artists create ugly necklaces. It’s not easy to do.

“Ugly” is more involved than simple surface treatment. It is not just laying out a bunch of ugly parts into a circle. It turns out that “Ugly” is something more than that. “Ugly” is the result of the interplay among Designer, Wearer, and Viewer. “Ugly” is very much a result of how a necklace is designed and constructed. “Ugly” is something the viewer actively tries to avoid and move away from. “Ugly” has deep-rooted psychological, cognitive, perceptual, sociological and anthropological functions and purposes.

As research into color and design has shown, your eye and brain compensate for imbalances in color or in the positioning of pieces and objects – they try to correct and harmonize them. They try to neutralize anything out of place or not quite right. You are pre-wired to subconsciously avoid anything that is disorienting, disturbing or distracting. Your mind and eye won’t let you go here. This is considered part of the fear response, where your brain actively attempts to avoid things like snakes and spiders…. and ugly necklaces.

This means that jewelry designers, if they are to create beautiful, wearable art, have to be more deeply involved with their pieces beyond “surface”. Or their pieces will be less successful, thus less beautiful, thus more disturbing or distracting or disorienting, thus more Ugly.

Luckily, for the jewelry designer, we are pre-wired to avoid these negative things. This makes it easier to end up with pieces that look good. Beauty, in some sense, then, is very intuitive. On the other hand, it makes it more difficult to end up with pieces that look bad. You see, Ugly goes against our nature. It’s hard to do.

To achieve a truly hideous result means making the hard design choices, putting ourselves in situations and forcing us to make the kinds of choices we’re unfamiliar with, and taking us inside ourselves to places that we are somewhat scared about, and where we do not want to go.

– Can I push myself to use more yellow than the purple warrants, and mix in some orange?

– Can I make the piece off-sided or disorienting, or not have a clear beginning, middle or end?

– Can I disrupt my pattern in a way that, rather than “jazz,” results in “discord?”

– Can I work with colors and materials and patterns and textures and placements and proportions I don’t like?

– Can I design something I do not personally like, and perhaps am unwilling, to wear around my neck?

– Can I create a piece of jewelry that represents some awful feeling, emotion or experience I’m uncomfortable with?

– Can I make something I know that others won’t like, and may ridicule me for it?

Because answering questions like these is not something people like to do, jewelry designers who attempt to achieve “Ugly,” have to have a lot of control and discipline to override, perhaps overcome, intuitive, internally integrated principles of artistic beauty. The best jewelry designers, therefore, will be those artists who can prove that they can design a truly Ugly Necklace. In our contest, we invite all those jewelry designers out there to give it a try.

The Ugly Necklace Contest is one of the many programs at Be Dazzled Beads and The Center for Beadwork & Jewelry Arts in Nashville, Tennessee, that encourage beadwork and jewelry makers to challenge themselves and to test their design skills, and learn some fundamentals about jewelry design in the process.

What Is Ugly?

Different participants in The Ugly Necklace Contest have interpreted “Ugly” in different ways.

Some focused on the ugliness of each individual component. Some used materials that they felt conveyed a sense of ugly, such as llama droppings, or felted matted dog hair, or rusty nails, or cigarette butts, or a banana peel. Some focused on mood and consciousness, and how certain configurations of pieces and colors evoked these moods or states of consciousness.

Others focused on combining colors which don’t combine well. Still others focused on how the wearer’s own body would contribute to a sense of ugliness, when wearing the piece, such as the addition of a “Breast Pocket” which would lay just below the woman’s breast, or peacock feathers that covered the wearer’s mouth, or the irritating sounds of rusty cow bells, or the icky feeling of a rotting banana peel on the skin. Still others saw Ugly as a sense of psychological consciousness, such as being homeless, or an uncomfortable transition from adolescence to adulthood. For some Ugly meant politically ugly, like Saddam Hussein of Iraq, or the trans-fats associated with fast foods.

It is not enough just to string a bunch of ugly beads on a wire. Ugly pieces do not necessarily result in an ugly necklace. As one entrant learned, when she strung her ugly beads together, the final project was beautiful, and sold for $225.00, before she could enter it into the contest! Actually, if you look at many of the entries, you see that ugly pieces, once arranged and organized, don’t seem as ugly. Organization and arrangement contribute their own qualities and sense of beauty that transcends the ugly parts.

Adding to the fun, the contestant also has to create a piece of jewelry which is functional and wearable. This is what sets beadwork and jewelry design apart from other design arts. A piece of jewelry as art, (even Ugly art), has to maintain its essence and purpose, even as the wearer moves, bends down, or rubs against things. Jewelry is Art as it is worn. Jewelry is not a subset of painting or a type of sculpture.

Jewelry is something more. Jewelry is art and architecture in motion, often frenetic motion. The pieces that make it up, and the techniques and designs which coherently interrelate these pieces, must also anticipate this dynamic totality. Otherwise, the piece of jewelry becomes a failure not only as a piece of jewelry, but of art, as well.

The Ugly Necklace Contest is an arena for budding and established beadwork and jewelry designers to strut their stuff – to show how adept they are at creating ugly-necklace-pieces-of-art. It’s a jewelry design competition with a twist.

The finalists of The Ugly Necklace Contest are those beadwork and jewelry designers who can best elaborate upon rules of design, whether intuitively or strategically. These rules of design are, in effect, an underlying grammar and vocabulary – the theoretical and professional basis of beadwork and jewelry making as art, not just craft.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Be sure to check out this new book by Margie Deeb, in which she includes a discussion about The Ugly Necklace Contest:

The Beader’s Guide to Jewelry Design: A Beautiful Exploration of Unity, Balance, Color & More Paperback
by Margie Deeb (Author)

Once beaders have mastered the basics and enjoyed bringing others’ patterns to life, they’re ready and eager to take the next step: creating their own original pieces. Here, finally, is their must-have guidebook to the fundamental principles of visual design. Focusing on jewelry, it helps beaders explore concepts such as unity, scale, proportion, balance, rhythm, volume, shape, pattern, texture, movement, drape, and color in their work. Exercises, reader challenges, and lavish photos enhance understanding and assure design success.

This book is available for Pre-Order at Amazon.com.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Beaders-Guide-Jewelry-Design/dp/1454704063/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1391443968&sr=8-1&keywords=the+beaders+guide+to+jewelry+design

Posted in Contests, jewelry design | Tagged: bead weaving, beading, Contests, design theory, jewelry design, multimedia art, polymer clay, precious metal clay, ugly necklace, wire working | Leave a Comment »

Promotional Discount – 4/24 and 4/25 only – Business of Craft Video Tutorials

Posted by learntobead on April 25, 2014

PROMOTIONAL DISCOUNT
Two Business of Craft Tutorials
Thurs 4/24 and Fri 4/25 only

I enjoy teaching about the business of craft. Over the past 25 years, I’ve learned many insights about creating, marketing and selling jewelry. Two of my video tutorials – “SO YOU WANT TO DO CRAFT SHOWS” and “PRICING AND SELLING YOUR JEWELRY” are available on the http://www.CraftArtEdu.com website.

CraftArtEdu.com is running a two-day – THURS, 4/24 and FRI, 4/25 only — special discount on these video tutorials, which you might take advantage of. I’ve appended their promotional announcement below.

Warren

Ah, summer. It’s a time for county fairs, music and craft festivals! If you’ve ever considered selling your jewelry or other handmade items in local shows and venues, you know it’s a significant investment of both your time and money. In this email, you’ll find two classes from Warren Feld that can help you avoid some costly mistakes and find success! Warren has over 20 years of selling experience – and he shares his hard-won lessons with you. We’re also featuring a few classes with projects that just might be fun to make and sell! All classes are at Super Deals (through Friday!) Enjoy! Donna Kato Founder, CraftArtEdu.com

So You Want to Do Craft Shows with Warren Feld

You can make good money… IF you know what you’re doing. Warren shares his years of valuable experience and business expertise in the form of sixteen in-depth, approachable lessons so you can maximize your chances of success! Jam-packed with practical, actionable information, Warren’s lessons cover everything involved in running a successful and profitable show including how to:

find, evaluate and select craft shows that are right for your work
set realistic goals, build a budget and calculate your break-even point
determine the amount and type of inventory you should bring
price your work and deal with “hagglers”
set up your booth for success, including design, layout and merchandising tips
handle cash, credit cards and deter shoplifters
and so much more.. this class is almost two hours long!

Warren includes lots of advice and helpful resource links, too. All you need to provide is a pencil, some paper, a calculator and your enthusiasm for running a successful, profitable craft show! Preview and Purchase Warren’s Class All Levels | $30 | $24 through Friday!

Pricing and Selling Your Jewelry with Warren Feld

Can you make money by selling your jewelry? Yes, you can! Warren has years of experience selling jewelry at craft fairs, flea markets, on consignment, in galleries and eventually in his own store and online. In this class, he shares words of advice and everything he knows about the essential key to success: Smart Pricing! Preview and Purchase Warren’s Class! All Levels | $15 | $12 through Friday!“This class is worth its weight in gold. The information is presented in a clear and thorough manner. Warren shares his extensive knowledge in a very easy to understand format.” ~ Mary C

Add To Cart! These Bargains End Friday!Special Prices on These Classes Expire Midnight CT, Friday, April 25, 2014

Posted in bead weaving, beadwork, business of craft, jewelry making | Tagged: bazaars, craft shows, flea markets, handmade jewelry, home shows, pricing jewelry, selling jewelry | Leave a Comment »

Knowing What To Know

Posted by learntobead on April 12, 2014

ORIENTATION
“Knowing what to know”
http://www.landofodds.com/store/kitsorientation.htm

There were always beaders. There were always jewelry makers. But if you wanted to gain an understanding of the beads and jewelry findings and stringing materials and tools, their qualities, and what happens to them when they age, you would need to start with a little bit of the history of beads and jewelry making. And then progress into some more in-depth information about these materials, how you choose which ones to use, and what happens to all this stuff over time.

Only in this way, would you be able to prepare yourself for the judgments and trade-offs and choices you will need to make as a jewelry designer. Choices about How? And When? And What? to use and not to use, given your particular project, your design goals, …(and if you’re selling your pieces, your marketing goals, as well). Moreover, how do you know how to assemble and link everything up into a finished piece?

But often in this world, you don’t know where to start. You don’t necessarily know where to find answers, or whose answers to trust.

QUESTION FOR GROUP:
When you began to make jewelry and bead, how did you know what to know?
How did you initially get an Orientation?

More on Orientation….

I’ve posted an extensive series (18 videos, 5 ½ hours worth of materials) of Orientation information on the Land of Odds website for you to take advantage of.
http://www.landofodds.com/store/kitsorientation.htm

These are also posted on YouTube.

Continuing from an article I wrote….

You need to prepare yourself for the multi-faceted world of beading and jewelry. It’s all about choices. You need an Orientation to what you need to know, and to the kinds of choices you will need to make. The world of beads can often be a jungle, dense with colors, shapes, and styles, intermingled irrationally, spilled relentlessly, collapsing around you with dumps and crashes and screeches and rings. Your eyes become useless in this heart of darkness. The presence of so many beads and so many strangely shaped and curiously articulated metal pieces may make the idea of creating jewelry and beadwork utterly meaningless. At least for the moment.

But you can sense something more. It’s tactile. It’s visual. It has some kind of taste and smell which steers you. It’s orienting. It seems full of significance. And in this dark silence – so noisy with details, so hushed with confusion – you realize why it’s important that you need to know a lot of things.

– You need to know how to step around quality differences among glass beads made in the Czech Republic, in Japan, in China and in India. How long will these beads last? Will they break? If they chip, what color will they be on the inside? Is the patterning in the glass a coating, a decal or some artistic placement of shards and stringers of glass? How sharp are the holes? How consistent are the beads from bead to bead on the strand?

– You need to know when to demand 14KT gold fused to brass (gold-filled), or 14KT gold plate over silver (vermeil), or Hamilton Gold Plate over brass. How long does the shine and color last? Do these beads and pieces break or crumble or bend or dent?

– You need to know how what came before you will be an important influence on you today. How have the Oglala Sioux, the Pope, Zulu tribes, the French, Italian, Czech, Dutch, African, the shoe and upholstery industries, and North American Indians affected beads and jewelry today?

Most people don’t orient themselves when they get started. They either don’t see the need, or don’t think they have the time, or think there’s not that much to learn about. Anyone can put some beads on a string and make themselves a bracelet, they assume. They take any class that they can find, often taking more advanced classes, before having taken beginner classes. All they want to do is make a pretty piece to wear. The learning to design is secondary – or non-existent. They buy any book, try to reproduce any pattern, try to copy any picture they see in a magazine, and try to figure things out by themselves without any outside feedback, evaluation and validation. They overly-rely on the advice of the first people they talk with, and don’t question it.

What happens is often very sad, indeed. You end up using inappropriate stringing materials and supplies. You end up finishing off your pieces incorrectly. You never learn how to best attach a clasp. You never learn how to control the tension of beads within your pieces. You mix pieces which are dysfunctional when used together. You end up taking the wrong classes, not questioning the advice of friends or instructors, and buying the wrong parts, given what you are trying to do. You end up making ill-informed choices.

You need an Orientation, and you need to be sure you get one.

In an Orientation, you’ll discover the order of things. There’s an arrangement to beading and jewelry design. Pieces have purposes and functions. They have a history of use and wear. They have an underlying vocabulary and grammar of construction – that is, they have rules for how things should get combined and assembled, and how they should not.

An Orientation grounds you. It shows you the map, the pathways, the bi-ways, the highways along which you can travel in your development as a fine craftsperson, artist and jewelry designer. It gives you a sense of your surroundings, your context, and a lot of substance and meaning.

At first, when you get oriented, you marvel at the details and the possibilities – the myriad types of beads and findings and stringing materials, the wide variations in how they work and function, the multitude of choices which seem overwhelming. Pinks become fuchsias become reds become oxbloods become garnets. Peridots become mints become olivines, both green and brown, become green lusters become jades become dark kellys and smaragds. Metalized Plastics become nickels become brasses become pewters become sterlings and argentiums and fine silvers and platinums. Threads become bead cords become cable threads become cable wires become hard wires. Jewelry is clasped or clasp-less, strung or woven, wire-worked or wire-wrapped, singular or multiplexed, fixed or adjustable, singular- or multi-media.

But then, something else strikes you. You come to know that, while there’s always been a fundamental sense of design across time and cultures, this sense has often been understated. You find indifference, not indignation. You find an absence, a void, a vacuum of intellectual introspection about jewelry and its design. It’s all around you. That something missing. You feel the lacking. And when you begin to have this sense, you should feel a little superior, in that you are now on your way towards understanding design. You’ve got the hunger. You’ve got the passion. You want to know the place of design in jewelry, and your place in the design world with that jewelry you create. That jewelry you construct. That jewelry that you put forth into the world. That jewelry which reflects who you are as an artist, to your inner most thoughts.

Orienting Myself

I never had an orientation. I was never oriented. I sank or swam.

There was no real internet, when I started. Nor any beading magazines. Never met people in Nashville who made jewelry. Except for my partner, James, who made beautiful things with whatever parts and beads and stones he could find. But he couldn’t articulate exactly what he was doing. He was “Creating”.

The act of “creating,” did not result in unbreakable pieces, or a mix of pieces which endured the ravages of wear equally, or clasp assemblies which never came undone. The act of “Creating” gave few clues about hole sizes and hole sharpness and stringing material flexibility, and what led to good drape. The act of “Creating” merely resulted in beautiful things – wearable, drape-able, moveable, durable, or not.

During the first two years I made jewelry, things broke. The finishes of beads rubbed off. The beads did not necessarily lay right. Many pieces were too stiff – lacked good ease. The pieces kept selling, so what did I care?

But at some point, I did begin to care. I was irritated by the number of repairs I had to do on my own pieces.

At one point, I began taking in repairs of other jewelry artists’ work. This was my education. I saw where things broke. I saw the choices other people made in determining how to construct their pieces from end to end. I could talk to the customers and find out a lot of the things leading up to their jewelry breaking.

I began to ask more questions of my suppliers. I began to ask more questions about myself and my choices. I began formulating hypotheses about why some things worked or endured better than others. And I had many opportunities, now that I was doing a lot of repairs, to test out these hypotheses.
But it would have been much better had I had a more formalized, organized, intelligent orientation when I first got started.

Posted in bead weaving, beadwork, jewelry making, Learn To Bead, Resources | Tagged: orientation to beads and jewelry findings | Leave a Comment »

NEW FASHION JEWELRY – Understand “Quality” Issues Of These New Collectibles

Posted by learntobead on March 25, 2014

NEW FASHION JEWELRY

Now at Be Dazzled Beads
781 Thompson Lane, Ste 123 Nashville, TN 37204

At a recent Jewelry Show in Atlanta, Jayden and Warren discovered a rapidly evolving fashion trend towards reproduction vintage looks using new more recently available materials. These particular new fashion trends were the looks and styles of the pieces everyone there was selling there. A great selection and variety of these looks is now on display and for sale at Be Dazzled Beads.

It is important to understand, however, that, when purchasing fashion jewelry, there is more to consider than how a piece looks. You need to understand something about the materials used and the overall construction. Only in this way can you be sure that you are purchasing what we would call “collectible costume jewelry.”

The reproduction vintage looks are obvious — a reference to the stylish pieces of the 1930s, 40s, 50s and 60s, using modern materials and construction technologies. Great colors. Strong and soft colors. Lots of faceting and sparkle.

The use of new materials includes higher end acrylics, new metallic composites, specialized glass and Chinese crystal.

These green components, in the piece shown above, are made out of Chinese crystal, not plastic. To the naked eye, you might see a similar piece where the components are plastic, looking like but definitely not crystal. The eye can deceive itself. Simple test: click bead against a stiff surface or front teeth. If crystal or glass, you will hear a sharp click; if plastic, you will hear a dull click.

These new fashion pieces should be considered “collectable” costume jewelry. But, again, it is important to understand what you are buying. There are many lower quality copies – what we’d call “disposable jewelry” — you’ll find at discount stores and online. You want to be sure you are buying the quality we would call “collectible”. The price will reflect whether the jewelry is “collectible” or “disposable.”

So, You Want Your Fashion Jewelry To Be Made With…

* Glass, Crystal and/or Advanced Plastics

Typically, you will find a mix of materials within you piece. Materials you do not want would include enameled or colored ceramics or regular plastic or metalized plastic or plastic pearls.

* Advanced Plastics, if any components are plastic

Just like with things like wood or metal, there are many grades of quality among plastics. The differences between advanced plastics and regular plastics can be as widely divergent as between metals like gold and aluminum.

The higher end plastics, even when up close, look very similar to the gemstones or crystals they are meant to resemble. Jade plastic looks like real jade. Plastic opals look like real opal. And so forth.

For high end costume jewelry, the “point-hardness” of these advanced plastics, that is, how easily the material can be scratched, will be much higher, thus less easily scratched, than cheaper plastics.

* Better metal composites and finishes, with more substance and realistic finishes

In these lines of jewelry, whether higher end or lower end, very little is real 100% metal these days. The chains are composites. The settings for the stones are composites.

In the metal-composite chains and settings used in the lower quality jewelry, at close inspection, you will find them to be cheap, flimsy and light-weight. Moreover, the metallic finish-colors are off the mark and look somewhat fake. For example, the actual color that may be representing gold, when compared to other quality pieces, may not look like gold at all.

There may be rough spots that can get caught on clothing or scratch the skin. In higher end pieces, manufacturers check their quality, to make sure there are no rough spots.

But always inspect your jewelry before you leave the store. When purchasing any piece of costume jewelry, you should feel all over the piece to be sure there are no rough spots

* Better set stones

Stones are typically glued in. If the setting does not have much surface area, the glue will not hold for very long.

In some pieces, the designs give the illusion of “prong-set” stones. In the lower end, the prongs have very sharp points. In the higher end, the prongs have smooth or balled-up tips.

Things To Do To Increase Longevity Of Your New Fashion Jewelry

After purchasing your new pieces of Fashion Jewelry, you will have the option to do two things to make them more durable and lasting:

If the piece has stones which have been glued in, and have open settings on the backs, apply some more glue to the backs of the settings, all along the edges. Use a glue like E6000 or Beacon 527. This will keep the stones from ever popping out. Reason: The glue manufacturers typically use dries hard, with no flexibility. If the pieces are accidently dropped or hit against something, the shock can make the stone pop away from the hard glue.

By reinforcing them with the E6000 or Beacon 527, these bonds dry like rubber and act like a shock absorber. Thus the stones are less likely to pop off.

Necklace with stones set in settings with open backs

Open back on set stones in necklace

2. On all areas which have metal plated finishes and which will be touching the skin, apply two coats of clear nail polish to these surfaces. This will preserve the plated finishes for a very long time, yet doesn’t affect the shine or sheen of the metal underneath it.

NOTE: This is very generalized advice. Every person’s body oils and chemistry have different effects on the metal finishes. A person may be able to wear a piece of costume jewelry for months and years and it may not disintegrate on them; another person might wear it for a few months, and the metal finishes deteriorate.

Cleaning

All jewelry has to be maintained and kept clean. Follow this simple advice for keeping your new jewelry pieces clean and sparkling.

Periodically, give your jewelry a quick bath. In a bowl, mix a very-little-amount of baby shampoo and cold water. Immerse the whole piece of jewelry in this bath, just long enough to loosen any dirt. Take it out.

Under cold water, rinse it off. Take a paper towel or cloth, and dry the piece off. NOTE: “Pat Dry” with the towel. Don’t “Rub”.

Then, you might take a hair dryer, setting it on the lowest setting, and keeping it 6-8” away from your piece, and blow dry. DON’T LET YOUR PIECES GET TOO HOT. An alternative strategy is to put your piece of jewelry in front of a small fan.

Dry both sides. Leave your piece out in the open air over night, to be sure there is no moisture trapped in closed crevices.

Always remember that the side laying against the towel or cloth may still be more damp than the side facing up. So, before storing your piece, check and be sure it is dry.

Store your piece flat in a zip lock plastic bag. Be sure to push the air out of bag before sealing bag. One simple way to do this is to insert a straw into the bag, and seal the top as close to the straw as you can get. Suck out the air, remove the straw, and finish sealing the zip-lock bag closed.

Then lay your bagged up piece on flat surface. You do not want your piece to be jumbled into a pile. You do not want to hang your jewelry on a stand. The weight of the beads will stretch out the stringing material.

Put your pieces in a cool, dry place out of sunlight. Never store two pieces on top of each other without something to separate them. Don’t pile up jewelry on top of other jewelry.

At a restaurant, if you drip gravy on your necklace, how do you clean it off? If it is something that has caked or dried on it, you may have to soak it in a solution of a very-little-amount of baby shampoo and cold water. Use a q-tip to clean away the spotted areas.

Your Reproduction Vintage Pieces Should Be Around For 30, 40, even 50 years

Your goal is to have your reproduction vintage to be around 30, 40, 50 years from now. It will keep its value. These pieces should not be disposable.

Go to your antique stores, ask to see their vintage jewelry from the 1930s, 40s to 60s, and look and see at the availability, quantity and cost of high-end costume jewelry. This will give you an idea of what you’re getting with your investment.

In these older pieces, some were made from Lucite or other high-end plastics of the time. And other pieces were copies crafted in regular plastic. Lucite is a glass-like acrylic resin. It has a resilience, a hardness, and a malleability which made it perfect for costume jewelry. Regular plastic lacks the clarity and sparkle, yellows with age, and scratches much more easily.

Your new higher-end fashion jewelry – better made, more attractive, more appealing — will increase in value over the decades instead of ending up in the trash.

Posted in jewelry collecting, jewelry making | Tagged: caring for costume jewelry, costume jewelry, fashion jewelry, fashion trends, jewelry construction, jewelry making materials | Leave a Comment »

DIMENSIONALITY: One Principle of Composition

Posted by learntobead on February 25, 2014

DIMENSIONALITY: One Principle of Composition

Jewelry Design is the application of basic principles of artistic expression. One set of principles involves COMPOSITION. In an article online – Good Jewelry Design (http://www.landofodds.com/store/goodjewelrydesign.htm ) – I describe 10 Principles of Composition. Principles of Composition define what types of goals the good jewelry designer should achieve. Discussion on these principles and their application focus on what elements in our pieces we , as jewelry designers, manipulate in order to achieve a principled, satisfactory outcome.

In this post, I focus on one in particular: Dimensionality.

QUESTION:
What kinds of things have you manipulated within your piece(s) that helps you achieve a satisfying sense of dimensionality?

Conversely, where do you see failures in attempts to achieve “dimensionality”, and what kinds of wrong-way choices do you think the jewelry designer made, that might have led to this failure? What better choices could the designer have made?

Share images, if you have them.

Dimensionality

Good Dimensionality refers to the degree to which, whether the piece is flat or 3-dimensional, the placement of objects (and their attributes) is satisfying, and does not compete or conflict with the dimensionality of the piece as a whole.

Sometimes dimensionality is achieved through the positioning of masses of objects or planes of interconnected pieces, such as varying sizes/heights/lengths or layering or cut-aways, or varying positive and negative spaces.

Othertimes, dimensionality is achieved through color/texture optical effects, such as the use of glossy and matte beads in the same piece, or mixing darker/more intense colors with light/less intense colors.

How often have you seen something like a flat loomed bracelet and a button clasp, that sits so high on the bracelet, that it detracts from the 2-dimensional reason-for-being of the piece. Would a clasp, and a flatter clasp, at the end of the piece have worked better?

Glossy surfaces move toward the viewer, and matte ones recede. Can you point to successful examples of this?

Achieving Good Dimensionality is considered, not only a desirable design goal, but a critical and important characteristic of contemporary jewelry.

This doesn’t mean we want to pile up bead up bead and layer upon layer. It means we want to show how creative we can be to achieve something more satisfying than flat and more satisfying than one-dimensional.

We want to demonstrate more artistic control over line and plane.

Posted in jewelry design | Tagged: art, art theory, contemporary jewelry design, dimensionality, principles of composition | Leave a Comment »

BEAD SPILLS

Posted by learntobead on February 15, 2014

BEAD SPILLS

QUESTION:
What was your initiation into that phenomenon called “Bead Spill”?

Share with our group your favorite BEAD SPILL story. I’m sure you have many.

From an article I wrote…

“Yikes!” she screamed, shaking the ground, the store, the parking lot, in fact, the whole wide world, and I was, to everyone’s regret, caught in that earth-shattering scream. I was carefully balancing twelve trays of loose beads, moving them to their new shelves when, behind my back, I heard that cry for help, that screech of fear, that siren of bead hell.

I instinctively turned. It wasn’t something I thought out and planned rationally. It wasn’t something that arose intuitively from my gut. It was pure animal instinct. Stimulus-Response. Lust. Fear. Gluttony. Raw Emotion. I tried to juggle the twelve trays as they fled my nurturing hands and arms. And I urgently called to the beads. Which had been in the trays. Which were now flying out of my hands. As if to calm them, I said, “Beads, you won’t fall.” You won’t get hurt. You won’t leave the safety and sanctity of these trays. Good beads. Good, good beads.

And, for a brief moment, I thought I had saved all these little, little, beautiful, beautiful, very round, very round beads from a fate almost worse than death. The trays were juggling and for a moment, I believed they had started to restack themselves. They were home free. One back on top of another on top of another….

If it weren’t for that scream and that deep primal instinct ripping my fear and anxiety from the depths of my soul, and the fact that it is hard to pivot wearing sneakers on a hard wood floor, juggle twelve trays of ever-more terrified loose glass beads, and respond to a lady in distress, the situation would have come to a pleasant end.

But alas, that was not to be.

With some shame, some guilt, much surprise and yes, a lot of embarrassment, this was to be my grand initiation into the phenomenon commonly known as The Bead Spill. What a mess!

I know a lot of people have a fantasy where they are bathing in a tub of beads. It’s sensuous. Caressing. You’re at one with the God of the Beads.

This wasn’t like that. This was thousands of round objects falling and running and spreading every which way. Along the walls, behind the legs of chairs and tables, under people’s feet. In with the dust, the dog hairs, and previously spilled beads or beads that had mysteriously escaped their trays.

She should have said, “Shoo Fly!” Not “Yikes!”.

I’ve never carried twelve trays of loose beads at once again.

Bead spills are not rare occurrences. In fact, some people spill beads like other people drink water.

There are the people who like to carry big purses in small places. These people are prone to sudden turns and distractions. Guaranteed spills!

These people need to understand the interrelationships between space, lack of space and time. Simple physics. Bead spills have physics, and I’m sure could easily be considered a science. Like, if you drop a bead, in what direction does it go? How far does it go? How fast does it travel? Do red beads behave similarly as blue beads? If someone dropped you from the top of a building, would you end up going in the same direction, and as far? Probably not. So what is it about beads that makes things happen like dropping them off to the right, and finding them off to the left? Bead spills do not have the same physics as pick-up-sticks. That is for sure. They have laws of gravity and mass and energy all of their own.

Then there are the people who are torn between their love of beads and their love for their pets. It doesn’t matter if it’s a cat, a dog, a parrot or a fish. Beads spill. It could be a monkey or a ferret or even a Rogue Elephant. Beads spill. Sometimes it’s a dog AND a cat or a parrot AND a ferret. Beads spill.

People need to understand that animals understand the situation. Animals do not want to share their love – especially with beads. Beads are beautiful, but don’t need water or food. Beads are comforting to touch, but don’t need grooming. Beads are glorious in their splendor, but will not bite. It should come, then, as no surprise, that animals, when near any pile of beads, will instinctively have the urge to make them spill in ways you never thought of. Animals spill beads, but for more selfish reasons than humans.

The strategies of animals are legend, and have been written down in a secret book – Bead Spill Techniques for Dogs and Cats. You’ve seen these techniques in practice. Your cat angling for attention, moves toward you to sit in your lap – of course, moves toward you over your tray of beads. Your dog taking the pose to beg for treats while you’re moving your tray of beads from one end of the table to the other. Your pet actually eating those particular beads you’re working with right now. You catch them, but suddenly their tail goes swoof, and you are down on your hands and knees again picking up millions and millions of tiny, very small, eye-straining beads. These animal-based-skills are very practiced and endless. Animals do not like playing second fiddle to beads. And if the pile of beads has been organized to accommodate the needs of a particular project, well, so much the better. They score more bead spill points.

Picking up spilled beads is a familiar routine. There’s nothing like dropping 14KT gold delica seed beads onto a gold shag carpet, getting on your hands and knees, and delving into product reclamation. Picking up bead spills works better when set to jazzercise music, but no music will suffice as well. Some people get crafty, and stretch a nylon stocking across the intake collection valve of a vacuum cleaner. Other people, however, are just plain tired of picking up beads. They let them stay where they fall. On the floors. In the couches. In clothing, in boxes, in food, in pots and pans.

New beaders seem especially concerned and anal-compulsive about spilled beads. They spot an errant bead, and rush to pick it up and place it in a container somewhere. Seasoned beaders have learned to live with such minor nuisances as combing beads out of their hair. They see a bead on the floor, and let it lay.

Posted in bead weaving, beads, beadwork | Tagged: bead spills | 1 Comment »

BEZELWORKS PENDANT Workshop by Warren Feld, 4/12-13/2014

Posted by learntobead on February 7, 2014

Center for Beadwork & Jewelry Arts: Workshops

CBJA

WORKSHOPS

Warren Feld

BEZELWORKS PENDANT

2-Day
Workshop

Sat/Sun, 4/12-13/2014,

10am-5pm, Sat

10am-4pm, Sun

(with a break for lunch)

Held at

Be Dazzled Beads

718 Thompson Lane, Ste 123

Nashville, TN 37204

FEES: $90.00 plus supplies[Optional Kit available for purchase from instructor.Olive Fire Agate, $135.00]

Registration
Deposit: $90.00

The instructional
fee does not cover the cost of supplies.

You may register
in person at Be Dazzled Beads, or by phone with a credit card (615-292-0610),
or by mail with a check to 718 Thompson Lane, Ste 123, Nashville,
TN 37204

limited to 12 registrants

registration
by

March 24th, 2014

beadschool@
landofodds.com

615-292-0610

CENTER for BEADWORK & JEWELRY
ARTS
718 Thompson Lane, Ste 123
Nashville, Tennessee
37204
PHONE: 615-292-0610
FAX:
615-292-0610
www.landofodds.com
/beadschool/
beadschool@landofodds.com

Location,
Lodging,

Access by Car, Plane

Center For Beadwork & Jewelry Arts - beadworking and jewelry-making classes

Be Dazzled Beads andThe Center for Beadwork & Jewelry Artsin Nashvile, Tennessee

welcomes

Warren Feld

April 12-13, 2014

10am-5pm Sat (with break for lunch)

10am-4pm Sun (with break for lunch)

BezelWorks Pendant

Intermediate/Advanced Level

2 Days

Saturday – Sunday, April 12-13, 2014, 10am-5pm
(Sat), 10am-4pm (Sun)

(with a break for lunch)

FEES: $90.00 plus supplies

[Optional Kit available for puchase from instructor.

Olive
Fire Agate, $135.00 ]

Registration
Deposit: $90.00

Registration by March
24th, 2014

BezelWorks Pendant

Guest Instructor: Warren Feld

Intermediate/Advanced Level

Wear that mystical, bead-bezeled stone close to your heart! Use tubular
peyote, circular peyote, and spirtal tube Ndebele stitches while
exploring design ideas about fringe, edge, bail, surface embellishment and strap.

The BezelWorks Pendant has a Center Piece, around which we create a
bezel or frame, then do some edge and surface embellishment. Attached
to this Center Piece is a bead woven butterfly bail. This piece
hangs from a bead woven strap. For the bead artist working from
an Art perspective, the frame, embellishment, bail, and strap should
be seen as supplemental to the center piece. But if working from
a Design Perspective, all these components should be seen more wholistically.

So, not only will we be creating a beautiful piece in this workshop.
We will also be discussing the implications for the choices we make
about each element or component for creating a successful and satisfying
piece. This includes our choices about managing the transition from
one element to the next.

The techniques we will be applying in this piece include:

– tubular peyote, open back bezel
– circular peyote
– fringe
– tubular spiral ndebele

Art or Design?

If jewelry is “art”, is the entire piece the art, or only
the center piece, or central focal part the art? Classical art theory
holds that the fringe, strap, edging, bail, and other similar parts
should supplement or support the center piece or focal center. This
theory holds that these jewelry structures are not art. They should
function like a frame to a painting, or a pedestal to a sculpture.

It is, however, often difficult to separate the jewelry’s anatomy like this, with
one part important and the other parts supplemental. This BezelWorks
Pendant project is, in part, designed to foster ideas, discussion
and debate about the roles of fringe, edge, strap, bail and surface
embellishment. Each of these is critical to the finished piece.

For each of these anatomical parts or extensions to our piece of jewelry, we
need to understand it in terms of:

– What it is, its purpose, its role

– What value it has to the piece

– How it makes the piece more or less satisfying

– What principles should regulate it

– Whether it is part of the art or not

Center Piece

The central project: A BezelWorks Pendant, with open-back peyote bezel. How
do we go about designing an aesthetically pleasing, well-functioning,
center piece? What functions does the center piece serve? How do
we make choices about size, design, proportions, placement?

Edge, Frame, Boundary, Line

The Center Piece has a bezel, creating an interior edge encircling our stone. In
addition, the we weave a frame around the entire Center Piece, creating
an additional key edging component.

Edging is used to give a finished look to the piece. It might be used to hide threads.
It might be used to hide any irregularities in how beads line up
or are juxtaposed. An edging strategy is especially critical, however,
for creating, preserving, blurring, or otherwise affecting the boundary
line, line curvature, and/or silhouette of the center piece or the
piece of jewelry as a whole.

What role does the “border” of a piece play? Does it mark a beginning/ending?
How does it help the viewer appreciate the emotional content of the piece?

What kinds of positioning issues are associated with the placement on an edge,
boundary, border or line?

Fringe and Surface Embellishment

We weave Fringe Embellishment off our Frame. So what exactly is fringe, and what
can fringe be? How does the fringe make the piece more or less satisfying?
There are numerous possibilities.

In good jewelry design, the Fringe and/or other Surface Embellishment would play
either a supporting, or a co-equal role, with the center piece.
It would not overwhelm or be overdone. It would seem as if the fringe
were organic part of the piece. It would not seem like an afterthought.
If it’s primary purpose is to hide flaws, no one should notice.
Too often, designers overdo the fringe.

Straps

The Center Piece hangs from a thin, twisted Ndebele tube Strap. What are the visual
and functional purposes of the strap? What should the strap look
like? How should the strap be connected to the piece? Where should
the strap be connected to the piece? To what extent is or should
the strap be as an integral part of the piece of jewelry as art?
How does the strap define a silhouette? How does the strap make
the piece more or less satisfying?

Bails

In our piece, a Bail is connected directly to the Center Piece, and the strap
moves through it. A bail changes the visual and artistic relationship
between the strap and the center piece. How might this be helpful,
and how not? The bail poses similar design challenges as the strap
— size, proportion, placement and attachment. However, it has to
succeed at one additional task — it has to control the visual,
aethestic and functional transitioning between the center piece
and the strap.

The Canvas

We have two things which serve as “Canvas”. The most obvious is the
stringing material. In this project, we use beading thread for some
parts, and a cable thread for others. The other part which serves
as “Canvas” are the woven beads which for the basis of
our Frame, and off of which we add Fringe.

The “canvas” in a piece of jewelry may be the stringing material, and how it
is worked off of. It might be another piece of beadwork, such as
a beaded base, off of which some center piece is developed. It might
be a core line of beads. It might be a piece of fabric or other
material. How does the canvas influence the interpretation of jewelry
as art? How should the canvas interact with the main piece and its
components? To what extent should it become part of the artwork
itself; and to what extent, not? Classic Art theory suggests that
the canvas should NOT be a part of the artwork at all.

What Techniques Students Need To Know Before The Workshop

The skill level required: Intermediate/Advanced. The student must be
comfortable with tubular peyote and the ndebele stitch.

Additional workshop information found here.

About Warren Feld

www.warrenfeldjewelry.com

Artist’s Statement:

WARREN FELD
Jewelry Designer

Director, Center for Beadwork & Jewelry Arts and www.LearnToBead.net

For Warren Feld, Jewelry Designer, beading and jewelry making endeavors have been wonderful
adventures. These adventures, over the past 25 years, have taken Warren from the basics of bead stringing and bead weaving, to wire working and silver smithing, and onward to more complex jewelry
designs which build on the strengths of a full range of technical skills and experiences.

He, along with his partner Jayden Alfre Jones, opened a small bead shop in downtown Nashville, Tennessee, about 20 years ago, and called it Land of Odds. Over time, Land of Odds evolved from a bricks and mortar store into a successful internet business —www.landofodds.com
. In the late 1990s, James and Warren opened up another bricks and
mortar bead store — Be Dazzled Beads — in a trendy neighborhood of Nashville called
Berry Hill. Together both businesses supply beaders and jewelry artists with all the supplies and parts they need to make beautiful pieces of wearable art.

In 2000, Warren founded The Center For Beadwork & Jewelry Arts (CBJA) — www.landofodds.com/beadschool. CBJA is an educational program, associated with Be Dazzled Beads in Nashville, for beaders and jewelry makers. The program approaches education from a Design Perspective. There is a strong focus here on skills development. There are requirements for sequencing the
student’s classes; that is, taking classes in a developmental order. There is a major emphasis on teaching how to make better choices when selecting beads, other parts and stringing materials, and how
to bring these altogether into a beautiful, yet functional piece of jewelry.

Location,
Lodging,

//
//

Posted in beadwork | Tagged: beading workshops, beadwork classes, jewelry design, warren feld | Leave a Comment »

COLORS: BLURRED TRANSITIONS or SHARP TRANSITIONS

Posted by learntobead on January 29, 2014

COLORS: BLURRED TRANSITIONS or SHARP TRANSITIONS

QUESTION:
Do you prefer the transitions between colors in your composition to be blurred, or to have sharp delineations?

The jewelry designer must be strategic in the placement of color within the piece. The designer achieves balance and harmony, partly through the placement of colors. The designer determines how colors are distributed within the piece, and what movement and rhythm and effect result. And the designer determines what proportions of each color are used, where in the piece, and how.

Those of us who teach color theory try to come up with scientific and objective rules for choosing and using colors. However, a lot of those choices, in reality, can be very subjective.

One subjective choice has to do with the transition from one color to the next. Some people, like myself, prefer a blurring of colors at their boundaries. Think: Impressionism.

Other people prefer a sharp, clear, obvious boundary of colors at their boundaries. Think: Realism.

Which do you prefer – Blurred or Sharp?

Posted in beads, jewelry design | Tagged: color theory | Leave a Comment »

ADDICTED TO BEADS

Posted by learntobead on January 23, 2014

ADDICTED TO BEADS

QUESTION:
At what point did you realize you were addicted to beads?

People are always saying how addicting beads are. They expressed surprise that the pull of beads was so strong. They couldn’t stop buying and accumulating beads. They couldn’t go anywhere without stopping at the local bead store for a bead fix. They found themselves intentionally fooling or deceiving themselves about how many beads they actually had, or how much money they had spent on them.

Yes, beads are very addicting. Even though your drawers are full, you never have enough.

We asked our students, customers and colleagues to complete this sentence:

I never knew how addicting this was until….

…My car automatically turned into the parking lot in front of the bead store.

…I was laying in bed looking at my ceiling tiles and realized they were done in a “Peyote” stitch pattern!

…I made my beaded fish in progress into a screen-saver. It is all about the process, when will I finish? who cares… I have this beautiful thing to handle and see as I work. Such a pleasure!

… I began hiding a stash of money to buy beads: “It’s not like I’m sleeping around….I’m just buying beads.”

… I went shopping for clothes, but came back with only one bag – a bag of mixed beads.

…. I used 3 checks to pay for my order – one from a joint account with my husband, a second from an account in my name only, and a 3^rd from my son’s account – luckily I had his checkbook in my purse. So now, my husband will think that I’m only spending a little bit, I can fool myself, and my son doesn’t care one way or the other.

… I converted my dining room to a bead room, and made my family eat in the den on TV trays.

… I found that despite my long and mostly constant love of fabric – I am after all a lifetime seamstress, having been comforted by the smell and color of fabric stores and the chush, chush, chushing of my mom’s Kenmore machine since first memories – could not resist the magnetic pull into the unknown. There, standing at the front door of my local craft store with nothing on my mind or agenda but 2 yards of multi-colored backing fabric for a client’s project, I saw the front of my wobbly plastic basket steering to the Northwest (Fabric is definitely to the Southwest) with such abandon that the lovely glass shelves in the center front of the store were in danger!

…I turned to beads for solace and a quiet focus. I have been going through a very hard time trying to keep a very ailing relationship together and when I could have been stressed out and worrying, I spent the time quietly beading. When I just wanted to go to bed and stay there for days, I was able to sit in my living room with my son and do bead work. To him, I was being with him and calm; to me, I was hiding in my beadwork and being near him. Beads have been my refuge. I have even read where hand needle work is a stress reliever, I am a living testament to that!

…I saw seed beads in what I scooped out of my cat box! I took my bead work and worked in the car on vacation. Every time I vacuum the sound of beads is heard. It seems every purse I clean out has some beads in it. I find beads on the back porch, when I sweep. It is a really tough decision, when I come to the off ramp which leads to the bead store and I really need to get home! I have more beads than projects for them!

…I gave up a Shoe Addiction for this…it better be worth it!

Posted in beads | Tagged: addicted to beads, bead addiction, beads, jewelry making | 1 Comment »

WHEN INSTRUCTIONS ARE BAD…

Posted by learntobead on January 4, 2014

WHEN INSTRUCTIONS ARE BAD…

I again find myself writing a set of instructions for a piece to appear in a bead magazine later this year. It can be such a frustrating process for ME – the writer. And that’s because I don’t want it to be a frustrating process for anyone else. This is not easy to do.

Because this is for a magazine, I have to considerably stream-line my instructions and diagrams. Often that means assuming the reader has some experience and understanding with certain techniques or certain materials. Sometimes this means leaving out some things which are thought to be “obvious”. And it means leaving out a lot of the “Why.” With this particular project, I don’t have space to explain why I chose FireLine rather than regular beading thread, though this was a critical choice to the success of the piece. I don’t have space to explain why I use peanut beads the way I do, though this too is critical for success. You could not substitute another bead for the peanut beads because this particular shape plays an important structural role in the piece. But no one reading the instructions will know this. There is no room allowed for explaining why I changed the right angle weave thread-path from the traditional approach. And I don’t have any space to detail all the inspirational factors and color theory choices which influenced my design. If someone knew these, they probably could do more than merely re-make my piece. They could make my piece their own.

Diagrams are often critical for understanding how to proceed. Hopefully not in this case, but with other magazine articles, the editors have taken five or more separate diagrams and combined them into one. Try following the thread paths and you get vertigo. You get a searing headache. You get Jackson Pollock’s version of bead weaving on a page.

It is difficult enough to write instructions without them getting edited down to 2 or 3 magazine pages. Some pointers I’ve learned for writing, at least, better instructions:

1) People learn in different ways. Some can read the text. Some need to look at a series of progressive images. Others are great at following diagrams. You need to be good at all three.

2) Include a picture of the finished piece.

3) Know how to begin the process. Include more details, images and diagrams related to beginning the process.

4) Write the steps logically and in order.

5) Keep each Step “short and simple”, and manageable.

6) Do not over-assume about your reader’s ability.

7) More problems occur for the reader when moving from one step to another, than accomplishing the particular step itself.

8) Provide encouragement along the way.

9) Show milestones and ways for people to track their progress.

10) Anticipate problems that might occur, or where your reader might get lost.

11) Pretest your instructions.

12) Clearly list all materials and tools needed. If some materials might be difficult or too pricey for someone to acquire, list substitutes.

13) If there are more than 7-10 steps to do, then categorize and group the steps into sets that are no longer than 7-10 steps.

14) Provide informational warnings so that people will be able to figure out if they have done something incorrectly or have started down the wrong track.

Instructions are often some of the worst-written documents you can find. Like me, you have probably had many infuriating experiences with badly written instructions.

The piece pictured was supposed to be a straight line of beadwork, to be connected into a consistently-sized tube. Our local bead group was making this piece, and 10 of 11 of us did it wrong. All our tubes started to look snake-like and crooked. These instructions jumped from Step 1 to Step 4, back to Step 2, then over to Step 9. They were full of contingencies – do Step 1 if such and such is happening, but Step 5 if something else is happening. Almost each step had its own set of footnotes. There were 25 Steps and only 2 diagrams summarizing all the steps, each illustrating about 15 separate thread paths.

PLEASE RESPOND AND POST:
A description of a bad experience you have had with a set of instructions. If you can, identify where the writer went wrong. Speculate what you think the writer could have done to improve your experience.

Posted in bead weaving, jewelry making | Tagged: instructions, jewelry making instructions, writing instructions | Leave a Comment »

Stock up on Czech Seedbeads — Magnetic Clasps Closeouts

Posted by learntobead on December 19, 2013

Sales and Promotions at Land of Odds – Jewelry Design CenterLand of Odds/Be Dazzled Beads-
What’s On Sale

Land of Odds – Be Dazzled Beads

Land of Odds
– Be Dazzled Beads

Sales and Promotions

SALE HAS BEGUN
Ends: Tues, 1/28/14

While supplies last / No Rainchecks

Live in Nashville?
Order ONLINE and Checkout and Select “WILL PICK UP AT BE
DAZZLED BEADS”

CZECH
SEED BEADS

50
% off

MAGNETIC
CLASPS

75% off

Our
Land of Odds…LEARN
TO BEAD program is based on

The
Design Approach:

– Focused on teaching how to make smart choices

– Developmentally-based, where you learn skills in an orderly
way, and understand how skills build upon each other

– Easy to follow

BEGIN
WITH OUR

ORIENTATION
CLASS

over 5 1/2 hours

of introductory video tutorials

for the beader and jewelry maker

At LAND OF
ODDS – BE DAZZLED BEADS,

you may also purchase

Kits and Instructions
at all skill levels

Visit
our LearnToBead Blog

THE JEWELRY DESIGN DISCUSSION GROUP

Please join our new group on facebook at:

http://www.facebook.com/groups/jewelrydesign/

**********************

Posted in Stitch 'n Bitch | Leave a Comment »

OUR 2013 ALL DOLLED UP CONTEST – Two Mermaids – What Do You Think?

Posted by learntobead on December 15, 2013

ALL DOLLED UP: BEADED ART DOLL COMPETITION
Fifth 2013

This year, we did not receive many entries. The Judges felt that there were not enough entries which met their criteria to hold a contest.

Two of the entries, however, were awarded Judges Honors with a $200.00 prize.

These two doll artists’ works are presented here. (http://www.landofodds.com/store/alldolledup2013contest.htm )

It was interesting that both artists – one from California and the other from Texas — both chose the “mermaid” to illustrate this year’s theme of Transformations. Both artists, however, created their dolls using different technical methods and artistic goals.

QUESTION:
If you were a judge, which one of these entries would you have scored higher?
Visit the webpages and review their images, materials lists, and written stories.

CRYSTAL RECTOR
from Lomita, California
“Emergence”

Yvette M. Lowry
from Dickinson, Texas
“Meredith”

Our ALL DOLLED UP Competition is structured , not as a “beauty contest”, but more of a “design competition.” The artist is asked, not only to design a doll, but to create a story – fictional, non-fictional or a mix of both – which illustrates the kinds of thinking and choices the artist made while creating the doll, its structure, its colors, and its artistic embellishment.

The judges evaluated all the entries in terms of:
1. INSIGHT: The Bead Artist’s inner awareness and powers of self-expression through sculptural beadwork

2. TECHNIQUE(S):Creativity of the artist in using various beading stitches, as well as creating the doll’s form.

3. VISUAL APPEAL: The overall visual appeal of the doll.

4. QUALITY OF WRITTEN STORY: How well the written short story enhances an appreciation of the Beaded Art Doll.

This year’s theme was: Transformations. The written story had to begin with this sentence:

“As she turns towards me, her hands no longer seem familiar; her face, once recognizable, now unexpected; her aura, a palette of changed colors, I want to share, but can’t all at once. She is transforming, before my eyes, as if I wished it to happen, for whatever reason — fun, mundane or sinister — I’m not sure. But as she moves and evolves, a special insight occurs to me, so I name her… “

Posted in beads, beadwork, Contests | Leave a Comment »

Grand Sale Items at Land of Odds

Posted by learntobead on December 5, 2013

Land of Odds/Be Dazzled Beads- What’s
On Sale

Land
of Odds – Be Dazzled Beads

Land of Odds
– Be Dazzled Beads

Sales and Promotions

SALE HAS BEGUN
Ends: Tues, 1/14/14

While supplies last / No Rainchecks

Live in Nashville?
Order ONLINE and Checkout and Select “WILL PICK UP AT BE
DAZZLED BEADS”

Metalized
Plastic Beads

All styles, metal finishes

50
% off

Czech
Glass

HEARTS

50%
off

Our
Land of Odds…LEARN
TO BEAD program is based on

The
Design Approach:

– Focused on teaching how to make smart choices

– Developmentally-based, where you learn skills in an orderly
way, and understand how skills build upon each other

– Easy to follow

BEGIN
WITH OUR

ORIENTATION
CLASS

over 5 1/2 hours

of introductory video tutorials

for the beader and jewelry maker

At LAND OF
ODDS – BE DAZZLED BEADS,

you may also purchase

Kits and Instructions
at all skill levels

Visit
our LearnToBead Blog

THE JEWELRY DESIGN DISCUSSION GROUP

Please join our new group on facebook at:

http://www.facebook.com/groups/jewelrydesign/

**********************

Posted in Stitch 'n Bitch | Leave a Comment »

Selling Through Online Craft Marketplaces

Posted by learntobead on December 4, 2013

SETTING UP YOUR BUSINESS
AT CRAFT MARKETPLACES ONLINE

I recently posted an article I had read about selling on Etsy (http://www.today.com/money/etsy-nomics-lets-sellers-stitch-together-living-new-pattern-2D11591368) . There was a big response, so I thought I’d do a little more research. I have been selling online with my own websites for almost 20 years now, but have not had much experience with selling through these online marketplaces.

I have found that many people get frustrated with these sites, in that sales can be minimal, or the numbers of people they are competing with seems daunting. But I have found these same people not doing all the necessary “good business” tasks, such as some intensive and persistent marketing of their wares, and smart photo and text detail for their pieces.

Question: WHAT KINDS OF EXPERIENCES HAVE YOU HAD, and WHAT KINDS OF TIPS CAN YOU OFFER?

Here’s some of the things I have found.

First, there are many, many online marketplaces to choose from. Some let you set up your own website, and others show your merchandise as part of a larger marketplace. Each has pros and cons. Perhaps one lesson is:
“Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.”

My list of these sites include:

Etsy
Zibbet
Artfire
overstock.com/mainstreet revolution
tophatter (an auction site)
Ebay (an auction site)
storeny
luulla
bigcartel
meylah
madeitmyself
handmadeartists
createinventandsell
thecraftstar
rubylane
dawanda
copious
1000markets
silkfair
ecrafter
supermarkethq
goodsmiths
freecraftfair
folksy
notmassproduced
market.poppytalkhandmade
jewelrywonder
ave21
jewelspan
artflock
bonanza
lilyshop
icraft.ca (Canada)
shophandmade

The PROS for any site:
– low commission on sales
– good traffic
– ease of setting up your shop
– having a lot of control over how your shop looks; how customizable it is
– no monthly fees
– web host does a lot of promotion
– site has a good search function
– site has good statistics, and lets you easily track traffic and what has sold, at what price point, and when, for both of your specific merchandise, as well as for all merchants with similar merchandise

The CONS for any site:
– high commissions and/or fees
– when site is too big, may be difficult to get noticed
– host limits how you list and present your items
– host restricts your contact with your customers

Stock up on Czech Glass Druks and Rondelles – Inventory Reduction Sale

Posted by learntobead on November 29, 2013

Sales and Promotions at Land of Odds – Jewelry Design CenterLand of Odds/Be Dazzled Beads- What’s On Sale

Land of Odds
– Be Dazzled Beads

Sales and Promotions
SALE

Begins: Fri, 11/29/13
Ends: Tues, 1/7/14

While supplies last / No Rainchecks

Live in Nashville?
Order ONLINE and Checkout and Select “WILL PICK UP AT BE
DAZZLED BEADS”

Czech
Glass

DRUK
ROUNDS

50
% off

Czech
Glass

DRUK
RONDELLES

50%
off

Our
Land of Odds…LEARN
TO BEAD program is based on

The
Design Approach:

– Focused on teaching how to make smart choices

– Developmentally-based, where you learn skills in an orderly
way, and understand how skills build upon each other

– Easy to follow

BEGIN
WITH OUR

ORIENTATION
CLASS

over 5 1/2 hours

of introductory video tutorials

for the beader and jewelry maker

At LAND OF
ODDS – BE DAZZLED BEADS,

you may also purchase

Kits and Instructions
at all skill levels

Visit
our LearnToBead Blog

THE JEWELRY DESIGN DISCUSSION GROUP

Please join our new group on facebook at:

http://www.facebook.com/groups/jewelrydesign/

**********************

Posted in Stitch 'n Bitch | Leave a Comment »

Sale/Promo at Land of Odds, 11/25/13

Posted by learntobead on November 25, 2013

Land of Odds – What’s On Sale

Land
of Odds

Land of Odds
Sales and Promotions

SALE
Begins: Mon, 11/25/13
Ends: Tues, 12/31/13

While supplies last / No Rainchecks

Live in Nashville?
Order ONLINE and Checkout and Select “WILL PICK UP AT BE
DAZZLED BEADS”

Czech
Glass

ANGEL
WINGS BEADS

50
% off

Plated
Brass

BEAD
CAPS

Gold
Tone or

Silver
Tone

50%
off

Our
Land of Odds…LEARN
TO BEAD program is based on

The
Design Approach:

– Focused on teaching how to make smart choices

– Developmentally-based, where you learn skills in an orderly
way, and understand how skills build upon each other

– Easy to follow

BEGIN
WITH OUR

ORIENTATION
CLASS

over 5 1/2 hours

of introductory video tutorials

for the beader and jewelry maker

At LAND OF
ODDS, you may also purchase

Kits and Instructions
at all skill levels

Visit
our LearnToBead Blog

THE JEWELRY DESIGN DISCUSSION GROUP

Please join our new group on facebook at:

http://www.facebook.com/groups/jewelrydesign/

**********************

Posted in beads | Leave a Comment »

COST OF BEING AN ARTIST

Posted by learntobead on November 8, 2013

THE COST OF BEING AN ARTIST

The New York Times today published an opinion/discussion column asking whether the costs of being an artist today have become so high, as to make it prohibitive from becoming an artist.
http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2013/11/07/the-cost-of-being-an-artist?gwh=4DC5618F6E6E85FBEF04A494BD2A041B

What are your views?

Some headings of some of the responses:
“Don’t quit your day job”
“For Millenials, it’s not practical”
“Being a lawyer is easier”
“You need a support system”
“Cheap rent and side gigs minimize risk”
“Instead of exploiting artists, pay them”

It has gotten very expensive. For me, that often means trying to leverage the same product in many formats — finished jewelry, kits/instructions, workshops and classes, similar pieces at different skill levels.

It means doing more networking to find opportunities. Unfortunately, the time used to network is less time used to create.

Posted in jewelry making | Leave a Comment »

THE CHALLENGES OF CUSTOM WORK

Posted by learntobead on October 27, 2013

THE CHALLENGES OF CUSTOM WORK

QUESTIONS:
How do you handle the challenges of doing custom work?
What lessons have you learned, that you might share with others?

When I began my jewelry making career, one of the smartest things I did was take on repairs. I learned so much. With each repair, I was able to re-construct in my mind the steps the jewelry designer made when creating this piece of jewelry – choices about stringing materials, clasps, beads, and how to connect everything up. And at the same time, I could see where these choices were inadequate. I could see where the piece broke or wore down. I could question the customer about how the piece was worn, and what happened when it broke.

And with each repair, I gained more knowledge from yet another jewelry designer’s attempt to fashion a piece of jewelry.

All these repairs resulted in more self-confidence about designing jewelry and designing jewelry for others. And it led to more custom work.

When you do custom work, I think you need an especially steeled personality to deal with everything that can go awry.

First comes the fitting. You take some initial measurements, but after the piece is made, the perspective changes, and so do the desired measurements.

Then comes a lot of customer indecision – colors, lengths, beads, silhouettes, overall design.

Or they want to use several gemstones, but want them all to have the exact same markings and coloration.

Not to mention the sometimes questionable taste.

Or the possibilities of infringement of other jeweler’s designs, when the customer wants you to re-produce something they saw in a magazine or on-line. Identically.

And then time-frame. Can I finish the piece by the time the customer wants it done?

We discuss pricing, where many customers seem resistant to paying anything for my time.

And last, payment. It’s not so easy to get some people to pay.

I still do a lot of custom work. But I delay a bit, sitting down and actually constructing the piece. I have a lot of discussions with the client. If there are color or materials questions, I usually present the client for 3 colors or materials at a time, and ask them to choose which they prefer. Then another 3-at-a-time forced-choice exercise, until things get narrowed down.

I photo-shop a lot of images – different colors, designs, beads – with the client, and get a lot of feedback. As I assemble all the information, I sketch/photo-shop what a final piece might look like. I superimpose this image on a mannequin to show the customer what it might look like. I have the customer formally sign-off on a final design. And only then, do I begin to construct the piece.

I require a 50% deposit up front.

I agree to make some adjustments for 6 months after the customer has the piece in hand.

Posted in jewelry design | Tagged: custom artwork, custom jewelry design, jewelry design | 1 Comment »

Fri, Oct 18th is Flat Cathy Day – Win A Prize!

Posted by learntobead on October 16, 2013

Friday, October 18, 2013 is Flat Cathy Day!
Sponsored by Bead & Button and Kalmbach Press
Come Visit Be Dazzled Beads to take your pictures!

It’s your opportunity to share Flat Cathy’s adventures at your favorite bead shop, and reveal exciting tips you’ve learned with the beading community. Plus, you’ll have a
chance to win prizes!

Cathy Jakicic is the author of the new book Jewelry Projects from a Beading Insider. Cathy knows firsthand what stumps beaders, what they’re curious about, and what excites them. She generously shares 200+ tips, tricks, and secrets to creating fun and wearable jewelry in this all-new collection of 30 original designs. She offers beaders lots of options with project alternatives, matching accessories, and budget-friendly choices.

Print out a copy of Flat Cathy (there are 2 versions) and take her to your favorite bead shop on October 18th to help celebrate Visit Your Local Bead Shop Month.
GO HERE: http://links.mkt746.com/servlet/MailView?ms=MTc5NjE4MjkS1&r=NjY2MDQ5NjkzNDcS1&j=MjMzNjE1MjU1S0&mt=1&rt=0

Snap a photo of Flat Cathy with your favorite bead shop employee, your favorite section of beads, attending a class, or just enjoying the store, and we will post it on our Facebook page and our Pinterest page!

We would like to post images of Flat Cathy’s fun travels to bead shops across the U.S., so make sure that your favorite bead shop is represented! Flat Cathy is also a fun way to share fun tips from the “Beading Insider.”

Creative photos along with a fun tip and the bead shop name should be emailed to
jzimdars@kalmbach.com .

Along with submitting your pictures comes a drawing for a chance to win prizes!

Deadline: 11/1/13

COME VISIT BE DAZZLED BEADS
in Nashville, TN
to take your pictures
for this contest!

Posted in Stitch 'n Bitch | Leave a Comment »

DOES TODAY’s WORLD AFFECT YOUR DESIGNS IN ANY WAY?

Posted by learntobead on October 13, 2013

DOES TODAY’s WORLD AFFECT YOUR DESIGNS IN ANY WAY?

I recently read an article about Paul Klee, a prominent modern artist in the early 1900’s. In 1914, in an interview, Klee noted that as the world became a scarier, less organized place, art became more and more abstract.

That got me thinking. To what extent does the outside world affect my jewelry design decisions? Has it changed my choice of materials? Colors? Patterns? Silhouettes?

My initial thought, frankly, was not that much.

Except that I began to think of the image I had of the “woman” wearing my jewelry and I definitely have a very feminist view of that “woman”. She’s empowered and self-assured. She plays both gender-specific as well as gender-neutral roles.

And when I picture the contexts in which this “woman” will be wearing my piece, I picture the kinds of places an assured business woman would be, and how that woman would present herself.

I also want most of my pieces to transition well between formal and informal settings, and with the woman wearing informal and more formal attire.

I have difficulty designing for the traditional Southern woman. Or the woman who only wants something blue for a blue dress. Or the woman for whom jewelry plays a supplemental function, rather than a supporting role.

My jewelry tends to be very architectural, yet my color palette and its application is very impressionistic. An urban vs. rural Or modern vs. vintage tension always resonant in my pieces. I feel this thrust towards modernity that needs to be tempered by some kind of emotion, the roots of which I often find in vintage and ancient designs.

So, there might be some of this outside world influence seeping into my design process. But I think for me, this jewelry design process is more often an escape from the realities of our world today. My pieces need to be powerful enough to allow my “woman” to escape these realities, as well.

How about you? Does today’s world affect your designs in any way?

Posted in jewelry design | Leave a Comment »

KEEPING YOUR FINGERS, HANDS, ARMS, EYES AND MIND IN GOOD WORKING ORDER

Posted by learntobead on September 26, 2013

KEEPING YOUR FINGERS, HANDS, ARMS, EYES AND MIND
IN GOOD WORKING ORDER

QUESTION:
What kinds of things do you do to keep your fingers, hands, arms, eyes and mind focused, nimble and in good working order?

Beading and Jewelry Making require lots of mind-body coordination. This takes work. It is work.

You have to control your stringing material. With needle and thread, you have to be able to get from your fingers to the needle to the beads, back along the thread to the needle to the fingers, hands, arms, eyes, mind. And then again. And again. Over and over, one more time. You need to get into a rhythm. All these working parts need to be working. No time for cramping. No time to get tired. No time to lose concentration.

A rhythm. Needle, pick up bead, pull down along thread, check the tension, pick up a bead, pull down along thread, check the tension, pick up a bead….

I noticed that different instructors had various techniques and strategies for maintaining this rhythm. Yes, music was involved sometimes. Othertimes simple meditation or creative reading and discourse. Some people had some stretching exercises that they did. Others tested themselves before proceeding with their big project. Still others did small things to reconfirm their learning.

I adapted some of their techniques into a workshop I do on Beading Calisthenics. Here is Exercise # 1.

BEADING CALISTHENICS #1: 5-Finger Stretchies

This exercise is used to prevent your fingers from cramping. Often, when beading, you are holding your hand and fingers in a very tight, controlled, sometimes unnatural or uncomfortable position. You should stop periodically, and do 5-Finger Stretchies. This is a wonderful exercise which relaxes the muscles in your hands.
Take one hand and hold it arm out, palm forward. Your arm is parallel to the floor. Your palm, fingers up, is perpendicular to the floor. Tighten every muscle in every finger, and pull each finger inward and downwards towards the point they meet the palm, but don’t touch the palm. Picture making a claw with your pulled back fingers.
Squeeze the tension, release. Squeeze, release. Squeeze, release. Do this rapidly, perhaps 4 squeeze/releases a second. Do this for 10 seconds.
Now do this with the other hand. 10 seconds.
Do this a couple times with each hand.
Then return to your beading.

Posted in beadwork, jewelry making | Tagged: exercise | Leave a Comment »

Learn An Easy, Anyone-Can-Do-It, Pearl Knotting Technique

Posted by learntobead on September 25, 2013

PEARL KNOTTING WITH WARREN FELD
Our class now a video tutorial online at CraftArtEdu.com .

http://www.craftartedu.com/warren-feld-pearl-knotting-with-warren-feld

Classic Elegance! Learn a simple Pearl Knotting technique anyone can do. No special tools. Beautiful. Durable. Wearable.

Everything you need to know for successfully designing with pearls, including knotting – traditional vs non traditional methods, attaching clasps, finishing, care of your pearls, repair and types of pearls, the nature of the pearl. Jewelry designer Warren Feld will lead you through this comprehensive CraftArtEdu class that is all about pearls. 6 Broadcasts. Downloadable handout.

Price: $40

Level: All Levels

Duration: 106:17 minutes

Posted in beadwork, jewelry making | Tagged: hand knotting, pearl knotting, pearls | Leave a Comment »

New KITS available at Land of Odds

Posted by learntobead on September 16, 2013

Now at Land of Odds – Beading and Jewelry
Making Kits For Sale

Land of Odds

KITS: Project
Gallery

For Fun! To Learn! As Gifts!

NOTE: Regular retail
and wholesale store discounts do not apply to kits.

Click
on kit name to find

descriptions and ordering information:

MORE KITS

NEW KITS!

DAFFODIL CUFF BRACELET

Bead Weaving Curriculum

Bead Embroidery

Intermediate Level

A spring
time garden cuff! A simple bead embroidered base highlights delicate daffodils
woven with brick and ladder stitches.

AUTUMN’S
END BRACELET

Bead Weaving Curriculum

Petersburg Chain, Ndebele

Advanced Level

The
last flower of the season! The blooms will explode as they burst open
with Ndebele, Petersburg, peyote and brick stitches.

ETRUSCAN
VINE NECKLACE

Bead Weaving Curriculum

Netting

Intermediate Level

Impress
with this Tuscany-inspired necklace! Combine Bead Stringing and Netting
techniques to make this fun, classy piece.

PRICING
AND SELLING YOUR JEWELRY

Our class is now available online at CraftArtEdu.com

Learn how to achieve “fair pricing” for your art with
businessman/ artist, Warren Feld. Understand your role in the world
of jewelry commerce and how to make money by doing what you love,
through fair pricing of your work. No handout is included in this
class.

“TODAY’S LESSON IS ABOUT ONE KEY TO SUCCESS: SMART PRICING.
WE DISCUSS WHY JEWELRY SELLS. WE GO OVER DIFFERENT KINDS OF PRICING
STRATEGIES USED BY JEWELRY DESIGNERS AND THE JEWELRY INDUSTRY. I
PRESENT A SIMPLE MATHEMATICAL PRICING FORMULA. I EXPLAIN THE FORMULA,
AND BREAK THIS DOWN INTO LITTLE STEPS. THEN WE PRACTICE APPLYING
THE FORMULA AND PRICING SOME PIECES OF JEWELRY.

AT THE END OF THE LESSON, I DISCUSS THE DIFFERENCES AMONG RETAIL,
WHOLESALE AND CONSIGNMENT. I BRIEFLY DISCUSS SOME KEY BUSINESS STRATEGIES
WHICH ARE VERY RELATED TO PRICING. AND I OFFER SOME FINAL WORDS
OF ADVICE.”

Media: Jewelry

Level: Beginner

Duration: 51:09

TUXEDO
PARK BANGLE BRACELET

Bead
Weaving Curriculum

Brick Stitch

Advanced Beginner

Strut
your stuff through Tuxedo Park on the East Side of

Lower Manhattan! Learn how much shaping, interest and

dimensionality you can achieve with the simple, basic Brick Stitch.

Now, also available
as a video
tutorial

on CraftArtEdu.com

CRYSTAL
EXCITEMENT BRACELET

Bead Stringing Curriculum

Learn to Use Cable Wire and the Crimping Technique

Beginner Level

Strut
your bling with crystals! Elegant and exciting, this bracelet will

show-case your jewelry-making talents. Learn Bead Stringing using cable wire
and the crimping technique.

BLAZING
BARNACLES NECKLACE

Bead Weaving Curriculum

Right Angle Weave Stitch

Intermediate Level

No
need to scrape off these barnacles!

Construct your own colony of barnacles using right angle weave and peyote
stitches.

BY
THE SEA BRACELET

Bead Stringing Curriculum

Learn to Use Needle and Thread

Beginner Level

A remembrance
of that beautiful day at the beach! Mementos

picked up along the dunes and water’s edge, strung on thread.

Learn to Bead String using needle and thread.

SO YOU WANT TO DO CRAFT SHOWS…

Business of Craft

CraftArtEdu.com Video Tutorial

By Warren Feld

http://www.craftartedu.com/warren-feld-so-you-want-to-do-craft-shows

In this class,
presented in 6 parts with 16 lessons, artist and businessman, Warren Feld,
will fill you in on the ins and outs, the dos and the don’ts of
selling at craft shows and fairs. Which are best for you, which may be
a waste of your time. How to compute the revenue you must earn to justify
participating in an event. This is a must see class for anyone thinking
of entering the art and craft show world and will maximize your chances
of success in these venues. 6 Broadcasts.

Level: All Levels

Duration: 113:58

DRAGON BACK BRACELET

Bead
Weaving Curriculum

Bead Crochet

Intermediate Level

Daggers
are for wearing! Bead crochet a stunning two-sided bracelet

– one side using size 8/0 seed beads and the other all glass daggers.

THE
UGLY NECKLACE CONTEST

– A Jewelry
Design Competition With A Twist

Grand Prize: $992.93 shopping spree on Land of Odds web-site (www.landofodds.com)

Runner Up Prize: $399.07 shopping spree on Land of Odds web-site.

Consider
entering our

2012 9th International The Ugly Necklace Contest

Deadline: 8/31/2014

Official Rules

http://www.landofodds.com/store/uglynecklace.htm

MORE KITS

Posted in bead weaving, jewelry making | Tagged: beading kits, beading projects, beadwork kits, jewelry making kits | Leave a Comment »

GOOD JEWELRY DESIGN: Subjective or Objective?

Posted by learntobead on September 12, 2013

GOOD JEWELRY DESIGN:
The Result of Subjective or Objective Choices?

QUESTION: Can choices about jewelry design ever be truly objective? Or are they primarily subjective?

Is good jewelry design more a matter of “taste”, or is there some scientific basis which underlies it?

What do you think?

Do you think there are “universal” rules and understandings that good jewelry designers would be wise to adopt, or is each and every designer on their own?

I think, that if we observed and measured the jewelry design process, that much of it is very subjective, that is a matter of personal taste. Much appreciation of design and color and color combinations seems very subjective.

People have certain social and cultural preset notions about what they prefer. Some people have a personal preference for browns, others for purples, and so forth. So people like a lot of fringe; others are minimalists.

Psychologists have found that some people will like a color or combination of colors or design elements if arranged vertically. If arranged horizontally, they then don’t like them. And vice versa. Some people like things, when horizontally arranged, but dislike these same things when vertically arranged.

People respond in very different ways to how design elements and colors, as well as shading, highlighting and tinting, are distributed throughout the piece. They might like the components, when distributed in a certain way, but dislike the piece, when the components are re-arranged and re-distributed.

Some people get very excited when the colors or elements in their jewelry have very sharp boundaries and clear demarcations. Others hate this. They prefer a blurring or blending or smudging up of things.

When confronted with a very monochromatic piece, or one with little rhythm, some people feel relieved, and others bored or anxious.

Some people prefer pieces that exude a lot of power; others prefer their pieces subdued.

As a designer, if things are mostly a matter of personal taste, style, and perspective, it gets more confusing about how to design things. What kinds of things should be included and which excluded? What strategies can you employ for choosing and combining colors and design elements? What things should you learn, if anything at all?

Without proven, universal, objective, grammatical set of rules for using and combining things, how do we design things? How do we know which things are better, smarter and more satisfying, and which are not?

Yet, as we page through the bead magazines, and click through the various jewelry-themed web-pages, I find that a lot of people agree on what is good, and what isn’t. On what is satisfying, and what isn’t. On what works, and what doesn’t. When there is a lot of agreement, perhaps, there are some universal understandings – OBJECTIVE rules – operating here. What might these be?

Is Design purely subjective, or can you see some objective framework that may be at play, as well?

What do you think?

Warren

Land of Odds (www.landofodds.com)
Warren Feld Jewelry

Posted in jewelry design | Tagged: objective design, subjective design | 1 Comment »

HELP US WIN BIG!

Posted by learntobead on September 11, 2013

~ HELP US WIN BIG! ~
Go to:
http://www.beadandbutton.com/cjs

Type in:
BE DAZZLED BEADS, NASHVILLE, TN

10/31/2013 Deadline
During September and October 2013, Bead & Button is selecting one store to win a $5000.00 shopping spree at CJS SALES in New York City, a source of lots of unusual stuff for us to sell.

Posted in Stitch 'n Bitch | 1 Comment »

MIXED MEDIA BEADWORK

Posted by learntobead on September 3, 2013

MIXED MEDIA BEADWORK

It’s my belief that you cannot combine two different media to make a piece of jewelry without letting one of them predominate over the other.

Agree or disagree?

kumihimo

Whether combining fiber with beads or metal with beads or paint and sculpture with beads, it is difficult to have a successful, satisfying outcome, without letting one of the media be dominant over the other.

Each media has its own set of structural rules and requirements. Each interacts with light and shadow very differently; that is, the materials and techniques associated with a particular media reflect, absorb and refract light differently.

These kinds of things make the viewer’s experience and interaction with the media and its resulting products different, from media to media.

kumihimo

So, you can have a “knitting” project that incorporates some beads, or a “beading” project that uses a knitting stitch. In the former, knitting would predominate, with more focus on the fibers; in the latter, beading would predominate, with more focus on the beads. You can have a wire project that incorporates some beads, or a beading project that incorporates some wire elements.

But it is rare that you can look at a project, and say it concurrently meets the criteria for success of both media – so, both a successful, satisfying knitting AND beading project, and both a successful wire AND beading project. It is difficult to preserve the integrity of either media if you force them to be co-equals.

beaded art doll

And you can draw parallels across media to situations crossing materials, as well. It is difficult to mix materials within the same project. For example, it is difficult to mix glass and acrylic beads, or glass and gemstone beads….Unless, you let one material become predominant over the other.

But all of this is very challenging, almost off-putting, to the jewelry designer who wants to combine media techniques and materials.

How can techniques and materials in other craft and art disciplines be combined with beads to make jewelry? And, how can other art and craft disciplines incorporate beads or traditional beading techniques to make jewelry?

beaded art doll

If you have created mixed media projects, or enjoy viewing them,

What lessons can we learn from attempting to mix media and have two or more media, techniques and materials co-exist in the same piece?
How easily can you combine beads with fibers, without diminishing the integrity of either medium as an art form?
What are the pros and cons?
What kinds of compromises do we have to make?
Does Mixed Media affect our vision of the piece as art? Or craft?
Can you “bead” the same way you “work wire” and in the same way you “manipulate fibers” or “sculpt clay”, and so forth? – all to impact the viewer, their experience and satisfaction with your piece? Or do you have to develop new strategies for coordinating media?

What do you think?

Share them by posting them to our group.

Warren
Land of Odds (www.landofodds.com )
Warren Feld Jewelry
Center for Beadwork & Jewelry Arts

Posted in Art or Craft?, beadwork, jewelry design | Tagged: beaded art dolls, fiber and beads, fiber arts, kumihimo, metalwork, mixed media art, wirework | Leave a Comment »

HOW HAS TECHNOLOGY IMPACTED YOU AS A JEWELRY DESIGNER?

Posted by learntobead on August 26, 2013

HOW HAS TECHNOLOGY IMPACTED YOU AS A JEWELRY DESIGNER?

The impact of technology on work and jobs was the focus of a recent opinion piece in the New York Times by David H. Autor and David Dorn. And, as jewelry designers, we are living through and with all the positives and negatives that arise through this technological change.

How has technology affected what we do as designers?

How has it affected what we do to survive and thrive as designers?

Have we mechanized and computerized the jewelry design business into obsolescence?

How have you had to organize your jewelry designer lives differently?
given the rise of
-the internet,
-Ebay, Etsy and Amazon.com
-blogs, facebook, twitter, pinterest, instagram
-new technologies and materials like precious metal clay, polymer clay, crystal clay, 3-D printing

What has happened to your local bead stores?

What has happened to bead magazines?

If you teach classes for pay, or sell kits and instructions, how do you compete against the literally millions of online tutorials, classes, instructions and kits offered for free? How does this affect what you teach or design to sell as kits?

If you sell jewelry, how do you compete against the 60,000,000 other people who sell jewelry online? How does this affect your marketing, your pricing, your designs?

If you make part of your living doing a arts and crafts show circuit, will there still be a need for this in the future?

The authors in this NYT article pose the questions raised by several prominent authors and scholars:

Are we in danger of losing the “race against the machine?” (M.I.T. scholars Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee)

Are we becoming enslaved to our “robot overlords,?” (journalist Kevin Drum warned in Mother Jones)

Do “smart machines” threaten us with “long-term misery?” (economists Jeffrey D. Sachs and Laurence J. Kotlikoff)

Have we reached “the end of labor?” (Noah Smith in The Atlantic)

Let me paraphrase these a bit in terms more specific to jewelry design and beadwork.

Does the reach of technology, through such vehicles as the Internet, make things so productive and efficient, that we no longer need so many people making jewelry, or teaching jewelry making, or marketing businesses / products or selling the parts to make jewelry?

If we do not need so many people to design / teach / market / or sell, and there happen to be a lot of people doing this anyway, does this necessarily make the relative worth and price for any of these activities “$zero”?

Does all this technological efficiency diminish the act of “creativity”? Now so many things can be standardized that everything – even the manufacture of complex pieces of jewelry through 3-D technology – can be reduced to a set of how-to instructions – mere recipes?

Has this technology reduced the need for bead magazines, and bead stores, and traditional classes?

On the other hand, technology has made jewelry design, and good jewelry design, more and more accessible to more and more people.

It has opened up a myriad of possibilities for people to explore their creative selves.

It has let jewelry designers reach a broader audience with their wares, their knowledge and their endeavors.

With new materials and technologies have come many new possibilities for creating jewelry.

It has made it easier for more people to get into the various jewelry design-related businesses.

It has made it easier to stay current and learn.

It has made it easier to meet and learn with fellow jewelry designers.

It has made it easier to mine big data, identify the most relevant target customers, and to market to them in very specific, cost-effective ways.

It has made it easier for retail outlets to find the merchandise they need to sell.

Some quick observations from my own professional life:

– We have an elaborate curriculum of classes that we teach. However, many of the beginning classes are becoming obsolete, in the sense that students can find similar classes on YouTube, in bead magazines, and throughout the internet, now for free. The issue for us is how to adapt, given that one of our goals is still to charge money for these classes, and make money. And a concurrent goal is to offer the student a learning opportunity worth the price paid.

– Each year, we used to have 1 or 2 national level instructors do workshops at our store. But it has become difficult to attract students. There are so many projects easily available – including from these national-level instructors – that students started to indicate that their interests in these workshops had diminished. They could do these same or similar projects on their own.

– When we opened our store in 1991, there were few places for people to acquire what we sell. Now there are almost 100 million places for people to go. It is obvious that most of our in-store customers purchase more of their supplies online or through catalogs than they do in the store.

– We used to do craft shows a long time ago. But the cost of travel got very expensive, and, with the internet, people had more opportunity to find what we sold without going to the craft shows.

– It used to be that the crux of our advertising dollars were spent with bead magazines. No longer. Bead magazines get a very small part of our advertising dollars. I can remember when all our customers read the bead magazines to get all their information. Now very few do. Most have organized themselves into small groups in various social media sites. To get your marketing message across, you have to spend a lot of time doing this online, and you can no longer market with a “broad brush”. That is, it has become ever-more-difficult to reach people.

– Our online business – Land of Odds – has been in existence since 1995. It has gone through 6 technology upgrades/re-designs since then. The e-commerce and website design technology moves and evolves so incredibly fast. Personally this constant updating has been grueling. The site needs more re-design, but my motivation to learn and cope with yet another computer language and new sets of tasks has diminished. Land of Odds was a pioneering online business. But the very large bead companies have gotten their acts together online, and are much better capitalized to expand their operations.

Technology has been a dauntingly mixed bag for us. On the negative side, the rapid advance and spread of technology has overwhelmed the various activities we do. On the positive side, it has forced us to become ever more creative and ever more efficient in what we do. It forces us to constantly re-define who we are and what we want to do. And it forces us to constantly re-define how we do things.

What do you think?

Posted in bead weaving, beadwork, business of craft, jewelry design, jewelry making, Stitch 'n Bitch | Tagged: 3-d jewelry making, 3-d printing, crystal clay, impact of technology on jewelry design, internet and jewelry, jewelry design, technology | Leave a Comment »

THE IMPORTANCE OF SELF-PROMOTION

Posted by learntobead on August 21, 2013

THE IMPORTANCE OF SELF-PROMOTION

If you are a jewelry designer who has ambitions to have your work publicized in books or magazines, or to be accepted into a juried show or exhibit, or to sell your things in a store or gallery, you need to be able to promote your work. Often, I have found, creative-types can be shy when it comes to self-promotion and marketing.

What insights, from your own experiences, can you offer your fellow jewelry designers about self-promotion?

What kinds of things help you to overcome any fears about marketing your work?

How do you handle criticism and other rejection like getting the dreaded “No”?

From an article I wrote….

Jewelry designers often find a self-satisfaction in working intensely on a project, often in isolation or solitude. But when it comes to tooting their own horns – this is not as easy or satisfying for them. There is a discomfort here. You might want to show your pieces to others, perhaps submitting them for review or a juried competition, or perhaps wanting a store or gallery to accept your pieces for sale.

Then humility kicks in. Or perhaps a lack of confidence in yourself. Or a fear of criticism. Or a rejection. Hearing: No, we don’t want your pieces.

We don’t want to appear desperate for a sale, or too eager for acceptance.

But, if you don’t believe in yourself and your products, no one will. Your fantasy of striking out on your own will never materialize, if you don’t find it within yourself to do some self-promotion.

And the first step is understanding and recognizing that to promote yourself means promoting your value.

Your jewelry has VALUE to them, why….? If something has value to someone, then they typically want to know about it. Your jewelry has value to them because it solves a problem for them. It might make them happier, more beautiful, more enriched, more satisfied, more powerful, more socially accepted, more understanding of construction or technique or art and aesthetics. It might be better than other jewelry they see or wear or think about buying.

For a store or gallery, your jewelry might be more saleable, more attractive as displayed, better constructed, more artistic, more stylish or fashionable, a better fit with their customer base, with good price points.

You promote the value of your jewelry to your audience. You do not have to brag. You do not have to be shameless. You do not have to do or say anything embarrassing. Just speak the truth about value. Share examples of your work and what you have done, not your ego.

And that brings up the second point – speaking. People who are more comfortable speaking about themselves and their products tend to be more successful in their careers.

Products don’t sell themselves. People need to be nudged.

This “speaking-about-themselves and their products” is a basic communication process. This communication process is a process of sharing information. You want to educate the right people, in the right way at the right time. You want to speak about who you are, and what you make. The values your jewelry has to offer them. And how you would like to develop your relationship – whether designer/client or designer/retailer or designer/jury – so that you may both benefit.

Fundamentally self-promotion is about communication. Communicators frame the narrative. Communicators start the conversation. They begin on favorable terms. They would not say: Would you like to see my jewelry? Instead, they would say: I have jewelry you are going to love.

And this brings up the third point – be relevant.

Know your audience, what their needs are, what their problems are that need solving. You may have created the original piece to satisfying some personal yearning and desire. But if you want someone to buy the piece, wear the piece or sell the piece, you need to anticipate why. Why would they want to buy, wear, review or sell your piece of jewelry?

Do not assume they will figure all this out on their own. You will need to help them along in this process. You will need to communicate about the value your jewelry will have for them. You will need to do some self-promotion.

The last point – inspire people to spread your message.

Your best marketing and promotion will be what is called “word-of-mouth”. So you want to create supporters and fans and collaborators and colleagues. And you want them to be inspired enough about you, your creativity and your jewelry, so that they tell others about you. You inspire your current network of family and friends. You might make a presentation or teach a class. You might share images of your work on social media like FaceBook or Instagram or Twitter or Pinterest. You want to regularly connect with people, so that you and your work are frequently in their thoughts.

There are many self-promotion strategies that you can do. You don’t need to do everything at once. You might try one or two ideas first, and do those, then pick a third, and so on.

Some Self-Promotion Strategies That Have Worked Well For Others

Wear your jewelry all the time, and don’t be shy about saying you made it!
Have attractive business cards made, perhaps a brochure
Have an active presence on social media, particularly FaceBook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Google+; participate in discussions; get people to click on those LIKE buttons (or similar thumbs-up registers) next to your images and your discussions
Have a website, either as a “billboard”, or as a full-fledged e-commerce site
Get your website listed in as many online directories and search engines as you can
Generate a emailing list and use it regularly, such as sending out a newsletter; get into the habit of asking people if you can add them to your mailing list
Collect testimonials about your work, and post them publicly
Always speak and act passionately when discussing or showing your work
Organize your own discussion groups on FaceBook and Google+, or begin a blog (WORDPRESS is a good place to start a blog)
Post video tutorials or videos showing you making things on YouTube
Submit images of your pieces to bead, craft and jewelry magazines
Teach courses, either locally, or as a connection with one of the many websites promoting teachers online, such as Betterfly.com or CraftArtEdu.com
List yourself with websites that list custom jewelry makers for hire, such as Custommade.com
If your jewelry has done well for a store, convince them to carry more of it and let it take up more display space
Doing the occasional craft show, bazaar or flea market is also a good form of advertising and getting your message out to a large number of people you probably would never have met otherwise
Create a good, rememberable image to use as your avatar, on such websites as FaceBook
Follow up with customers and contacts, such as after a purchase, or after someone accepting to include you piece in a magazine, or sell their pieces in a shop. Thank them. Reinforce your personal brand with a short comment about the value of your pieces for them.
Have a clear personal style that you can point to in your jewelry, and that you can speak about.
Have a clear idea of what is called your “competitive advantage”. What are those 5-10 things about you and your work that sets you apart from, and perhaps makes you better than, the competition.
Search for companies or people that may want to see or buy your work. Use directories on Yahoo and Google. Use LinkedIn.com. Search Twitter looking for people who are saying they need custom jewelry work done.
Network with other jewelry designers, both in your local area, as well as online. Ask for feedback on the self-promotional activities you are doing. Have any of these worked well for them? Are they doing other things you haven’t thought of?
Get out of your studio and meet people in the flesh.
Attend trade shows, networking events and charity events, or other types of places where your clients might also attend.
Offer something – one time only — for free. A free class, a free repair, a free pair of earrings.
Publish or self-publish a book or book-on-CD, and promote that

Posted in business of craft | Tagged: beading, jewelry making, marketing crafts, marketing jewelry, self-promotion, selling your jewelry | Leave a Comment »

ODDS or EVENS…What’s your Preference?

Posted by learntobead on August 9, 2013

ODDS or EVENS…
What’s Your Preference?

Sometimes, jewelry must conform to a type of numerology – odds or evens or multiples of some number, like the number 3 – related to the numbers of beads or the numbers of strands or the numbers of drops.

Do you have a personal preference for ODDS or EVENS? Such as,
— The number of strands in a necklace or bracelet?
— Or the number of bangle bracelets you wear on one arm?
— Or the number of beads you use to begin a peyote stitch project?
— Or the number of drops you include in your piece, or dangles you include in an earring?
— Or the number of colors or elements repeated in a pattern or jewelry segment?

Is this ODDS/EVENS preference consistent all the time?

Or is it situational? That is, in certain circumstances you prefer ODDS, and in others, EVENS.

Is there any experiential, aesthetic or hypothetical basis for your preferences?

If you have a preference for one over the other, has does that affect your design process?

Do you get more compliments, when you are wearing one- or three-strand necklaces, than when you are wearing a two-strand necklace?

Historically in Europe, it was considered bad luck and inappropriate to have an EVEN number of strands in a necklace. If you had a very long necklace that you would occasionally wrap around your neck multiple times, then it had to be long enough so that you could wrap it around an ODD number of times – such as tripled, never doubled. Even today, in etiquette books, such as “Miss Manners”, the rule is “Always Wear Odd Numbers of Strands of Pearls.” No explanation is given.

Russians even believe that you should never give an even number of flowers to your wife or girlfriend!

In ancient Babylon, even numbers were believed to be unlucky and somewhat demonic. To them, something should never be repeated an even number of times.

An ODD number of beads lets you define a specific center and focus. Cognitively we prefer things with clear pointers and with clear symmetry.

But we also like balance and harmony and things to be distributed EVENLY.

Where do you come down in this ODDS vs. EVENS debate?

Posted in jewelry design | Tagged: numbers, numerology, odds vs evens | 2 Comments »

BEADING CALISTHENICS #10: Daisy Stitch Expansion

Posted by learntobead on August 3, 2013

BEADING CALISTHENICS #10: Daisy Stitch Expansion

I do a day-long workshop called Beading Calisthenics. There are 10 of these exercises. This is the 10th one.

Beading requires a lot of mind-body coordination. That takes work. It is work.

You have to be able to get from your fingers to the needle to the beads, back along the thread to the needle to the fingers, hands, arms, eyes, mind. And then again. And again. Over and over, one more time. You need to get into a rhythm. All these working parts need to be working. No time for cramping. No time to get tired. No time to lose concentration.

A rhythm. Needle, pick up bead, pull down along thread, check the tension, pick up a bead, pull down along thread, check the tension, pick up a bead….

I distilled what I saw others do effectively into 10 fun yet challenging beading calisthenics.

BEADING CALISTHENICS #10: Daisy Stitch Expansion

The challenge here is to see how many variations you can construct using the simple daisy chain stitch.

This is a very simple stitch. Try it out. Experiment. And share your results with the group.

Simplest daisy chain: A stem and a flower with a center bead, then a stem and flower w/center, and so forth.

Start with a line of 5 beads.

Add 5 more beads to your thread. Make the 5th bead a different color. This is your “flower set”. The 5th bead is your center point.

Make a loop by going back through the first of these 5 beads in the set.

Add two more beads to the flower set, and bring the needle through 4th bead in that original set of 5.

So the daisy pattern goes: BEAD 1 to 2 to 3 to 4 to 5 (flower center point bead marked by X) back to 1 to 6 to 7 back to 4 and out.

Pull tight.

Add another line of 5 beads. Continue.

Try the daisy chain above without the stem, so that each flower set is interconnected by one bead — # 4 (which becomes #1 in the next flower). Make your 5th bead a different color.

Next, look at the modified daisy chain pattern below. Try another interconnected daisy pattern, where we would connect each subsequent flower by two beads, instead of one. Here we would make the first daisy’s 3 and 4 become the next daisy’s 1 and 6.

This would go: 1 to 2 to 3 to 4 to 5 (flower center) to 1 to 6 to 7 to 4 up through 3 and out. Then 3 becomes 1 in the next daisy link. The pattern continues in the second link as 1 to 2 to 3 to 4 to 5 (flower center) to 1 to 6 to 7 to 4 up through 3 and out. Then 3 becomes 1 again.

Try the same pattern, this time making the 2nd, 5th and 7th bead the same color, but different than the others.

Try again, making the 1st, 5th and 4th beads the same color, but different than the others.

Try again with any of the patterns, this time using a different size/shape/style of bead for the 5th one.

In Horace Goodhue’s Native American Beadwork book, he details many, many variations, including several that do not result in “flowers”, but rather patterns of lines.

The daisy chain is indicative of a “traditional” design. What kinds of things can you do to make the daisy chain have a more “contemporary” feel? Such as newer metallic colors? Or somehow increasing the dimensionality of each flower so it doesn’t feel so flat? Or creating a color pattern with beads 1 thru 7, so that the pattern is very op-art or contemporary graphic in feel?

Posted in bead weaving | Tagged: bead weaving variations, daisy chain, horace goodhue | Leave a Comment »

MAKING THE ORDINARY NOTEWORTHY

Posted by learntobead on July 26, 2013

MAKING THE ORDINARY NOTEWORTHY

I want to continue the discussion about Jewelry Design Principles of Composition with the principle I call “INTEREST”.

“Interest” means the degree to which the artist makes the ordinary…noteworthy.

Better designed and more satisfying jewelry has more Interest.

The WHOLE will be GREATER THAN the SUM OF THE PARTS.

Towards this end, the jewelry artist might do something of INTEREST when
– selecting materials or a mix of materials
– selecting color combinations
– varying the sizes of things
– pushing the envelope on interrelating lines, curves and planes
– playing with the rhythm
– using a focal point, or using it in a clever way

THE QUESTIONS FOR YOU….

Among the pieces you have made, can you think of examples you can share with the group, in which you made the ordinary…noteworthy?

Can you think of examples, and share with the group, times where trying to make the ordinary…noteworthy did not work out well? Why do you think that was?

In this same vein, can jewelry artists often try too hard to make the ordinary…noteworthy?

Or not try hard enough? Have you visited stores – boutiques, department stores, galleries – in which everything seems too plain, uninteresting, boring? Too much like blue jewelry for a blue dress, without any distinction?

What kinds of things can teachers do to encourage students to make the ordinary…noteworthy?

One example of the successful application of this principle…

There’s a company called Firefly, and I have always been intrigued by their jewelry. It is made up of mosaic components they fashion themselves from things you might use every day. I’ve included some pictures of their pieces with this post.

Their creativity is infinite. In one component, they take a Swarovski square donut and glue a back on it, typically a piece of metal which has been stamped or otherwise decorated, and has two holes or two rings near the top corners. In the center of the donut, they might inlay some seed beads, some crystal beads, some colorful metal shards.

In another piece, they do the same thing with a Swarovski ring donut.

On the back of some bezel settings for drops they etch in words, like Spirit or Hope.

They have beautiful and often unexpected combinations of colors in their pieces.

Often a simple bead drop has that extra, “interesting” touch; it is not only a bead on a head pin, with a loop on one end. This bead would be set off by two small 15/0 seed beads, often of a contrasting color and finish.

Their website is: http://www.fireflyjewelrydesigns.net/

You can read up on all the principles of composition on this webpage:
http://www.landofodds.com/store/goodjewelrydesign.htm

Posted in beads, jewelry design | Tagged: color combinations, jewelry artist, jewelry artists, jewelry components, jewelry design, mosaic jewelry | Leave a Comment »

MANAGING DESIGN AT THE BOUNDARY BETWEEN JEWELRY AND PERSON

Posted by learntobead on July 18, 2013

MANAGING DESIGN
AT THE BOUNDARY BETWEEN
JEWELRY AND PERSON

Jewelry is art, but only art as it is worn.

That’s a powerful idea, but we somewhat ignore it, when thinking about making jewelry. We like to follow steps. We like to make beautiful things. But too often, we avoid having to think about the difficult choices and tradeoffs we need to make, when searching for that balance among aesthetics, functionality, context, materials and technique.

I am going to get on my soap box here.

Good jewelry design must answer questions and teach practitioners about managing the processes of selecting materials, implementing techniques, and constructing the piece from one end to the other.

We tend to teach students to very mechanically follow a series of steps.

What we should be doing, instead, at least from the Design Perspective which is so influential in my approach for creating jewelry, is teach students how to make choices when managing at the boundary between jewelry and person.

I recently put together a video tutorial for a brick-stitched project I call Tuxedo Park Bangle Bracelet, where I tried to write and present the instructions, from this Design Perspective. I first discuss the jewelry design process as a series of choices and tradeoffs. And only then do I list the steps the student needs to follow for completing the project. But each step is presented as the result of a particular analytical or problem-solving process, something to the effect, “I confronted this situation, I weighed these options, and, for these reasons, I decided to execute the next step this way….”.

This bangle bracelet has to stretch wide to get over the hand, and then shrink back to its original dimensions, all the while keeping its shape and integrity. It will have to do this many times. That means, the beads within the piece, as well as each bead woven component of the piece, will need to be able to bend in more than one direction, yet remain somewhat stiff enough for maintaining each component’s shape as well as the bangle’s aesthetic and functionality over all. If we redefine the brick stitch architecturally, we can see its versatility and flexibility, making it is the perfect stitch to achieve these goals.

You can find this tutorial at CraftArtEdu.com, or
http://craftartedu.com/warren-feld-tuxedo-park-bangle-bracelet

The preview is free, and introduces some of my ideas.

Discussion Questions for you…

1. Re-look at one of your favorite pieces. Review the questions posed in the article below. Now, describe your piece for the group, in design and architectural terms, using the questions posed below to guide your thoughts. And post your description for the group along with an image of your piece.

2. Think about your favorite technique – whether bead stringing, bead weaving or wire working or some other jewelry-making interest area. How does this technique help your pieces, which are made using it, keep their shape? How does the technique help your pieces withstand the forces that come from wearing and movement?

From an article I’m writing about the architectural approach to defining bead weaving, bead stringing and wire working….

In addition to teaching students “steps”, we need to teach students about making good design choices. The “steps” should be presented as the results of these choices. The thinking and reasoning processes should be the focus. How we arrived at these choices, and how we have made tradeoffs, should be at the forefront of what we teach. The steps should not be presented as fait accompli. But rather, the steps should be overtly understood as the logical outcomes from our thought and design process.

This is the architectural manifesto and challenge for re-thinking and re-defining jewelry design. We need to teach students to think this way and answer these 10 core questions at the heart of this manifesto:

(1) Why or how does a particular bead stringing technique, wire work technique or bead weaving stitch suggest a particular form of representation?

(2) How does my work relate to the complex factors at play in design, including philosophy, science, religion, ecology, politics, cyberspace, gender, literature, aesthetics, economics, history, culture, and technology?

(3) What kinds of things characterize contemporary design, and its aesthetics and functionality?

(4) What about the materials you are using helps you transform them into a pleasing, satisfying piece?

(5) What about the particular techniques you are using helps you transform materials into a pleasing, satisfying piece?

(6) What should the design process look like? What are the design elements which need to be managed? What are the rules for their manipulation?

(7) How do you best define, create and use components, forms and structures?

(8) What is the structure (or, you might visualize the anatomy) of your piece of jewelry, and how is that structure construed and constructed? What specifically about the structures or building blocks of your piece contributes to a successful and satisfying design?

(9) How does your jewelry, given its structure and the techniques you used to assemble it, withstand forces? What, in the designing, the selecting of materials or techniques, or the strategizing about the overall construction help you better manage things like movement, drape, flexibility, strength, comfort, and interplay of light, shadow and color?

(10) How do you best manage your visual presentation in terms of color, light, shadow, dimensionality, pattern, texture, and perspective?

Posted in bead weaving, beadwork, jewelry design, jewelry making | Tagged: design, design theory, jewelry architecture, jewelry construction | Leave a Comment »

TUXEDO PARK BANGLE BRACELET

Posted by learntobead on July 13, 2013

TUXEDO PARK BANGLE BRACELET
New Video Tutorial at CraftArtEdu.com

Purchase kits at:
Land Of Odds online

IN THIS CLASS, LEARN HOW MUCH SHAPING, INTEREST, AND DIMENSIONALITY YOU CAN ACHIEVE WITH THE SIMPLE, BASIC BRICK STITCH. BY CREATING MY TUXEDO PARK BANGLE BRACELET. THE BRICK STITCH IS EASY TO LEARN. FUN TO DO. AND OFFERS MANY DESIGN POSSIBILITIES FOR THE BEAD WEAVING ARTIST.

BRICK STITCH IS OFTEN OVER-SHADOWED BY ITS VERY CLOSE, BUT MORE POPULAR COUSIN – THE PEYOTE STITCH. I OFTEN THINK THAT ONE OF THE REASONS FOR THIS, IS THAT INTRODUCTORY BRICK STITCH PROJECTS LACK SOME OF THAT “WOW” FACTOR. THE BASIC BRICK STITCH TYPICALLY IS TAUGHT BY HAVING THE STUDENT MAKE A SIMPLE PYRAMID, PERHAPS SOME LONG DANGLING FRINGE IS WORKED OFF THE BASE OF THE PYRAMID TO MAKE NATIVE AMERICAN EARRINGS. OR, PERHAPS LINKING SEVERAL PYRAMIDS TOGETHER TO MAKE A BRACELET. WHEN THE INTRODUCTORY PROJECT IS “BORING”, STUDENTS LOSE INTEREST IN THE STITCH.

HOWEVER, TOO OFTEN IGNORED IN THESE INTRODUCTORY BRICK STITCH PROJECTS ARE THE POWERFUL, STRUCTURAL PROPERTIES OF THE STITCH ITSELF.
THE STITCH IS VERY VERSATILE.

THE BRICK STITCH CAN BE USED TO CREATE A BROAD CANVAS, AND GIVE THIS CANVAS A GREAT DEAL OF FLEXIBILITY, WHERE MANY STITCHES WOULD LEAVE IT TOO STIFF.

AT THE SAME TIME, THE BRICK STITCH CAN ALLOW THE CANVAS TO HOLD AND MAINTAIN ITS SHAPE, WHERE MANY OTHER STITCHES MIGHT GET FLOPPY AND TOO LOOSE.

BRICK STITCH CAN ALSO EASILY GIVE THIS CANVAS VERY VARIED SHAPES, EDGES AND OPEN SPACES, AND ALLOW A GREAT DEAL OF CONTROL OF THREAD PATH AND BEAD PLACEMENT WHERE OTHER STITCHES COULD NOT.

THE TUXEDO PARK BANGLE BRACELET IS AN INTRODUCTORY PROJECT THAT INTRODUCES THE STITCH AND SEVERAL VARIATIONS TO PEAK YOUR INTEREST.
AND TURN YOU INTO A BRICK STITCH FAN.

THIS VIDEO TUTORIAL IS PRESENTED FROM WHAT IS CALLED THE DESIGN PERSPECTIVE. THE DESIGN PERSPECTIVE FOCUSES ON HOW THE JEWELRY DESIGNER AND BEAD WORKER MAKE CHOICES

ABOUT WHAT TO DO, AND NOT TO DO,

ABOUT WHAT TO INCLUDE, AND NOT INCLUDE,

AND ABOUT HOW TO BALANCE OFF CONFLICTING DEMANDS

BETWEEN BEAUTY AND FUNCTIONALITY.

IN THIS VIDEO TUTORIAL, I FIRST GUIDE YOU THROUGH THE PROJECT PLANNING PROCESS. THAT IS, I DISCUSS THE TYPES OF CHOICES I MADE, WHEN CREATING THIS PIECE. THESE CHOICES INCLUDE THINGS ABOUT TECHNIQUE. THEY INCLUDE THINGS ABOUT COLOR AND MATERIALS. THEY INCLUDE THINGS ABOUT FORM, STRUCTURE AND FUNCTION.

THEN, I GO OVER, IN DETAIL, STEP-BY-STEP, EASY-TO-FOLLOW INSTRUCTIONS FOR COMPLETING THE PROJECT.

Posted in bead weaving, beadwork | Tagged: brick stitch | Leave a Comment »

HOW DO YOU STAY FOCUSED?

Posted by learntobead on July 13, 2013

HOW DO YOU STAY FOCUSED?

It is easy to get distracted. Dagmar sent me an email with a link to a picture of a bead woven piece she liked. At first, I reacted with some resistance, to click the link. I needed to finish up several projects, and didn’t want to cloud my thinking, or add one more image or one more pattern I liked, or color I liked, or technique I liked, to that mix of ideas and tasks and things swirling around and around in my head.

But, you guessed it, I clicked. The piece was beautiful, intriguing, and l discovered many more of this artist’s work on display online. I spent time with each piece. I read the artist’s statement because I wanted to learn more about her inspiration. She had many embedded links in her statement. Which led me to many other websites. One concept was discussed, and I did a Google search on that. And then an images.google.com search on it as well. Which somehow got me over to Amazon, then Wikipedia, and over to some other bead artist’s website.

Three hours later – how does time pass away so quickly? A simple click three hours earlier had led me through the looking glass and down the rabbit hole, through, what must have looked like to others, some torturous pathways, meeting all kinds of strangers.

I am always working on several projects at a time. So in my head, are several sets of instructions, several color palettes, several understandings of inspiration. And I want to keep some focus. And I want to finish all of these projects. And I want to be able to conceptualize and invent my next projects, which involves lots of trial and error experimentation. I want to have the time and clear head space for all this.

And yet, there are so many easily accessible distractions.

I know I’m not alone, so the question I put forward to you:

How do you stay focused?

And perhaps, I should phrase the question differently: Can you stay focused?

Or, in the face of so many great examples of jewelry and bead art, so many evolving changes in styles and fashions, the introduction of many new colors and new bead shapes and new techniques – in the face of so much wonderfully inspiring, so many things to learn and educate yourself about – how do you keep in touch with your inner designer self, and find the time and energy for self-expression?

Posted in beadwork, jewelry design, jewelry making | Tagged: artistic focus, design focus, jewelry design | 2 Comments »

HOW DO YOU MAKE “ASYMMETRY” WORK FOR YOU?

Posted by learntobead on July 7, 2013

HOW DO YOU MAKE “ASYMMETRY” WORK FOR YOU?

Another Principle of Jewelry Design Composition is called “PLANAR RELATIONSHIPS”. This primarily has to do with the placement of lines and planar surfaces within your piece, and how satisfying all this placement is, so that the lines and/or planes interrelate.

It turns out it is relatively easy to have lines and planes relate symmetrically. That is, it is easy to get people to be more satisfied with your pieces, if you makes things line up evenly to the right and to the left of your center point or line.

Conversely, it is not so easy when you try to create something asymmetrical. In fact, based on the art theory and cognitive psychology theory underlying this principle of planar relationships, I would say that, if your piece is asymmetrical, there must be something else on the person wearing the piece to create the illusion of symmetry. This might be the way the hair is styled, the pattern on a dress, the neckline silhouette of the dress, the shape and positioning of the person’s ears, and the like.

So, for those of you who have tried and succeeded, or tried and failed, to create asymmetrical pieces, how would you describe your design process? And people’s reactions to your piece? Or how it looked on the wearer? If successful, what kinds of things did you do in the design process, that worked in your favor?

Off-centered piece or someone wearing just one earring, can be disorienting and disturbing. How do you feel about asymmetrical pieces, or people wearing only one earring?

— Warren

Excerpts from some of my writings about this principle of planar relationships…
(also read: Principles of Good Jewelry Design Composition online at http://www.landofodds.com/store/goodjewelrydesign.htm

PLANAR RELATIONSHIPS

This is the degree the piece is not disorienting to the viewer, or particularly confusing in terms of what is up and what is down.

Jewelry must assist, or at least not get in the way of, this natural orienting process. It accomplishes this in how its “lines” are arranged and organized. If a piece is very 3-dimensional, then how its “planes” are arranged and organized becomes important, as well.

The goal here is to “see” the piece of jewelry, especially when worn, as something that is coherent, organized, controlled, and orienting.

Design elements we might use to achieve a satisfactory planar relationship within our piece:

– a strategic use of lines and planes
— shapes

— boundaries

– -silhouettes

— contours
– symmetry

– or, more difficult to achieve, a satisfying asymmetry

– a planar pattern in how each section of the piece relates to the other sections

– how sections of the piece interlock

– how we “draw and interrelate” parallel lines, perpendicular lines and curved lines within the piece

Example:

When wearing a necklace, where the clasp is worn on the side, instead of the back, sometimes this works, and sometimes it does not. Again, what about the composition of the necklace, allows this to work; what about the composition doesn’t?

Posted in jewelry design | Tagged: asymmetrical design, asymmetry, jewelry design, jewelry design composition, planar relationships | Leave a Comment »

WHEN IS ENOUGH ENOUGH?

Posted by learntobead on June 30, 2013

WHEN IS ENOUGH ENOUGH?

Beading and jewelry making can be so much fun, and you have so many choices of so many beautiful pieces to play with, that sometimes, from a design sense, it’s easy to go overboard.

Too many strands. Too many different kinds of beads. Too many colors. Too much embellishment. Too much fringe. Too much repetition of themes and design elements.

There is a tendency too often to over-do.

How do you answer this question for yourself – when is enough enough?

Do you tend to over-do (or under-do) your pieces?

How do you edit? Do you make a piece, and get the judgment of others? Is this based on some kind of intuition?

How do you work with students or friends who have difficulty answering this question?

Let me know what you think.

Warren

Could this be better or worse? or more satisfying or less satisfying?
With more strands?
If longer?
More colors?
More involved patterning?

From an article I’ve posted online…

I had discussed in an article – 10 Principles of Jewelry Design Composition (http://www.landofodds.com/store/goodjewelrydesign.htm) – what is in effect a type of grammar and vocabulary for good jewelry design. The last principle was called Parsimony. And this one is really difficult to achieve. The jewelry artist who is good at Parsimony has a great deal of control over the design process.

Parsimony means that there should be no nonessential elements.

The designer should achieve the maximal effect with the least effort or excess.

Many jewelry designers, when they like a particular bead, or a particular design, often over-do their pieces. The thinking here is that, if they have a beautiful part, adding many of these parts will make the whole even more beautiful. Often, it results in the finished product that is boring or uninteresting. The finished product loses a type of tension, power and energy.

The artist has made a good point with their choices, but then beats a dead horse to death by trying to make the point over and over again, too many times.

Good Parsimony shows that the designer has a good sense of the relationship of the parts to the whole.

There should be no nonessential elements.

The designer should achieve the maximal effect with the least effort or excess.

There is a tendency of beaders and jewelry makers to over-do:
– over-embellish the surface
– add too much fringe
– repeat themes and design elements too often
– use too many colors

More often than not, people over-do, rather than under-do.

Posted in jewelry design | Tagged: embellishmentf, fringe, jewelry design, parsimony, principles of composition, when is enough enough | 1 Comment »

COMING OUT AS A JEWELRY ARTIST

Posted by learntobead on June 22, 2013

COMING OUT AS A JEWELRY ARTIST

Coming out as a jewelry artist — what does that mean? For those of you who see jewelry making and beading as something more than a hobby — something more defined by art and design — actually calling yourself a jewelry artist or designer, instead of merely alluding to it, is a big step. A very big step.

It’s fraught with fear and dread. It means very visibly presenting yourself with a new public identity. It means preparing your ego to receive some negative comments, perhaps doubt or disbelief, and in some rarer instances, rejection or denial. It means asking others to accept and support you in your new role as Jewelry Artist and Designer.

Please share what this process was all about for you. How you felt. How you managed things.

Continuing with an article I had written….

There is a betwixt and between aspect to this coming out process – a rite of passage. And the unknown time and feelings and situations, between the before and afterwards, is often a span of uncertainty too great for many an artist to tra

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An Article For You from Land of Odds-Be Dazzled Beads by Warren Feld, 2018

Subjective or Objective Choices?

JEWELRY DESIGN PRINCIPLES: COMPOSING, CONSTRUCTING, MANIPULATING by Warren Feld, Designer

JEWELRY DESIGN PRINCIPLES: COMPOSING, CONSTRUCTING, MANIPULATING

Be Dazzled Beads and The Center for Beadwork & Jewelry Arts in Nashvile, Tennessee welcomes Warren Feld September 27, 2014 10am-5pm Sat

WINE AND DARK AMETHYST PALETTES

THE UGLY NECKLACE CONTEST – A JEWELRY DESIGN COMPETITION WITH A TWIST Submission Deadline Approaching: August 31, 2014

About Warren Feld

Land of Odds – Be Dazzled Beads Sales and Promotions

SALE HAS BEGUN Ends: Tues, 1/28/14 While supplies last / No Rainchecks

Live in Nashville? Order ONLINE and Checkout and Select “WILL PICK UP AT BE DAZZLED BEADS”

Land of Odds – Be Dazzled Beads Sales and Promotions

SALE HAS BEGUN Ends: Tues, 1/14/14 While supplies last / No Rainchecks

Live in Nashville? Order ONLINE and Checkout and Select “WILL PICK UP AT BE DAZZLED BEADS”

Live in Nashville? Order ONLINE and Checkout and Select “WILL PICK UP AT BE DAZZLED BEADS”

Land of Odds Sales and Promotions SALE Begins: Mon, 11/25/13 Ends: Tues, 12/31/13 While supplies last / No Rainchecks

Live in Nashville? Order ONLINE and Checkout and Select “WILL PICK UP AT BE DAZZLED BEADS”

BEAD CAPS Gold Tone or Silver Tone

GOOD JEWELRY DESIGN: The Result of Subjective or Objective Choices?

JEWELRY DESIGN PRINCIPLES:

COMPOSING, CONSTRUCTING, MANIPULATING

by Warren Feld, Designer

JEWELRY DESIGN PRINCIPLES:

COMPOSING, CONSTRUCTING, MANIPULATING

Be Dazzled Beads and
The Center for
Beadwork & Jewelry Arts
in Nashvile, Tennessee

welcomes

Warren Feld

September 27, 2014
10am-5pm Sat

THE UGLY NECKLACE CONTEST
– A JEWELRY DESIGN COMPETITION WITH A TWIST
Submission Deadline Approaching: August 31, 2014

Land of Odds
– Be Dazzled Beads

Sales and Promotions

SALE HAS BEGUN
Ends: Tues, 1/28/14

While supplies last / No Rainchecks

Live in Nashville?
Order ONLINE and Checkout and Select “WILL PICK UP AT BE
DAZZLED BEADS”

Land of Odds
– Be Dazzled Beads

Sales and Promotions

SALE HAS BEGUN
Ends: Tues, 1/14/14

While supplies last / No Rainchecks

Live in Nashville?
Order ONLINE and Checkout and Select “WILL PICK UP AT BE
DAZZLED BEADS”

Live in Nashville?
Order ONLINE and Checkout and Select “WILL PICK UP AT BE
DAZZLED BEADS”

Land of Odds
Sales and Promotions

SALE
Begins: Mon, 11/25/13
Ends: Tues, 12/31/13

While supplies last / No Rainchecks

Live in Nashville?
Order ONLINE and Checkout and Select “WILL PICK UP AT BE
DAZZLED BEADS”

BEAD
CAPS

Gold
Tone or

Silver
Tone

GOOD JEWELRY DESIGN:
The Result of Subjective or Objective Choices?