Pieceful Objects

Please check out my work and photos, Pieceful Objects, by visiting me at this Flickr link:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/40548552@N06/sets/72157628903633741/
     So I decided that I will work this winter toward a summer goal: to get a vendor's booth for my work at Madison's African Culture Fest.
     In the meantime, I want to share a series of photos of beads that were just given to me.  Yesterday, my brother-in-law returned from Cote d'Ivoire.  My sister-in-law purchased a large variety of bronze, glass and ceramic beads for me.  The beads are beautiful and I want to share a few photos of them with you as I received them, so you will be able to recognize them later as I work them into different pieces of jewelry.
     My husband, who has taken an interest in my new hobby, asked his sister to buy a variety of beads for me, and she made some lovely choices...wedding beads from Mali, ceramic beads, dramatic marbled glass and some gorgeous bronze pieces that you will see later as focal pieces:

Beads, beads, good for your heart!  The more you...Wait!  That's "beans".  Anyway, I hope you enjoy the photos.  These beads are extremely photogenic!  In these shots, I have the fans blowing, and we drove to an exotic location to get the lighting just right.


But seriously, I will write again with more info regarding how they were made and exactly where the different beads are from.  I do, however, know that the beads to the left are called "Mali wedding beads". 
     These beautiful merlot-colored glass pieces are slender and smooth.  Stacked, they are extremely dark in color.  I discovered their true colors in holding them up to the light.

These bronze beads are made using a technique called the "lost wax" process.  The shape and pattern of the bead are originally modeled in wax, then bronze is poured into the mold that forms around the finished product.  The hot bronze melts the wax and replaces it in a hardened, more permanent form.  This process is an African creation.  My father pays homage to his ancestry in using this technique in his work.

    Every one of these lovely glass beads is uniquely hand-painted. Now they will adorn a uniquely made piece of my own work.  

     These batik-bone pieces are also all uniquely patterned.   This "one-of-a-kind" theme will be echoed in my jewelry as I have yet to make one thing that I can currently duplicate....And I must repeat, "I will do my homework on the beads."  I want to make sure I can accurately speak of where they come from, what they are made of and in some cases, how they are made.

So what I am currently up to is METAL.  I have discovered twisting and hammering, and I have made some pretty cool wire earrings that I will be sharing soon.  The piece to the left, however, is what I want to close with.  I have found some great images online.  I am currently making transfers onto to wood--sometimes repainting and re-finishing the wood just to see what will happen.  For this piece, I started with a rough acrylic wash over the surface of the wood.  On top of the wood, I glued an image I transferred onto an adhesive.  I also fixed some very tiny pieces of wire--I first twisted and hammered--on top of everything.  The wood has holes drilled through its top and bottom, so I strung some wire through it, and attached a jump ring to the top and glass and wooden beads to the bottom.  The end of the piece is finished with another wire form I shaped with needle-nose pliers.  
     Soon--along with wire earrings--I will be sharing more of these image-items. I have some great old family photos that I plan to use.