Color frequently drives and sometimes dominates my work. There are times when I take a certain color material and try to create as many different pieces with a limit on how many I make. I limit myself on purpose because I do not repeat or duplicate pieces. My exception is earrings, which I limit to six identical pair when I use specific charms. When I make cell phone purses I limit the amount of material to produce no more than one dozen. Even then I frequently use different material for straps for variety.
 

When I make scarves, ponchos, ruana or shrugs I only buy a specific number of yards of material. This forces me to decide what form of garment will be the most effective expression for its pattern. Plain colors are less limiting, so I purchase greater yardage.

The bead embellished scarves are the most challenging; you have to deal with color and complement the pattern.

Pearls, shells and mother-of-pearl are fantastic materials with which to work. Their soft warm colors, shapes and luster really get me going.



 Whether it is a simple pendant or a complex creation I try to only use natural colored  material.

  Simplicity takes many forms with pearls and shell.

  I avoid dyed materials whenever possible simply because my daughter has extremely sensitive skin and dyes are one of the things to which she is most sensitive.





 I have found to his to be true when talking about my creations with my art fair customers as well. I really don't want a customer to have a problem, so I always identify dyed materials when I use them.

 

Inspiration comes from many places and in many ways. The workshop in Florida was a series of three half day workshops; two on Saturday and one on Sunday. Friday night was a getting to know you dinner and Sunday afternoon was a fashion show. The registrants were divided into three groups and rotated through each workshop. Friday afternoon was check in and shop for supplies at the sponsoring bead shop for the workshops. My rotation was "Beaded Goddess", spiral rope technique and nature printing on scarves.


 I have already mentioned the results of the spiral rope workshop. The "Beaded Goddess" workshop also provided inspiration in a different way. The workshop focused on mounting and embellishing a ceramic face to create your own unique goddess. That evening when I got to my room and called home to say good night to my children, I finished the necklace and made a pair of earrings. My wife loves them. Sunday morning we were supposed to show the instructor our progress. I was the only one who finished.

The problem I have is making more than one of anything. It's BORING!  When I got home, with Fimo clay in hand, I created "Alien Beauty". It ended up in Beadwork Magazine. Then, my gold tabby wouldn't move, soooo..."Cat Goddess". Finally, I created the "Bad Hair Day Goddess". 

Just to be different, each has a pin back with loops so it may be worn as a pendant, as well as being a brooch/pin.
Then I found a beautiful Hematite gray plastic cameo that I turned into a pin.

So, inspiration is sometimes variations on a theme and sometimes, just, what the heck.
Oh, I forgot to mention, I was the only man in any of the workshops.

Fossils are fun. Their shapes, sizes and color palettes make working with them fun.

The elongated segmented Orthoceras fossils with their black and white and grays presented different challenges.  The large Orthoceras, on the left,  I simply gave a ladder bezel of sparkling two cut beads and a necklace of graduated black onyx beads with silver accents. The smaller Orthocersa fossils, on the right, I mounted on leather, used silver three cut beads in the background, white pearl ceylons to outline and edged the necklace with silver "E" beads. The earrings were backed with leather and merely outlined with  silver three cut beads.

Ammonites have beautiful warm earth tones of brown lending themselves to pairing with bronze, gold and crystal beads. The example on the left is actually a worry stone, which I turned into a necklace. The example on the right is a cabochon.
Both were backed with leather and ,of course, have spiral rope necklaces.
They are so much fun to work with!

Part of the creative process is finding alternatives for something I didn't like. I had several natural amethyst and citrine points. The problem was I didn't want to wire wrap them, it felt too hard and cold, too much like a cage. I wanted something softer, gentler. I came up with bead hugging

The nature of inspiration comes in many ways. When the Tut exhibit visited Detroit several years ago I was taken with the Egyptian collars on exhibit. I went home and made two of my own using bead netting techniques rather than the ladder technique the Egyptians employed.








Another time I was looking through a book of African architectural geometric decorations and created this Zulu shield necklace.