The Challenge of Music

I usually participate in Lori Anderson's Bead Soup Blog Hop but knew because of my surgery it would be a bit of a rush and I never want to rush with someone else's great "soup" they've worked so hard to gather and send.  I want to make out of it the best of what my creativeness can give to it.  So this year I bypassed Lori's blog hop - sigh.

But, I did find a totally interesting challenge to participate in.  It's hosted by Treasures-Found - Erin Prais-Hintz.  We're going to take a musical journey via instrumental music only.  It seems to me for the most part that even though there are usually vocals in the music I listen to I really don't tend to know many of the words to the songs.  Only for purposes of this challenge I'll need to find an instrumental only.  My plan is to use my Kindle while I'm in the hospital and find several suitable songs that are "playing my tune".   While I am there I can think it through - albeit maybe in a medicinally induced haze.

Okay, that sounds a little glib and I don't mean it to be that way.  I really want a piece of music that will whisk my imagination to a far away place.  Something that will inspire me.  I intend to use all of Erin's hints and work to be in the moment with the music.  It will be fun.

Thanks for the opportunity Erin.  The blog hop will be on March 1st so I'll have to work fast after I am home from the hospital but I figure it will be the only thing I concentrate on and give it my all.  While I'm in the hospital I can figure out the mechanics and creation in my mind's eye and on paper.

As soon as I figure out which music it will be I'll post it here and try and document my way through the process.  I'm excited about this.

A Little More Necklace Symbolism

Yesterday I talked about the process for the Talisman of the necklace. To me it makes even more sense when you consider it with the necklace top.

A speckled ceramic bead seemed, at first, to round out the top of the design…but as these things go one new addition leads to the thought of the next. Speckled? – why that brings to mind a bird. A perfect possible addition to the large ring I was sent.


My usual bird of choice is the Raven. A Raven did not seem to suit my theme but I knew what would. Again, I am a Michigander (LOL – don’t you just love that unique reference to my state of origin?). Robin’s are our state bird. But, better yet, they are a very spiritual bird. Native Plains Tribes attribute the return of the sun (the inception of Spring) with Robins. Now if that isn’t how I feel when the first robin of Spring shows up around here nothing is. Omaha Tribes believed the sun rose and set on the wings of the Robin. Iroquois and Shoshone lore indicates that the white ring around the Robin’s eye was a symbol of prophetic vision, clarity and great wisdom. Yup, that’s me! (wink, wink).

Now that I have the bird – what about the feather? Well, hell yes feathers. I pick feathers up all over the place…my grandfather and I used to do that in the yard. I have them tucked here and there around the house so finding some evening winter was easy. They represent new beginnings to the Celtic. It invokes the sky god. In Christianity feathers represent the three virtues and there are many rings and signs with three feathers for faith, charity, and hope. Dreaming of feathers can represent a desire to move more freely in life. Again, for me, all of the above struck a definite heart string. I stacked three symbolic feathers together for extra strength before I began the tether for them.


And all of that brought me back around to the leaf and the general theme of what I was doing. Another look at the top of the necklace brought about the solution. The leaf, the tree, the branch. I work with sticks quite a bit. I cast them into silver all of the time. This wasn’t the place for a cast branch. My branches are in a small wash tub on top of my bead stashes. Perfect! An oak twig. Robin’s make their nests in the oak trees around the yard. The oak in the yard I grew up in takes three people to circle…all kind of like the red wool thread. It’s all interrelated – past, present, future.

Thank You Lori – It’s like Bead Soup was my own little personal coming back party and thank you Rebecca for providing the stimulus for the fruitfulness of all of it.

Don't forget - coming up in the next posts: Where to find your personal symbolism/and tailsman meanings. Plus, a tutorial on how to make the Bead Soup disc earrings and how to do that without the discs slopping around. And, "New Work Wednesday".

Still Bead Soup Blog Hopping...

Bead Soup is great stuff! The copper leaf is what immediately struck my fancy and since I know how to fold form I decided to put a little twist to it. It spoke to me of a natural theme and so it grew. First with the ceramic quote I made from William Blake, “Art is the tree of life…”

Once those two pieces were together it began to have a talisman kind of look – and sound. As you walk or move the ceramic and copper make a gentle sound as they move against one another. That is why I began working on a “Natural Talisman” – something that speaks to me softly but succinctly. An initial drawing was made and I kept it rough so it wouldn’t confine any further ideas.


We had large copper mines in the Upper Penninsula of Michigan – copper made sense as a metal to use thoughout.
Second, I have a bit of Sari silk here (another natural product) so I pulled that out. That is where I hit my first design snag. I had pulled out pearls to go with the beautiful bits and goodies and the icy blue of the cat’s eyes that Rebecca had sent. My stash contained not one blue strand of silk in the correct color range….crap! I pulled the blue from the soup and will save it for another piece. In went green and gold. Out came the color wheel. Best color choices according to that – Gold is a tint of yellow orange, so it seems logical we could use kind of a triadic color scheme (add greens/bluish greens and possible touches of reddish purple/purple). Yikes, not much natural coloring there but what the heck. I didn’t want to do all browns.You remember the soup - what my bead soup partner – Rebecca Sirevaag sent me (It’s pictured in the last post and was full of this wonderful icy blue).

So on to the talismans. I had the natural earthy browns - plus silk, copper, pearls, earthenware clay, and glass. That’s when the search began in earnest between design and spiritual meaning. Who knew I wanted back on this designing bike so much….


What to hang the possible talisman from came next and it came easily. I’m Irish and Russian, what a combo. Irish waxed linen. What I have seemed thin and not complicated enough to hold a large talisman so I braided several strands right on to the lovely toggle clasp in my soup.

From there I continued the theme. If it was going to be red or reddish purple it needed to be natural and have meaning. Ah ha, I have some felting wool tucked away and a red wool strand would work. The Kabbalah says a thin red wool string will ward off misfortune brought about by the evil eye. The Chinese belief is that a there is an invisible red thread that connects each of us to those who have been, are currently, or will be in the future important in our lives. I had mixed wool roving and worked up a strand of mixed red and purple.

Tomorrow I will post more about this necklace and some photos of other pieces that were inspired by the soup mix. I hope you’ll join me again.

Back to my blog hopping….the link yesterday’s post is interactive and contains a link to all of the BSBP participants. Enjoy the eye candy and be sure to say Hello and leave a comment. I know everyone will enjoy hearing from you too.

Soup's Cooking

It’s the big count down for Bead Soup Blog Hop – One week to go – I’m working like mad on my pieces. Since I don’t do much finished work anymore it’s been a challenge to put my ducks in a row. So what can you expect me to put with Rebecca’s great soup she sent me?

The photo is of waxed linen I used in addition to my bead soup stash…..if you want to know what I did with it you will have to tune in to this blog next Saturday, March 3rd for the big Blog Hop. It’s going to include some awesome eye candy.

Starting on next Saturday I’m going to make it a Bead Soup Week. After the initial hop post I’m going to spend the rest of week talking tutorials, close-ups, design reasoning behind the necklace I created, new internet resources, and some of my blog hop favorites. It’s going to be a whopper of a week to start off March!