A Peek Into the Creative Process...

I awoke to 3 degrees Fahrenheit below zero this morning, so therefore, I am chained to the fireplace trying to warm the house up.  It was 63 degrees when I got out of bed and I have been running the fireplace since 7am.  Now at 11 am, it is only up to 65 degrees!  No studio work today, so I thought I would bring you a special blog post:  A look into the creative process!

When I begin a design, I don't really go into it with any ideas in mind.  I retreat to the old button storage and pick out a button/buttons that suit my fancy for the day.

This drawer so happens to be mostly metals, but I have everything from mother of pearl to fabric to vegetable ivory in this storage box.  After I choose the buttons I will use for the piece, I set to gently restore them.

As you will see, this is a multiple stage process, and probably more time consuming that the actual creating of the piece.  And, yes, I did knit those fingerless gloves.  I have been a knitting fool every night and weekend since I learned how!

My main goal is to restore the original beauty of the buttons while retaining the aged patina.  One must remember that most of the buttons in my stash are from the mid to late 1800's, so there are many problems that have to be dealt with such as rust and the "green meanies" (the unsightly green oxidation on brass that is more suitable aesthetically to garden fixtures and outdoor decorations).  These issues are dealt with and removed with museum approved techniques and products.

 
For the final stage, a museum wax is applied to protect from further rusting and oxidation as well as water damage and retains a smooth, clean shine.  *Please note that this button looks the same from the first picture to the last as it was not actually restored, it was only used to demonstration purposes*.  While I am restoring the button/buttons, I run through ideas of how the button will be converted into a piece of jewelry, all the while running through techniques that allow me to create a piece of jewelry without harming or altering the button in any way.

By the time I am completed with the cleaning process,   I have a good idea of how to design the piece.  I retreat to my bead boxes (my red vintage bead box is shown above)...

and my brass filigree boxes and choose pieces that would be most suitable for the design I have in mind.

As you can see above, the actual piece begins to take form.  This piece is still a work in progress.  I guess I will not get to it again today...I just hate having to take all the supplies I need out of the studio to bring downstairs simply because I have to cart them all back upstairs when I am done.  These are the days that I catch up on computer work and maybe do a little tatting for chokers and bracelets.

As you can see, creating button jewelry is so much more than just making the piece.

The Dirty Downstairs Studio...and computer woes...

Wouldn't know this was a studio, would you? Told you it was bad. The problem with this studio is that everyone decides to dump their crap in it. Ooooh, that get's me so mad! There is my son's drum accessories he is not using, my husband's tools and junk he is too lazy to walk over to his work bench, all the left over Christmas wrappings and boxes that things came in the mail. My step-daughter's junk in boxes and bins along the back wall. I mean, it's not like they don't have their own place to keep it in, and yet, here it sits in my studio. It's never ending.

Yea, about that. It's my work table. Too bad there's no room to work on it!

Oh, and let's not forget about the treadmill that everyone just had to have that sits in the middle of my studio floor!

Well, my laptop AC adapter crapped out today (I'm currently using my husbands), so I will be without a computer during the day until the new one comes in the mail. Therefore, I shall be using my daily computer time down in this studio cleaning and organizing. Perhaps by the weekend I will be able to share pictures of what it SHOULD look like and what it WILL continue to look like.

I apologize that I will not be doing much dropping and blog-surfing this week. I simply refuse to give up my evenings unless it is for a show the next day or a back up of custom orders. When you own your own business, you really need to maintain lines of demarcation of when you will have your personal time. Even when you love your job, you really must get away from it lest it become work :)

The Clean Studio!

Okay...as promised, here is the clean studio! Products left from the Christmas rush reside on this shelving system. Clients will come to my house, come up to the studio and shop right from the shelves. Many times they will become inspired by something to which I allow them to paw through my buttons and beads selecting desired colors and such. I will then make their piece for them right before their eyes. I have one particular client that does this on a regular basis. Just before Christmas, she came over announcing that it was her daughter's birthday that day and needed something special for the day. I promise you, she left happy with her daughter's birthday present!

This is where most the bead work and sewing gets done. I have the treadle machine stand to the left (the original head is in the basement) and put my regular sewing machine away when it is not in use. When I am not sewing, it usually serves as a laptop stand for my music files to fill the studio! The desk is an old computer table, but the sliding component under the top where you would normally put your keyboard makes a perfect beading board. If I'm not finished with a project, I simply slide it away and fear not for anything getting messed or damaged! My bead stash is stored to the left on the wall and in sliding drawers on the table top.

And, of course, the tools, more beads and misc. stuff. The basket is buttons that have to be sorted and put away.

Now, for the button area. The dresser stores my personal button collection. This is the collection that gives me pleasure and would rather die than use them for work! I'll do a post about this later. On top of the dresser is jars and jars of work buttons. These are mainly plastics sorted by color, wood, shell, celluloid, Bakelite, vegetable ivory, and fabrics. My rhinestones are stored in a small wood box on the floor to the right of the dresser.


Closer view of my jars. I love them because they remind me of an old-time store with jars filled to the top with candy!


To the left of the dresser, you will notice a grey metal box. This is an old, old button sales box I picked up at a button auction years ago. The box is full of buttons to use for work including glass, black glass, ceramics, metal, horn, rubber, shell, wood; all sorted by size. The above picture shows the size of the drawers when they are pulled out. It took me literally forever to sort all these buttons as you can imagine!


one of the drawers...


another drawer...

Now, for the closet. In the closet, I store my fabrics, embellishments, jewelry wire, batting, trims....tons of stuff.

This closet is completely jam packed. To hid it when company needs the bed, I made a curtain from light blue vintage print calico fabric in which I have tied back right now.

And, of course, the dresser is filled with my fabric stash! I receive lots of comments about how much stuff I have. Please understand that this is the culmination of years of collecting this stuff (garage sales, estate sales, button auctions, mom's stash reductions and the many trips to Joann Fabrics or Hobby Lobby!) All of this used to reside in boxes in the basement until I finally got to the point in my business where I needed an actual working space to keep this stuff from infiltrating the rest of the house. I can't think of a more fun addiction than to crafting stuff!


And, of course, we can't forget the infamous bed! I made the headboard out of plywood cut in an art-deco design (the pillows kind of hide it). I lined it with super thick synthetic batting and covered it with a sage green suede cloth that is pulled tight and stapled to the back. I made the quilt out of an old vintage quilt top my mother picked up at an antique shop. I used a light blue backing and wool batting, then hand-quilted around all the Dresden plates, hand-quilted a rope pattern on the blue strips and tied a bunch of french knots in yellow embroidery floss on the crosses in the middle of the Dresden plates. As for the throw pillows, I took some of the left over sage suede cloth, cut them into large circles and appliqued old doilies on top of each other on the top of the pillow. Sew them together, fill with polyfill and Bang! Coordinating throw pillows!

Well, if you have lasted this long in this post, I commend you! I apologize for the length, but it is so picture-heavy!

So now, get in your studio, take some pics and write a post about it! I would love to see your studio, too! Show me where you indulge in your creative splendour!

The Dirty Studio!!!

So, here's what it looked like before I spent an entire day putting things away and organizing. Please forgive the blurry pictures. I think I was shaking when I took them in dreading anticipation of how I was going to clean this room up! Oh, about the bed. This was originally a guest room. As you all know, I am a big 40's fan and World War II buff. When one of the bedrooms freed up as one of the kids moved out, I was destined to make it a guest room *slash* my personal World War II retreat with war time decor. Well, I need somewhere to sleep when the hubby has bad snoring nights! I painted the walls 1930's french country colors (cornflower and pale yellow) and since I could not find a reproduction 1940's wallpaper that I could afford, I painted one wall the blue color and stenciled on a wallpaper pattern in a darker blue. You can kind of see it a little bit behind the jewelry display. I collected lots of 1940's stuff from prints to magazines to decorative glassware and books published in the late 30's / early 40's (even some German books in that beautiful gothic type-print. More about the German stuff later). Well, when it came time for me to make a studio to keep my stuff in and free up the rest of the house, I had to use the guest room (more about the spare-room fight later). I am hoping eventually I can turn it back into a guest room, but for now, I find many hours of solace cranking my 40's music and creating!

Lots more messes....

and messes.....

and messes! In fact, I avoided it for most of my Christmas vacation as I was so overwhelmed with the amount of work I was facing! You know how the Christmas business rush is. Just when you think you have a grip on things, several more custom orders come in! The sad thing is that I haven't even touched the studio downstairs! Yes, I have two studio's. The upstairs studio (this one on the second floor) is for jewelry and sewing. The downstairs studio (in the basement...don't worry, it's a finished basement, well, sort-of) is my painting, metal working and book / journal creating studio. The place I don't care if I get paint, chemicals and adhesive all over the floor! Plus, there is running water down there which I don't have in the upstairs studio.

At any rate, it is totally spotless now. Tomorrow I will post pictures of the clean studio. Later this week, I'll show you why I got no business work done today and then I'll get into the German thing and the spare-bedroom fight further!

Now, go clean your studio!

Spring Cleaning...

Upstate New York. Blech! If we are not piled under tons of snow, we are being completely teased that spring is around the corner. Did you know that it snowed on May 25, 2004? May 25! Anyway, we have been teased with weather in the 40's accompanied by beautiful sunshine for the last several days. I know what you're thinking: "40's? Are you kidding? That's warm?" What you need to understand is that after spending months in the single digits, 40's is actually quite warm. Really. So, with the windows opened in the house trying to get rid of some winter air-funk, I realized that my studio is a total mess.

So I did what any other organizational-freak would do. I completely tore it down, rearranged it, went throught the house and the basement donned with various boxes picking up materials left around to place them in thier proper places in the studio.

Whew....after spending the day yesterday re-arranging, dusting and meticulous vaccumming, today is the day to make a place for everything and put everything in it's place. I am actually kinda glad to be locked in there today...Billie Holiday has been gracing the sound-waves and the screams and shouts of the family are but a distant purr. The windows are open, the fresh air is drowning out my ocean-scented Yankee candle...I can't wait until it is finished. What a difference what I have done makes. Oh, and I will post pictures when I am done.

Okay, folks, let's usher in spring and clean out our studios!

I almost forgot to introduce my studio!

It was so tough for a while. I had work things in the family room, living room, kitchen and basement. What was supposed to be the plan: bring my work stuff up from the basement and sit in any one of the three rooms to work, to pack up at the end of the day and take back down in the basement; certainly became a serious burden. I hated packing things up and work supplies ended up piling up all over the three rooms. I got so sick of this.

The Solution?

The spare bedroom upstairs. No one uses it anyway but maybe once or twice a year for a night or two. What wasted space! But all the work I put into it! The 1930's decor, hand stenciling the walls, sewing retro curtains to even laying the carpet in myself. Scouring ebay and local antique malls for momentos from the 1930's from pictures to books to vases. Whew - that was a lot of work. But, so is carting boxes up and down the basement stairs and dealing with the clutter of things left laying around when I quit work to make dinner for the family.

Hence, the birth of the studio. All the way down to the sign and hours on the door: Alterity Art Monday - Friday and sometimes Saturdays 9am - 4pm.

I still have the bed with the antique quilt just incase someone needs the bed for the night, but the closet is my light studio for photographs, I have my sewing center, my beading center, my journal making center. Perfect. If I don't want to clean it up at the end of the day, I don't. If I am in the middle of creating some beadwork, I simply walk away, shut the door and don't fear that everything will get all messed up. And the best part? No more boxes to the basement!

Oh...life is good! Now, back to work!