Here is a gigantic, golf-ball size bead / belated Christmas gift that I recently gave (pics coming soon that actually show this bead WITH a golf ball!).  A bead of this magnitutde swings alone on a sterling silver snake chain–a thick one, preferably–and is a fantastic ”your-eye-goes-right-to-it” piece when you’re wearing like, a black turtleneck and jeans.  It is striking in its solitude, so I like other jewelry kept small or even absent when wearing a piece this size.   It takes a lot of committment, pacing, and patience to work a piece of glass this big, and while I’m still ironing out some of the little quirks that can go wrong, I’m actually pretty proud of it,  and also the metalwork here, too–more of my handmade sterling and brass end caps with sterling tube riveting.  I admit it:  I’m a bead-capping fool now that I’ve learned my away around my new bead press I got for Christmas!  More pics posting soon, and because I love the idea of the streamlined simplicity of wearing 1, single, eye-popping bead on a chain, I’ll be doing this one in more colors/styles soon.  It’s a neat and cool alternative to wearing a necklace loaded down with beads…  We love those too, of course, but you get my point!   More pics here soon…  ~L

Hooray!  2010 is underway, and I have several new pieces in the Morpheus line that I plan to introduce this year.

First, there is an awesome necklace coming!   Not to be confused with the Morpheus pendant (we’ll have the refined design for this up on the web any day now!), the new necklace will “Morph” in a really cool way.  Obviously I don’t want to say too much right now before the final sketches and solderings are completed, but I can tell you that the “magic” involves a really cool (and I like to think, clever!) clasp system.   And yep– the technology will be quite easily transferrable to a matching bracelet!   Also, up till now, the cabochon has been the staple shape of the Morpheus line.  What I love about the new necklace design is that it will feature some round beads (and even a few bumpy beads!), thus broadening the look and feel of the Morpheus line.  And head’s up:  the necklace is not full of bumpies–unless you want it to be!  There are very smooth, streamlined beads in the line too, so that you will actually be able to “build” your necklace as wild or as conservative as you like, and in a 16″, 18″, 20″ or 22″ length!  It’s a wonderful, fun, innovative piece that I’m finalizing over the next 4- or so weeks. 

Next, I’ve been thinking for some time that I want to update the Morpheus ring in a really bold, busting-out, kind of way (Wait!  Don’t panic:  yes, you will still be able to get beads for your current ring –absolutely!  The current ring will go forward–we’re just adding another option).  This big, “re-imagining” of the current  ring is taking shape and should be ready by November, both in the current Morph ring size and in a smaller version for those of you who have been requesting a smaller ring.  What I can say at this point is that it’s crazy amazing what this new ring will  do,  and it will be available with some gold-filled options as well as sterling silver ones!  I’m super excited with its engineering so far, so stay tuned for updates as we go along.

Here’s the easiest way to explain the Morpheus rings:   the current Morph ring puts the spotlight on the glasswork—the bead for your ring is THE design element of your current ring system.   You look down, and you see your great bead.  The new ring will feature slightly smaller beads in order to accommodate other, more interesting design elements happeneing in your metalwork.  Make sense?  So, if you just love art glass and want to keep it simple and show that off, you’ll opt for the current ring.  If you’re more “Va va voom” and want both interesting glasswork and innovative metalwork, you’ll choose the new ring system.  It’s up to you, and both will be available!

Finally, there are new Morpheus “collections” emerging in April!    As Pauls’ Valentine’s brochure makes clear, we’ll launch 2 new lines for Easter—Fearless—for the gutsy, saucy, and the bold—and Flawless—for the sleek, polished, and sophisticated.  And of course, don’t forget the Classic line—that’s the line that’s been in existence all along:  good, every-day, wearable designs that appeal to most ladies.  I’ve been sketching beads for the new lines, experimenting with new colors and new glasses, and I honestly can’t decide which line I love more:   they’re all awesome for the right outfit, or the right occassion, so it’ll have to be up to each of you to decide for yourself whether you’re…Fearless, Classic, or Flawless!   Finally, several of you have commented that you’d like some more earthy-tone beads, and I’ve not forgotten you sweet girls.  Your new line may come as early as this summer, but stay tuned for updates about that…

So, okay!  As you can see, the work in the Studio (and in my head!) is plentiful–if I had 36 hours in every, I’d still need about 10 more.  Bringing a new piece to life is not “merely” a matter of determination, though certainly that’s most of it.   As many of you can attest, creative work of any kind is frequently costly, time-consuming, and without guarantees for success.  Every new piece from my bench or my torch is a journey whose twists and turns are not always up to me…  So, thanks for hanging in there while we “give birth” to these new designs–I’ll post some regular updates.  Thanks for reading!

~leah

… and I am LOVING Paul’s new Valentine’s brochure!!   It’s gorgeous,  ULTRA PINK, and in-your-face WOW-y!   Inside are 2 new very special Valentine’s beads, some new scoop, and a great coupon good through the end of February.  These will go out this week to my current mail list, so if you’re not on there yet and would like to be, just send me a note with your mailing address, and we’ll get you added in!   While I’m certainly trying to get the word out about Morpheus with these mailings, it’s worth reviewing the brochure just to see what talented, professional, non-cookie-cutter print media is supposed to look like:   it’s Paul (”Chief Media Guru in Residence”!) who brings his design talent to bear on my work with such pizazz and consistent excellence.

Happy New Year, everyone, from inside the Studio!

I hope your Christmas and New Year have been joyous occassions:  I’m enjoying some rest and also some at-my-own-pace Research and Development on several new projects for 2010!

First, the exciting news:  I’m totally tanked.  No, no–not that kind of tanked.  I mean, I’m switching to tanked oxygen for my beadmaking in the first week of this year:  this move away from my 2 oxy concentrators and towards pure Oxy will, without question, provide a significant kick to the colors that I’m working and will also allow me to work glass at a hotter temperature, thereby letting me explore more and different kinds of glass to better effect (Double Helix, GT, Borosilicate, etc).  I’m not sure exactly what I’ve been resisting regarding the use of pure oxy, but beadmakers since the 1940s have been doing it this way–propane and pure oxy–so I suppose it’s time for me to get on board, though I do think the shift illustrates something important about the business of being a glass artisan:  the gear for this gig is often expensive, technical, and dangerous.  One must grow into such arenas at her own pace.  I think the move into such “readiness” –whether it’s a source of oxy, a bigger/hotter torch, a more sophisticated studio, or more complex glasses–can only be one that happens over time as one learns and loves more fully the nature of hot glass (as opposed to say, a move that happens suddenly just because your friends have cooler equipment than you do!  See Corinna’s description of such a phenomenon in her discussion of ”torch envy” in Passing the Flame).

Additionally, Santa was very kind this year:  he brought me the much-acclaimed Bead Press from Jim Moore Tools for Glass!   We’ve all seen the silver-lined beads for the Pandora, Troll, and Biagi bracelets:  well, this little steel machine is essentially what puts  that silver lining in place.   It helps you silver-core and flare your tubing into a perfectly lovely sterling “rivet,” under which one can place bead “caps” of every stripe:  for my first experimental beads here, I used my own hand-made brass, copper, and sterling caps.  Suffice it to say, I’m a bead-capping fool now, and I LOVE it!  The press is expertly tooled; Jim Moore’s design seems to me at least to be quite user-friendly; the first rivet that I flared appears on the red bead above, and while the cap on this bead is too small (that’s my human error), the rivet is pretty much spot on. 

Of course, there is a learning curve to all new toys…  One must cut the sterling tubing precisely right:  too little and the rivet won’t fit; too much and it won’t flare; one must “feel” the weight (torque?) of the lever and intuit when enough pressure has been applied to the tubing:   too little and the rivet won’t “set,”  too much and the bead will crack:  see my heartache above in the “Sad” pic.  So yeah, some trial and error for sure.  Finally, since all my bead caps are hand made, there is the issue of setting the cap in perfect “squareness” to both the hole in the bead and to the tubing which will hold it there.  You can see in the pics that some of my caps are a bit loppy; that’s because the cap shifted as I was applying pressure to the rivet.  I looked down, and the rivet was “set” with the cap sitting tilted on the bead…forevermore.  You can’t “unflare” a flared rivet:  so nothing to do now but take note and do better next time! 

Finally, please stay tuned for new designs coming in February!   I’m so, so excited about my new beads and new silver designs and will be posting some sneak peeks in the days ahead.  Paul also has great designs planned for my print media this year (right, P??!), so if you’re not on the mailing list for Morpheus but would like to be, send me a note via the Contact form, and I’ll be sure to add you in.

Cheers, and best wishes for a healthy, propserpous, and talented new year!  In 2010, I hope you’ll stretch your vision; make some errors; embrace naps; buck theories of design; appreciate your supporters;  acknowledge your shortcomings; swim without Floaties; foster a “what if?” approach… and fall in love with the results.

  ~LH

It occurs to me that my better half is nowhere represented on my new website…  And well, he and our girl should be!  Please meet Michael and our yellow lab-like doggie, Casey.  I get a few kisses in the morning, but in truth, she only has eyes for her pop…  Every single evening, like clockwork, she lays on the bed such that she can look down our long hallway, until the moment the door at the other end opens and Mike steps through into the foyer.  Casey leaps from the bed and sprints to her master with the vigor of a dog half her age.  I think there are markedly few moments in life that celebrate such unabashed tenderness, such unapologetic loyalty.  Were I not so busy admiring their “Moment”, I might bother to feel like chopped liver!

One of the changes in direction that I’ll initiate with the turn of the new year involves a broad shift in focus:  I’ll be devoting much less time to creating scores of gigantic Bumpy Beads and will instead be advancing the Morpheus line (watch for BIG releases this year!!!) and working on some of my new silver designs that feature a “focal” bead or a focal glass design.  I’m super excited about this new direction in silver in part because I think it will–strangley enough—be very liberating to my glasswork.  Even so, I’m still closing an important first chapter of my work as a professional glass artist, and I would be remiss if I didn’t pay homage to some of my favorite Bumpy Beads from my collection over the past 3 years:  THANK YOU to all of you who loved and bought my “bumpies” even when they were a lil’  lumpy!   The technical skills, patience, and heat-control that I’ve learned from bringing them to life has provided a wonderful foundation upon which to move forward into new design territories.

Thought I’d post these snow pics from last week:   my little Highlander looks awfully cold!   How could we have left her out all night?  For shame!

This was a large-ish Christmas order (35 pairs, though the pic shows just the first 28)  that I just completed about 10 days ago for a doctor and friend of mine in Hattiesburg.   We called these “USM Earrings” because they’re black and gold (for USM) and because they match exactly the “USM Pendant” that I made for this same customer last year.   What made this order especially challenging wasn’t the sheer volume of work that had to be completed, though that certainly was notable (4  beads X 35 pair = 140 beads!!), or even the assembly of all those loose beads into finished pairs of earrings.  Rather, the aspect of this order that caught me by surprise was the difficulty of creating 2, perfectly matched starbursts–since each one is made individually, one at a time–that could then come together and pass for a matched set of earrings.  They must be an identical set to be beautiful, and so, not surprisingly, there was a good bit of waste invovled in bringing the order to completion:  I now have a whole tray of “orphan stars” who never found their mate!   No worries:  we’ll no doubt recoup those into some project down the road!  Large-scale production work always brings with it unique exhaustions but also really huge satisfaction:  I love the day when I get to deliver an order like this!!

As a quick adendum, there are a few pics earlier in my blog posts that show scads of loose gold beads coming out of the kiln:  those are the same gold beads used in this order!

I thought I’d post the latest postcard and brochure for the Morpheus beads:  be sure to click the thumnails to view the full card!  If you have not received yours and you’d like to be inlcuded on the Morpheus mailing list (it’s great fun!!), send me a quick email with your name and address, and I’ll be happy to add you in!  ~Leah

Some of you have expressed interest in seeing “Gabriella”–a real Rock Star of the Morpheus collection who was inadvertantly omitted from the bead line up.  Here she is, in all her black-and-white glory alongside good friends Marisol and Riley!   Gabby will be added to the Morheus beads in just a bit:  she is an “A” bead for you ring, and she’s $65.