Interview with the January Challenge "Rising Star" Winner

Lea Paličková is the 2017 Rising Star!

Congratulations on winning the Rising Star challenge. Your necklace is spectacular! 

First if you could provide a little background such as where you are from or live now and what your work or career is. Your Etsy shop profile mentions you study geography, are there any favorite places or influences that sparked your interest in that subject?

I come from Czech Republic, the home of well-known Czech glass beads. I’m just a regular girl that grew up in the country. I came to the „big city“ after getting accepted to the University, where I chose to study nature and geography. I wouldn’t say that anything specific led me this way, I’ve been just interested in all the things around me. I’ve always been interested mainly in the abiotic part of nature, and I’m still fascinated by weather… And now, when my university studies are over, this subject of knowledge makes my living. And what do I do when I come home from work? Beading, of course…

In your shop you offer many wonderful pieces of beadwork. How long have you been beading and how much time weekly do you devote to your craft?

I started with beading when I was a young girl, when I was stringing my mom’s and grandma’s beads. As I said before, my country is one of the biggest beads producer. Almost in every house you can find in the attic a huge chest full of old beads… So, it was easy to start playing with beads. I started beadweaving after years, approx. in 2009. This technique charmed me so much that even now I am able to spend most of my time beading. It’s hard to say how much time a week I spend beading, it depends on many conditions. I would say I spend with beading about 10-15 hours a week.

Do you have friends or relatives who also work with seed beads, or are there any beading societies or groups you belong to?

No one from my family is beading. If someone beads something, the initial impulse comes from me. Quite often my sister-in-law asks me to bring some beads along, because she wants to do something for herself. She uses my tutorials to create some floral jewelry.
On the other hand, beading is quite popular in Czech Republic and I’ve met a lot of interesting and inspirational people thanks to beading. Beading societies, like you can know from US, aren’t common here. Here it’s more a question of arranging meeting bead friends for a dinner or a glass of beer and then beading together all night long.


 Your work shows a wonderful interpretation of nature, is that the main source of your inspiration?

Yes, mainly I’m trying to find my muse in nature. This is the reason why I enjoy working with nature materials the most. I’m not good at using shiny Swarovski crystals, but psst don’t tell anybody. When I walk outside, I’m trying to perceive all colors and shapes of nature surrounding us. My most favorite season of year is definitely autumn. You can find everything in it: beautiful color transitions and often unsuspected color combinations, mysterious morning fogs and first hoarfrost as well. Anywhere around us is a lot of inspiration, you just have to keep your eyes open.

What artists or bead workers do you admire or feel have influenced your work?

I’m trying, as I always did, not to get influenced by other authors. Because of it, I use Pinterest as little as possible. I would like my work to reflect just my ideas and moods
However, there is a lot of beaders that I adore greatly. One of many is for example Kinga Nichols with her color and material combinations, Apollinariya Koprivnik with her sparkling treasures, queen of sea urchins Joanne Zammit and I can’t forget to mention my best-bead-friend Denisa Kangas

What are some of your favorite materials to work with?

I love to work with any natural material. Gemstone cabochons, druzies, any kind of fossils, pearls and shells, wooden beads, ceramics and so on… I rather work with irregularly shaped material. Glitter and perfectly polished surfaces gets me a little insecure, because I’m not always sure how to work with them to get the perfect result. I really love combination of matt and gloss and Czech glass beads.

Your patterns in your shop are lovely. I especially like the way you use the two holed beads in your designs. What are some of the joys you have experienced or challenges you have faced selling on Etsy?

The greatest joy is when you receive positive feedback of your work. Like when customer send me a picture of finished piece of jewelry made with my tutorial.

Where do you see your work with bead weaving evolving in the future?

My big dream is to have my own studio – room just for me and my craft passions. I hope it will be soon, because we are planning reconstruction with my boyfriend and I hope he will be kind enough to let one room for me in our future home
Anyway in this „dream studio“ I would like to have a craft oven for making ceramic, glass or even copper enamel. I would love to create my own components for my beaded jewelry.


Interview by Patti Parker

Interview with November 2016 Challenge Winner Évi Csizmadia Lajosné of Vicus

Évi Csizmadia Lajosné of Vicus is the winner of both the public and team votes for the November 2016 Challenge 'November Guest'

Check out all the fantastic entries! 

Check out Évi's shop!

What initially attracted you to beads as a medium?
Several years ago, I was about 8-9 years old when I began to explore the world of beads.

And, more specifically, how was your imagination drawn to bead weaving?
At the time, cross stitch embroideries were being made. It was a favorite magazine subject, where I saw at first bead jewelry making. I really liked one design and thought that I could make it. The first attempt was very well done and then on I liked the world of beads.

What was your route to becoming an artist?
I began simpler pieces, I always made jewelry that was complex and time-consuming. I learned on the Internet, bought samples, attended forums. I was looking for beaded groups on the Internet. I learned a lot, including new techniques.



Tell us a bit about your favorite techniques.

A new technique suddenly appeared in the bead embroidery magazine I read. I loved it, I knew right away that this is my thing. Hatvani Annie was the first one who displayed embroidered bead jewelry. His knowledge about using more about the bead embroidery spoke to me.
Using the Internet has opened the world of beading to me. I recognized all over the world various bead artists. I saw fantastic jewelry. Both inspired me to create my jewelry that is similar, but according to their my own plans.

Do you design the piece before starting? If not, what prep work do you do?
A small piece of jewelry does not always need a plan in advance. For a ring, pendant or something less, in the central part, I choose and find out on the fly how to include more beads. The bracelets and necklaces are planned more in advance, drawn on paper.

What currently inspires you?
I enjoy the diversity of new beads which have coming out lately. I love to try them. They offer a lot of new possibilities. But my big love is Swarovski stones and gemstones. I make a lot of jewelry that combines the two.

Who have been your major influences, and why?
Nowadays there are Russian artists with pieces that have a great impact on me.
I love it when my jewelry can be worn either in formal settings or on weekdays as well. I love the elegant, unique jewelry, or what was once seen that unique. I love it when the owner of the jewelry turns even more beautiful thanks to my pieces

What is your favorite thing about working with beads?

Not so long ago since I made pattern samples. A request was made at first by a beading magazine. There are also simpler designs that even beginners can feel free to make, but I make more complicated, more complex samples. The ease of patterns and beauty of the jewelry are equally important.

Shop Feature Elizabeth Scarborough of Scarboro

Meet Elizabeth Scarborough who opened her Etsy Shop “scarboro” in 2011.  She is a skillful bead artist, a professional writer of science fiction and fantasy novels for over 30 years, and an avid reader.  Elizabeth is also a lover of cultural and historical places, themes, and art.  She infuses all of these talents and qualities into her beadwork to produce one-of-a-kind show stopping jewelry.   Her opulent use of color and keen attention to detail as seen in her embroidered bib “In Living Color” makes it obvious that when it comes to her art, she holds nothing back and puts her heart into all of her pieces.  

Elizabeth shares the inspiration behind each piece in the item description section of her listings.  As you read the description you feel as though you have been personally invited into her world.  When you purchase one of her pieces you become the proud owner of a beautiful and thoughtfully crafted piece of art that inspires you to dream big.

How long have you been beading and how did you get started?
I have been beading off and on most of my life.  My grandmother, who at one time had a beading business (moccasins and purses with little beaded designs on them), gave me beads to play with when I visited her.

What moved you to become a member of the Etsy Beadweavers Team?
When I started posting on FB and saw posts with gorgeous beaded jewelry, I wanted to find out who made it and be one of them.

What other ways do you market your jewelry?
I show off everything I make in FB posts and occasionally get commissions that way.

How would you describe the type of jewelry you make and who is your customer?
I do a lot of jewelry based on stories, folklore, fairytales, holidays, or because of the
Etsy Beadweaver Challenges.  

My customers are often fans who admire something I'm wearing or want a gift for someone with a particular interest.  I've made lots of Egyptian inspired pieces for one friend who loves Egyptology. I love Halloween and so do many of my friends so I've made lots of Halloween and Days of the Dead pieces, but they are generally too cheerful to be properly Goth.

The thing I want most in a customer is an appreciation of color.  One lady asked me to re-do a piece I'd done for an Etsy challenge in black and I just couldn't get interested.  I find little black dresses with dainty gold minimalist jewelry quite sedating.

Do you blog, or participate in social media?

I have blogged at times but it's related to writing, which has been my profession since 1980. Currently my website containing my beadwork is undergoing re-vamping but most of the recent work is among the photos on my FB page.

What inspired or motivated you to express your love of storytelling through your jewelry?
When I saw Suzanne Cooper's first books of patterns and all of the pictorial peyote patterns she designed, I knew that was the kind of beading I wanted to do. Pictorial peyote, either flat or tubular, let me paint with beads and tell stories with humor, which is what I usually do when I write.

I love funny.  I love fairytales.  A friend wanted a piece to wear on a cruise to the Antarctic for formal dance nights onboard ship so I designed "Fred and Ginger" the penguins dancing beak to beak. Since I was doing tubular peyote at the time, the back depicted their penguin butler Jeeves bringing fish on a platter.

Pretty soon I wanted to do a book like Suzanne's of colored bead patterns. There were very few available at that particular time. Previously the patterns had been mostly black, white and greyscale symbols drawn on graph paper. People just chose their own colors. So I wanted to show my patterns in colors and with the help of Suzanne and the people who owned the beading program I was using, I created a book of funny fairytale pictures.  Friends helped me bead the designs and photograph the finished pieces.

After a while, I got tired of everything being flat, and started making bead-embroidered pieces.  At first I just beaded around cabs, using the colors in the cab to embellish it, but gradually I saw how bead embroidery could also tell stories, though in a more abstract way.

What is pictorial peyote?
Pictorial peyote is just that--peyote beaded pictures.  Some people use a special part of their bead program to copy pictures from photos or older paintings. I like to draw mine freehand. They're not fine art, but they do tell the story and sometimes make me (and the viewer, I hope) laugh.  In illustrating The Frog Prince, on one side of the bag I drew the frog with the crown and the lipstick print kiss that transforms him on the other side of the bag into The Frogman Prince in wet suit, goggles, and flippers dripping all over the palace's red carpets.


What is your design process when creating a new piece?
For pictorial peyote, I design the pattern with Bead Tool, assemble the Delicas I want to use by sight, not by number, and start beading.

For bead embroidery and other techniques, my process is kind of like jazz.  I find a focal or a color that fits the mood, pile every single bead and cab or whatever I think might work together on top of my bead desk, and start playing.  I sometimes try to draw the pattern out ahead of time, but that rarely works out for me as I keep changing my mind, and the pattern. The two main things that take time in making a piece for me are getting the right beads together and then finding all the stuff I know I have seen recently--in fact, they are often what inspired the piece--but can't locate when I want to use them.  Usually, my designs are most influenced by color and by the beads and focals themselves.

Your love of color is evident in all of your spectacular pieces such as the “Moulin Rouge” necklace. When choosing your color palette do you use a color wheel or do rely on your well-trained eye?
I learned how to use a color wheel in art classes years ago but I rely on my own color sense for the most part, as it tends to be unconventional.  My color schemes are based on things like the sacred colors of different cultures, colors that appear in a focal, or the favorite colors of an outfit or a holiday of the person I'm making the piece for.  Right now I'm making a bracelet in a very pale pastel pink for a friend who wants it to go with a dress.  It would never be my first choice but the truth is, I like almost any color.  It's how you use it that makes it work. 

How did seven of your pieces get featured in Margie Deebs book “The Beader’s Color Palette”?
Margie is a designer friend from way back and she's acquainted with my work. When she needed pieces to illustrate certain topics in her book, she asked me for pieces of mine she'd seen online.


What is it about tribal, ethnic, and historical stories and designs that inspire you?
I live and breathe stories. I sing story songs, read constantly, write books, watch stories on films and TV.  I find it fascinating how the same themes are represented in different cultures and places in the world as well as at different periods in time.  My degree is in history mostly because my main professor was a wonderful storyteller.

You often showcase the work of other artist in your pieces, why is this important to you?
I believe in giving credit where credit is due, and I'm often inspired by certain focal cabs or beads, so credit is often due!


What has been the most challenging part of owning an Etsy shop and what has been the most rewarding?
To tell you the truth, the shop is mostly a place to display work I haven't yet sold or gifted or decided to keep for myself.  I don't fuss much with technical embellishment as I prefer to do my embellishing in the actual beadwork. The most rewarding part is selling one of those pieces.

What tips or advice about running a successful shop would you like to share?
Show off what you make in other places with a hint if not a direct link to where it can be examined more closely and/or purchased.  Get photos that are as clear as you can make them and provide descriptions that are evocative of your inspiration but also give details like measurements.

Please visit the following links to learn more about Etsy Shop “scarboro” and it’s owner Elizabeth Scarborough:
https://www.etsy.com/shop/scarboro?ref=pr_shop_more
www.facebook.com/elizabeth.a.scarborough
My authorial website is: scarbor9.wixsite.com/beadtime-stories
Elizabeth thank you so much for sharing with us, you have personally inspired me to go big and go bold.  Elizabeth Scarborough of the Etsy Shop “Scarboro” is proof that when you do what you love – it shows!

Interview with Betty Cox of UniqueandMacabre

Step into the world of Betty Cox and her Etsy shop, “UniqueandMacabre”, open since 2012, and you will certainly feel like a kid in a candy store.  The beautiful colors and the intricate textures of her work both invite and excite the eye.  While the nature of some of Betty’s art pieces may shock and disturb the squeamish, the macabre themes are very interesting and thought-provoking.   Her pieces do what art should do; they inspire, and evoke conversation.  As you browse through her shop, Betty’s creative use of contrasts and her attention to detail, grabs you and holds you until you have viewed every single listing.  

Betty was an artist at a young age and then music took over.  She is a trained Cellist with a Bachelor’s degree in Music Performance but it was a summer job as a nurse’s aide that led her to become a Registered Nurse, then later she obtained a Master’s degree in science / maternal child/ midwifery from the University of Illinois at Chicago.  She is currently practicing as a Certified Nurse Midwife in San Diego at Kaiser Permanente.

Betty started her venture in jewelry making by stringing beads, then creating polymer clay beads and resin jewelry.  Later she was inspired by a good friend, who created lamp work beads and made beautiful jewelry using seed beads.  Betty’s first seed beaded piece of jewelry was a Carol Wells
 “Cha Cha” bracelet!  She loved figuring out the colors, stones, gems and textures, it took her about 4 months to complete because she wasn't used to working with tiny beads!!!     

Betty has been beading for about 7 years and she joined the Etsy BeadWeavers Team because she was inspired by, and had respect for all of the spectacular bead artists on the team.  It was also important to her that she could be as unique as she wanted but still accepted by the team.

She markets her jewelry primarily through her Etsy shop, but also word of mouth, local shows, teams, and contests!   

You are a certified Nurse Midwife and a former musician, which one of those professions fueled your interest in the macabre? The artistic/musician side most likely influences my creations.  The macabre in my creations is probably fueled by my childhood.  I’m fascinated with things that are a bit scary and things that aren't real, such as dinosaurs, monsters and " things that go bump in the night" 

 What is your design process when creating a new piece?

 I base my creations on a focal piece. I glue them to stiff material I usually have either a pendant, brooch or bracelet in mind and proceed to select colors, textures.  I use a white marker for lines that flow around the focal piece, then I start creating and my pieces generally evolve.  

How are you able to balance color, texture, and the macabre in your pieces? 

 I do love to mix the beautiful with the macabre.   I love color and texture so my pieces that include daggers, stones, drops give it more character in my eyes.  I think of my work like a painter or sculpture so I try to include the macabre along with beauty in mind

Is there a story behind the frequent use of “eyeballs” in your work?

There is no story behind my eyes but they often develop as I create.  Even I'm surprised when I'm in the middle of creating and by the outcome!!!  

 Which bead artists inspire you?

I’m inspired by Sherry Serafini, Heidi Kumili and Laura McCabe.  I was fascinated by their unique, colorful styles! The prosthetic glass eyes that Laura used were fascinating to me and couldn't wait to find some!  

Who is your customer?
My customer is often one that either loves the unique, kind of weird or different style.  I once had a customer that wanted 14 custom pieces.    

What has been the most challenging part of owning an Etsy shop?

The most challenging part of owning an Etsy shop is keeping up with posts of other artist’s work.   I'm often distracted throughout the day because I want to see and like everything!!  I also want to keep myself busy creating my own work to keep my viewers and customers interested.

What are your tips or advice on maintaining an Etsy shop?

Tips and advice to maintaining my Etsy shop, is to look every day and like other artist’s work, because the feedback I get on my own work inspires me.  Look at what sells and what doesn't and think of how your work stands out from the rest.  My best advice is don't be afraid to explore something different.

The work of Betty Cox is proof that beauty is in the “eyeball” of the beholder.
To see all of Betty’s beautiful creations please visit her shop at:  https://www.etsy.com/people/Booop56

To see more of Betty’s beautiful work, visit the links below.
https://www.etsy.com/ca/shop/UniqueandMacabre 
https://www.facebook.com/UniqueandMacabre