August Artisan Clay Design Team Reveal!

Today is the day.... It comes so fast.  Design Team Reveal Day! 
This month, our guest designer is Amy Blevins.  Amy has had an Artisan Clay Trunk show at her Bead Store, Bead and Glass Boutique.  Make sure to check out her necklace and blog... I love what she has done.  Imagine the fun of having an entire bead shop to work from when designing your jewelry!

This month I did the bead selection a little differently.  Staci suggested that I send out some of the half and quarter round Art Deco beads this month.  I was really happy for the suggestion, since I have started to feel like most of my bead types have already been used.  
     I found just enough pieces for all the designers and packed them up in boxes.  I shuffled the boxes and packed them in envelopes blindly.  I have no idea what beads ended up where...  It turns out that I was left with the largest bead, a crescent in my minty green glaze and made with a clay body that shows a manganese fleck when fired. 

I started making this style of pendant a long time ago and have never finished a piece of jewelry with them until now.  I have imagined them used so many ways;
highly stylized and playing on the Art Deco theme,
strung in a tribal theme,
used in a Native American design....
I tried to mix a bit of a natural, southwestern and native look?  Ha! 
The stacking a knotting of the red beads on waxed linen gave me a feeling of the southwest.  I played around with the idea of adding beads in a bead loom, bead weaving style, but decided I really wanted to open up the body of the necklace into multiple strands as I often do.

What do you think?  I don't have any more of these Art deco beads left here in the studio, but I do have quite a few in the dried mud stage waiting to be wet sanded and fired... Depending on how they are glazed, they have such a different feel.

So... are you ready to see what the team has made?


Have you made something with an Artisan Clay bead?-- then add your link below!