A couple of weeks ago my propane started running low. There comes a point where the pressure in the bottle isn't quite right and it can make stringerwork and certain colours of dots go all feathery and weird, but there's still gas left so I keep on going, making spacers and really simple spotty beads until it's all used up. As such, I have a pile of spacers and odd-bod beads to clean and photograph.
Before the gas started to run out I was having a bit of a (another) moment with what I call my 'bead dysmorphia' and this time I was finding it utterly impossible to make the beads I wanted to make. I got so angry and upset with myself. I can’t write or talk about this at length without sounding like a self-obsessed tit (and trust me when I say I cannot bear the self-obsessed tittery of others on the internet and I really don't want to be one of those people) so instead I'll just say that I ended up reading several articles about maladaptive perfectionism and I'm trying to take some of the advice given in those pieces.
One of the first proactive things I did was head straight to Corina Tettinger's website. Corina has always been a constant in my beadmaking world and I still think that her Passing The Flame book is the best lampworking book out there. I've always loved Corina's beads but her writing about beads is equally as marvellous. She doesn't know it but she often gives me the kick up the arse I need to get on and try something, and in this case I think I was visiting her site in order to find some sort of "pull yourself together" kind of advice. I ended up downloading Corina's 250 Designs with Dots and Lines tutorial. Now, I don't want to sound like a boastful knobhead, but there's not a lot I don't already know about adding dots and lines to beads and I know everything in this tutorial (I am sounding like a boastful knobhead, aren't I?) but I love reading Corina's knowledge. It's just the way she says things; you feel like she's sat there next to you. I've never met Corina but yonks and eons ago we spoke on the phone a couple of times (and she very kindly gifted me the torch that I still work on) so I always read her writing in her voice in my head, if that makes sense. The tutorial is also FULL of photos of Corinabeads which are a delight to just look at.
I took the tutorial on my tablet down to the shed yesterday, just so I could prop it up and glance at a few words or a photo here and there (I'd already read it about twenty times and had committed most of it to memory) and I made black and white beads. Little ones. With dots and lines. And I made myself not ditch any I wasn't totally happy with; all of them went into the kiln.
I just want to point out that the beads are not direct copies of Corina's. Her writing was like a sort of hand-holding exercise and it reminded me that I'm supposed to enjoy making beads. And I did. The time flew by and this morning I have a little bunch of small black and white beads that I'm very happy with.
There are a few where I can see what I class as flaws, or some dots that I could have placed better, but I'm ignoring them. Deep down I know they are decent beads and that other people do not look at them or judge them as critically and harshly as I do. I need to remember this. When I go back through ancient photos of my beads I can see worse niggly flaws but the me of then let them go so the me of now can definitely let these lesser niggles go, right? *zen face*
So yeah, this is a kind of "Thank you, Corina!" post, I guess. The tutorial did give me the kick up the arse I was in dire need of, and I'm just about to go and make more black and white beads.
