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Inspiration for setting focal beads

June 16, 2019 Leave a Comment

Big beads deserve a special setting.

Have you ever struggled with setting focal beads? If you’re like me, you have at least one large, gorgeous bead tucked away that seems almost to beautiful and precious to use.

The problem with saving those special beads is that they never get the attention they deserve. In this post, I hope to inspire you to finally bring those gorgeous beads into the light by sharing some of the ways to listen to what your bead wants to become.

First, some inspiration!

Setting focal beads can be surprisingly easy when you ask the right questions. Any time I’m about to set a dramatic focal bead, I ask myself What’s the theme of this bead? In other words, what do I want to highlight and tell a story about? The bead might have a playful feeling that reminds me of blowing bubbles as a child. That image can inspire lots of creative details and use of color with accent beads and wire embellishments. Start with curiosity.

In the following examples, you can see how each bead inspires the setting and design:

I adore this bead with little birds in a row. I knew that I wanted them to be sitting in a tree, so this inspired the circular, leafy setting around it.
Bead Artist: Jessie Tesolin

Setting focal beads with wire and colorful embellishments

This unicorn bead by Keri Fuhr reminded me of a carousel horse. While I didn’t want a literal amusement ride, my thought is a setting of whirls and swirls to convey movement.
Bead Artist: Kerri Fuhr

I love dragons, can you tell? This baby dragon has quite a personality and seemed very royal to me. Befitting a prince, I gave him a formal and ornate setting.
Bead Artist: Kerri Fuhr

With this beautiful heron lampwork bead, the place where these birds live inspired a setting that evokes water and reeds. The setting echoes swirls of water and aquatic plants.
Bead Artist: Kerri Fuhr

This stunning collection of focal beads needed a dramatic setting that would highlight their beauty without concealing a single detail. The resulting piece, Breatplate for Ninsun, was an entry for Bead Dreams a few years ago and one of the first times I played with a really special setting.
Bead Artist: Gail Crosman Moore

BreastPlate for Ninson wire art necklace (c) Melanie Schow

BreastPlate for Ninson wire art necklace (c) Melanie Schow

This is a character bead—almost cartoon-y—and it didn’t really need anything fancy. Instead, the setting is made up of just a few accents that pull in the bright ketchup and mustard colors.
Bead Artist: Tammy Mercier

Second, a challenge and a class!

By starting with curiosity, you can create magic. If you struggle with setting focal beads or have a few languishing, I challenge you to spend some time looking at each one to see what themes or stories it brings up. How you would use your artistic skills and techniques to highlight them?

You’re invited to try setting focal beads with me! If you’re close to California, consider attending my upcoming July class at Creative Castle called Framed: A Dramatic Wire Setting.

In this one-day class, you’ll bring a focal bead you love (or buy one there) and learn how to use your skills to highlight its unique-ness and beauty. With my guidance, you’ll design a custom setting that frames and really shows off your treasure. I can show you how fun setting focal beads can be! Whether it’s stone, pictorial, or beautiful glass, you will end up with a bead that shines—and new confidence to work through your neglected stash.

See full details here!

Give your focal beads some love

Are you ready to be brave and creative setting focal beads? Open up the stash soon and discover how fun it can be to listen to your beads.

Filed Under: Creativity Tagged With: focal bead, focal beads, lampwork beads, setting, setting focal beads, settings, wire art, wire art class

Cows or no cows, creativity finds a way

October 23, 2018 4 Comments

At the risk of repeating myself, running a farm takes a lot of time. I’ve been pulled in so many directions this year that I’m not creating wire art as consistently as in 2017.

Here’s the amazing thing. When you’re creative, you almost can’t help but make things no matter what is going on. Whether a giant tree comes down on the power lines or a cow ends up in the neighbor’s pasture, creativity finds a way to keep flowing.

This post is a show-and-tell to share ways art is still finding a way into my life.

Creative outlet 1: Moodboard

I’ve been creating my own Project Runway. Design your Fall Collection, a class on Seamwork.com, helped me identify my personal style and inspired me to create a turtleneck dress. This is the 38-piece printable pattern I’m working from (invisible tape not included).

Although it’s been years since I sewed, the creative muscle memory from Home Ec in 7th grade is still there. Sitting in front of the machine, I know what I need to look at, where things go, and it’s like riding a bicycle. I love it!

Creative outlet 2: Beads

Just because my studio time is limited doesn’t mean I stop looking for new inspiration. My love for lampwork glass beads is unending. This recent arrival from Russia (by artist, Olga Vilnova) inspires me. Just look at the detail and colors!

Creative outlet 3: Shows

Ask any artist. Having a deadline to show your work is motivating. I was thrilled that my In the Doghouse piece was juried into the Celebrate Agriculture with the Arts event last month. While I was finishing that for the deadline, another piece was brewing. For now, it’s resting (that’s an important part of the creative process), but I love it.

My vision is of bees flying their curlicue path among the flowers and barbed wire around the farms where we live. It might become a display with a wearable art pendant, but since the “Ag Show” is here and gone, I’m thinking about next year’s Blossom Trail art events. Sneak peek! Here’s what it looks like so far.

Creative outlet 4: Quilting class

Invited by my dear creative friend and artist, Kathleen Mattox, I’m taking a quilting class and have already started on two pieces. The first is a baby animals quilt. Of course there’s a calf in it.

The other is a fun and colorful birdhouse quilt. Here it is, laid out in pieces on the kitchen counter (because where else would you put it?), ready to be sewn together.

Creative outlet 5: Knitting

At night while we relax in front of the television, I’m knitting with fibers I love for their texture, color, and variety. My hands are on the go! This lovely gradient shawl is one of my works in progress.

When you love color and texture, all the sparkly, colorful, and shiny things just work their way into your life. It’s fun to show you what I HAVE been up to creatively and see it all in one place. It’s a reminder that even as farm life happens around me, being creative is just who I am.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: art, beads, creativity, deadlines, fiber, knitting, lampwork beads, quilt, quilting, wire, wire art, yarn

In the doghouse

July 24, 2018 1 Comment

I wear lots of hats—artist, farmer, dog mom—but this year the farm has moved from the back seat of life to the front. Correction: The farm is actually driving.

For that reason, it’s remarkable that I’m still managing to work on an art piece for an upcoming show. In fact, it’s one of the more fun pieces I’ve created in a while. I’m sharing it because it’s cute and also to hold myself accountable for finishing it, no matter where the farm takes me.

A weekend with my art group

For a busy artist, there’s nothing more helpful or encouraging than time away with other creative souls to get stuff done. There’s fun, banter, and conversation while each person creates her own project.

When I spent a weekend with my art group recently, I started a new piece for the 25th annual Celebrate Agriculture with the Arts Show put on by the Madera County Arts Council or as we say, “the Ag Show”. This is a juried show with five competition categories all related to agriculture and it even has cash prizes.

The theme is “Agriculture’s Animal Friends”. I imagined a black-and-white farm dog in a rustic dog house, resting in the shade. In terms of structure, my inspiration was the woven owl box piece I created for the 2017 Ag Show (recognized with an Honorable Mention and sold!), only larger and more rustic.

When you create art with wire, you have to think beyond its finished appearance to the sturdy internal frame on which you build color and embellishments. Not only does this piece need to stand up on its own, the doghouse itself will hold a pendant when it’s not being worn. A hanging pendant needs good support, so I am considering a base of antiqued wood.

The engineering of a piece is often the biggest challenge. Creating component pieces that work together and display art jewelry for everyday enjoyment is an especially fun challenge.

The dog bead (made by the lovely lampwork artist, Tammy Mercier) will have a red collar made from wire I special ordered. I was at a local craft store when I found some really unique blue wire, but I really wanted red. Imagine my delight when an online search revealed a line of 12 colors in the same style. Eureka!

While I proceeded with weaving wire into the structure I built, it looked too fragile. I debated taking it out and redoing it, but things have a way of working out. I tried switching to thicker, 21-gauge, half-round wire. Now it looks sturdier, and the different color wires give it a rustic feel.

I created a prototype to put grass and plants in front of the doghouse. Although the copper one I created looked great, I remade it in green wire. This conveniently covers the smaller-gauge wire too. I love it when it works!


When it was time to add a roof, securing the textured copper sheets proved challenging. The doghouse has a steep peak with a lot of space between wire. Without too much trouble, I used the vertical wires to create rustic-looking nails, wrapped down even and tight.

The pendant itself will be simple with a collar under the face and a dog tag. I’m also considering paw-print earrings to complete the ensemble.

Want to see the dog house when it’s finished?

Be sure to follow me on Facebook! I will submit it to the Ag Show by August 1. Hopefully it will pass the jury, and you can see it in person at the opening reception on September 13. Wish me luck!

Filed Under: wire art Tagged With: Celebrate Agriculture with the Arts, dog house, Jack Russel, Madera, Melanie Schow, necklace, wire art

My twisted path to wire art jewelry

April 15, 2016 1 Comment

Schow SteamPower Section wire art

Budding young artist and entrepreneur

Although I have a background in the corporate world and am currently a part-time farmer, art has always been in my life. Even as a kid, I remember going to the beach with my family and making a collage with shells and pebbles. Not only did I enjoy making it, but I set it outside with a for sale sign!

My creative adventures over the years have included knitting, needlepoint, collage, and dabbling in different art mediums. I never imagined then that I’d become a wire art jewelry designer.

Getting hooked by wire art jewelry

It wasn’t until adulthood that I claimed the title of artist. It happened by happy accident when a friend wanted to learn how to wire wrap objects. As a gift, I gave her a class, and we went together.

At the end of the wire-wrapping class, she was satisfied with her finished project, but I kept going back. In fact, I kept taking classes on every possible bead-related and metal-related topic—from seed beads and soldering to wire.

Schow SteamPower Section wire art

Finding my artistic style

As I got deeper into the work, I started hearing about this amazing artist in bead magazines. Lynn Merchant was teaching in the San Diego area and has a rich background in jewelry design. Her many travels including visiting stone cutters in Afghanistan and other artists in far away places. Lynn uses unusual things, very large pearls, and wire in remarkably creative ways. Lynn became a primary influence for my work.

My designs spun off from the techniques and projects I was experimenting with in classes. As I learned, I started to develop my own style and confidence in making wire art jewelry.

art wire springs

In my corporate career at Starbucks, I was trained to teach adults, so it was a natural progression to start teaching my designs to students. From there, I dipped my toe into big shows like Bead and Button and Bead Expo which encouraged me to develop more new classes. It’s hard to believe that was twenty years ago!

Developing as an artist entrepreneur

Of course, being an artist isn’t just about techniques; it’s also about running a business. A few years later, I was found a teacher who would shape my understanding of what it meant to be an artist. NanC Meinhart, who is both a psychologist and recognized seed bead artist, leads groups of artists through a year-long master class. Rather than focusing on recreating other artists’ designs, NanC’s master class helped me find my own voice through wire.

Schow button box wire art

The year my master class met NanC challenged us to take our art seriously, to build a body of work, and to develop a recognizable style. We focused on the necessary details like writing a bio, taking photos of our work, display and logistics required to enter our work in shows, pricing, and more. At the end of the year, our work was shown in a gallery in San Luis Obispo. That year, I developed an artist’s perspective instead of just making things.

Practice practice practice

One of the things that really stays with me was reading War of Art. In it, the author tells the story of two groups of artists. The first group is instructed to make as many clay pots as they can. The second group is told to make one perfect pot. In the end, it was the group that made many who created the most beautiful work. The lesson I got from that was how important it is to make a lot of things and keep at it. Even when it is a dud, or not something you’ll sell.

Today, my work is featured at several local galleries including Madera Circle Gallery and Mixed Messages in Sanger and The Brush and Easel Gallery in Fresno. This year, I’m taking an even bigger leap with my art by making it available for purchase on my website (stay tuned!).

For me, art is about finding a medium you love and then continuing to learn, practice, and take small steps toward creating work you enjoy. What you have enough interest, love, skill, and patience for—that’s your medium. Wire art is mine!

Filed Under: art business Tagged With: Lynn Merchant, NanC Meinhart, wire art, wire art jewelry