Yep the cat is out of the bag, and Bead Mavens are/is launched.
This was an idea Linda L. Jones and I have been tossing around for a while. You meet a lot of beaders through Facebook and some you just click with, it was like that for Linda and I, so talk about working on something together was natural. With the rebirth of Artfire it seemed like a great time to create something new, so with an Artfire store being the keystone we began looking for our 'gaggle' of beaders.
We had a simple set of qualifications....
They must be a professional beader charging correctly for their hard work and talent, they must teach, they must be pro-active in promoting beadwork....oh, and we had to LOVE what they did :)
Now, while it's very easy to find gorgeous beadwork, the teaching thing slims the numbers down, plus we were looking for relatively new designers/teachers.
Nancy Dale was an instant choice....her work is amazing and as she's just started teaching she was exactly what we were looking for.
Good Quill Hunting was next up....stunning work and a power house of energy and ideas...no brainer!
My next suggestion was Cynthia Newcomer Daniel of Jewelry Tales, someone I've known for a while and whose work I love...it's very light and lacy and she writes the best tutorials.
Linda's suggestion was Peter Sewell of Beadsage. I confess I was not aware of Peter's work but as soon as I took a look ...OMG, yes! So Peter became our token bloke :) and the only one of us not in the US. He's a Brit like me and weirdly enough lives in basically my home town.
So this is our core six.
Will there be more Mavens? Yes, we do look to increase our numbers once we have everything in place and get comfortable with it.
The dream/goal is to be able to have Bead Maven workshops and retreats all over the US and, obviously England and maybe the world....lol, dream big!
A bead calendar with a project a month will be first up, a collaborative book will hopefullly be next and who knows what else we will think of.
As teachers we all want to spread the joy and knowledge of beading and we feel this is a great way to do it.
On other fronts....did everyone catch the amazing giveaway from Carol Dean Sharpe? She's actually going to giveaway her fabulously creative new bead.Go to her blog and make a comment to enter to win this beauty.
And that's all for now.
But do stop on by the Bead Mavens blog where Wednesday is Nancy Dale Day!
Linda isn't in the U.S. either Luv, she's Canadian... :)
ReplyDeleteI have an Artfire account, but have never done anything with it. Sounds like you've built yourselves an absolutely fantastic team! Bravo!
Lol....well, she's at this side of the ocean and she's so close to the northeast I tend to think of her as being here:)
ReplyDeleteGreat selection of Mavens and a bloke :-) All whose work I admire.
ReplyDeleteLooks like a fantastic collection of talent! I'm sure that there will be plenty of good things to come out of this group as it develops. I'm looking forward to hearing about it!
ReplyDeleteThis is such a fantastic idea. I was excited to receive an invite from Linda on FB to check out the page.
ReplyDeleteSuch an awesome selection of artists and I am so excited to be following the blog.
Can I make a suggestion to perhaps offer online classes for those of us in other countries or those who are not able to attend the workshops. That would be fun!
Well done Mikki - I am sure this will be a very successful venture with a lot of support from a wonderful beading community throughout the world.
Karyn