Maddabling: Friday Friends - West Australian Artisans

Hello there - Happy Friday to all of my lovely blogging friends and followers. I have found myself incredibly saddened at the scale of the unfolding aftermath in Japan this week......Japan, sending my love to you and your people, my thoughts are with you.

I am looking forward to a week off next week and will be celebrating my 13th wedding anniversary with my lovely hubby - our intention is to create a section of native garden where we have dug out Hydrangeas and Agapanthus. This will be a growing memory of our anniversary each year. Awwwww ! Anyway back to the business of my Friday Friend feature.

I have a wonderful West Australian Artisan to introduce this week - meet the exceptionally creative Rebecca

from Glass Candy

Rebecca states on her website

Glass Candy offers unique, handmade, lampwork jewellery to those who wish to express themselves and their attitudes through the adornment of wearable art, enhancing their sense of self and reinforcing their sense of individuality ~ Making a Statement.

Intrigued ? Yes, so was I ! Put anything pretty and shiny in front of me and watch the inner Magpie emerge *wink*

I really love Rebecca's range and have made two purchases as gifts for loved ones from Glass Candy - this beautiful pink lampwork focal bead necklace

and this funky bracelet in oranges and purple

I so want this necklace in beautiful blues

These stunning Canary Soda Pop Earrings are sure to brighten your day

and I am loving the Playground Bracelet in Pink - isn't this gorgeous ?

Lastly, I want you to check out the amazing detail in this gorgeous pendant Peek A Boo Daisy - Wow !

Lovely readers, put aside your chores for just a few moments and lose yourself in browsing the pretty glass beads and jewellery that Rebecca makes, and read her captivating story ! I am sure it will strike a chord with many artisans out there.

The Glassy Goodness of Glass Candy

My Husband once said

“They look like lollies....”

and hence Glass Candywas born.......

Glass Candy is my lampwork bead and jewellery design studio located in Guildford, Western Australia and this is a brief story of the evolution of my art and the struggle of finding my way forward.........

I used to dabble in making my own jewellery while the husband was away to keep myself occupied and tame that creative gremlin that resides in all of us arty farts. I think nearly every woman I know has tried her hand at making jewellery at some stage or another, some potter away purely for the pleasure of wearing something they made themselves, for themselves, others, like me, like to share their creativity and love for the art of jewellery design with the retail world (and I could never possibly wear ALL those pieces in the cupboard!)

I’m also a Lampworker (no nothing to do with lamps!) and handmake my own glass beads using rods of coloured glass (sourced mainly from Italy) and a gas fuelled torch. I guess you could say I got a little sick of seeing the same old beads in the bead shop and could never find anything REALLY different to make my pieces expressive. So when I met a Lampworker in early 2007, I got myself some books, a torch and a few rods of glass and set to “trying to burn the house down” as the husband put it.

“A lampwork bead in creation in the flame of my dual fuel Carlisle Mini CC Torch”

It’s not an easy art to learn, while I feel I have a natural ability for the technique and have, on occasion, surprised myself with the skill in which some designs come out, I am by no means an expert and am continually learning new things every day. Glass Candy screams personality. I want my pieces to be an extension of the person who is wearing them. It’s all about making a statement, self expression and being who you want to be, not what you’ve been taught to be. The piece needs to “fit you”, not fit society.

“I’m keeping this one!”

It's hard work, running a home business and looking after two wretched little sausage dogs (who are so desperate for a pool they’ve started excavating the yard for me) and the past 2 years has seen me at markets nearly every weekend getting my work out there and exposing Glass Candy to the people of Western Australia as best I can.

Sometimes you stop and think “Do they have any idea how much work goes into a market day?” 3.30am starts, setting up, dealing with people who think you’re selling cheap mass produced imports or whisper that its that fake Pandora or fake Murano glass and look at you sceptically when you tell them, no I handmake the lot, beads and all.
It’s insulting and some days I really wonder why I do it.

Then I‘ll sit at my torch, and make cute little froggies or dragonflies or bright and gaudy baubles, and I realise why I do it, for the love of molten glass and for the pleasure I see on people’s faces when they take home a piece that is ‘just perfect’ to them.

It’s like they’ve found a piece in the jigsaw puzzle of their life.

This year is a year for change. I came to this realisation early in the New Year when I discovered I had lost my focus. Lost my direction and had no clue where to find that road back to creativity and glorious glass fulfilment.

I had all but given up and decided to throw the lot in and go work a ‘normal job’ for the rest of my life and take pills to quell my creative gremlin. I am sure, also, that most arty farts go through this at some stage or another....... don’t you? Then I had a chat with a girlfriend at the Kalamunda Market earlier this month and everything just clicked and has subsequently, fallen into place.

I am opening a shop. Yes. A shop. My very own permanent market stall that I can make all pretty and sell all of my lovely pieces from for the next 3 months. All in the one place, no setting up and no taking down every day. No lugging around marquees and trolleys and plastic tubs filled with....STUFF, and no getting wet or blown away during the winter season.

And you know what? My gremlin is working overtime. My inspiration has returned and I am firing on all 8 cylinders (my husband argues I only have 4, but he’s never seen me in action). THIS is the change that I am meant to be making this year and I am LOVING it! I feel like I have a purpose again.

My Grand Opening will be the weekend of the 15th, 16th & 17th of April (my birthday weekend! How about that for fate?) And my shop is located in the E Shed Markets on the Fremantle Harbour, #134 (Look for the purple & cream balloons if you’re coming to visit!)

A big THANKYOU to Samara of Maddabling for inviting me to chat about Glass Candy, if you’d like to learn a little more about me, or even meet me in person, hop onto my website www.glasscandy.com.au and follow the links from there!