I joined this phenomenal blog networking program this month and in my blog travels I found WatchMeCreate. It is a blog dedicated to all things beads. One of the contributor’s to this blog responsible for the images featured on my blog is Angelina Greer Garren of AngelinaBeadalina a business she began creating in February of 2006.
The piece that caught my attention!
About Angelina: Forty-one year old mother of James (6 yr old) and Katie (5 yr old). Wife, stay at home mom. Grew up in Kentucky, graduated from Murray State with B.S. in psychology. Love to read, everything from Dickens to McMurtry to the back of a cereal box if there’s nothing else available. Never met a milk chocolate bar (or a shot of espresso with a bit of sugar) that I didn’t like.
“I started lamp working in Feb. 2006, but it took me until about this time last year to start really finding my own “voice” in glass. The business part has mostly involved trying to get my name out there, trying to make “AngelinaBeadalina” a recognizable name in the glass bead making world. It has also involved continually working on photography and online marketing, which most people don’t realize takes up almost as much time as actually making beads.”
“Now, the glass, the good stuff! What really got me started sculpting was a request from our friend’s teenager. He wanted a yin/yang bead for a key chain. Well, when I opened up a book about world religions while looking for a picture of a yin/yang symbol, I opened up a whole journey. Religious art is full of inspiration and ideas for me. I love to read about another culture and then create my own interpretation of its artwork. Also, since sometime last winter, I’ve felt the need to capture an emotion and distill it into a glass bead. Those attempts tend to be the ones that get the most compliments from other glass people. . . and I think it’s because I pour myself into the glass as I torch those pieces. That has to be the neatest feeling for me, knowing that I’m getting close to doing that. The piece may not come out looking exactly like what I envisioned (my skills will never catch up to my imagination!), but sometimes I get very lucky and the piece is full of the emotion I was trying to capture. “
You can also follow Angelina as she talks about family and glass.
I hope you enjoyed Angelina’s pieces as much as I have. I hope too that you take some time to visit her blogs and her gallery.
She is a phenomenal artist who pays attention to detail and works hard to get each piece just right. She does say though that with the goddess piece it took her some patience to see where her muse was taking her in the design process of this very unique piece.