Rainbows of color

Rainbow star

I sent my first gifts to my French friends a few days ago and I am now waiting to hearing from them... I hope that everything will arrive safely and that they will like what I made for them. This was either within the framework of PIF's or simply a present I wanted to give because I love them... sweet persons I've never met in real, but whose presence on Facebook makes life a little more beautiful. For example, this  star - a design by Jean Power - is for a girl  I met on a Fibromyalgia-related group... She is, like me, a strong believer in positive attitude and we both love rainbows. I used Delica mixes from Miyuki to make a rainbow with only 5 variations.

June is a very exciting month. Many beaders and teachers are in Milwaukee to attend the Bead and Button show, but there is also the unfolding of the Battle of the Beadsmith, which started yesterday. There is a lot of beautiful artwork to admire in the albums there. Some pieces totally amaze me. It is a crazy moment and it will be hard to choose between two excellent pieces. I remember how difficult it was last year to eliminate one out of two gorgeous necklaces...

'Souls'

The many positive reactions to my necklace totally overwhelmed me. I am so happy that people like it, but most of all, I am incredibly glad that they also understand or simply feel the message behind it, the love.

I have the impression to be part of a huge family having a fantastic bead party all around the globe, and I totally love that.

Below the full description of my BOTB'13 piece.

1) Name of piece: Souls

2) Name of stitches used: Peyote, Herringbone, Square Stitch... The clasp is a hidden clasp made of a loop under the crystal bead and an empty ‘pod’.

3) Name of products used, size and material: Seed Beads, Anthracite, Miyuki 15, Czech 11, Czech 9, round dyed howlite beads, 4mm, 6mm, Swarovski crystal bicones, 6mm, crystal cup chain, black Nymo, smoke Fireline, Delicas size 11/0 for the ring, gunmetal lever-backs for the earrings.

4) overall size of piece. Length 44cm - 17.5’’; width from 2.5cm to 5cm- 2’’ (depending on how the ‘curls’ are positioned); depth approx. 2.5 cm (1’’).

5) time to complete: approx. 100 hours

6) -

Inspiration for ‘Souls’

I am a firm believer that the soul never dies, that it goes through stages of development, that it is in a body like a seed resides in a pod, and gets liberated when time has come...

We all have chakras in us, represented by colors, equivalent to the rainbow, the stairway to heaven... it’s inside.

Take a color wheel and turn it, and it will seem to be white... That is because it is made of opaque colors. Pure light is made of all colors. Each color is of equivalent importance. So to become enlightened, every step needs to be made, experienced. There is no good or bad. If one color is missing, it cannot result in perfect light at the end. Light is equivalent to truth, to knowledge.

This necklace is an allegory of the walk of life.

It has a very organic look on purpose, curling, moving, making tours and detours, here and there a soul falls, sometimes it is too much in the green or blue or red zone... The walk is never straight and there are many side-walks.

The soul which has experienced everything and evolved to a miraculous level of consciousness has not one specific color, it has them all. It is pure light, like crystal.

You can do anything, anywhere. But whatever happens, wherever you are, the walk is paved with diamonds. They are not always visible, but they are there, all the way long, all the time, at every step. Because Life is glorious.

Namasté.

'Souls' - back