Beading Arts

I'm so happy to be able to share these treasures with you.  Our last stop in England was the world-famous British Museum.  My tastes have always run to the ancient, so I headed for some of the most ancient pieces in the collection.  Created about 2500 BC, these pieces of jewelry were found in a royal Sumerian tomb.  Sumer was the earliest known civilization in southern Mesopotamia, located between the Tigris and Euphrates.  One of the best-known city states in Sumer was Ur.  Most of the Sumerian artifacts in the British Museum come from Ur. This stunning headress is a reconstruction, but the jewelry is original.  This suggests the arrangement of the jewelry worn by the royal Sumerian women found in the grave called The Great Death Pit.  Below is the signage with information about this burial site.  Click the image to enlarge it for easier reading. These are some of the pieces worn by the queen's attendants, similar in ...

The other day, I showed you some photos that I was able to take in Cambridge England (link at the bottom of this post), and today I want to turn to the first of two world-class museums we visited in London!  In no particular order, here we go! Micromosaic jewelry pieces are made from the very smallest glass pieces (tesserae), some of which contain more than 5000 tesserae per square inch!  The necklace, bracelet, and earring set were most likely made in Italy around 1850. This piece is called Devil's Trumpet, and was made from recycled and electroplated cutlery in 2016 by artist Ann Carrington.  It was inspired by Dutch still life paintings from the 16th and 17th centuries. Life Began in Water , about 1950 by artist Sah Oved.  The necklace contains gold, silver, agates, jasper, and aquamarines. Inspired by a Picasso drawing, Portrait of a Woman , artist Wendy Ramshaw made this necklace in 1988 from patinated silver and colorcore. ...

Mike and I just returned from a trip to Cambridge and London, England!  Mike was working, and when I wasn't busy being a groupie, I was out exploring.  I loved loved loved visiting two of the museums in Cambridge, and was sorry that I didn't have time for more.  The Fitzwilliam Museum is not to be missed, but since it doesn't have much to do with beads per se, I thought I'd concentrate on the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology instead.  You must go if you every have the chance.  It is a "small" museum, but is three floors high, with lovely displays and wonderful guides/guards available. In no particular order, here are some of the things I liked best.  The quality of my shots is poor...the lighting as designed to preserve the pieces, of course, and flash photography (as everyone should know by now) is not appreciated.   The so-called square headed brooches of the Anglo Saxons.  They could be worn either direction, so the 19th centur...

The only thing constant in life is change   ~ attributed in various forms to Greek thinker Heraclitus of Ephesus I have fought against it for a few years now, but at last it is (past) time for me to make a change.  I have had a website since 1997 and have been blogging tutorials, artist profiles, book reviews, and art business tips since 2005, as well as writing magazine articles and e-books, making projects for my friends' books and for suppliers, and enjoying almost every minute of it. But now, I am ready to shift my focus to doing my own work, just because I want to do it and not because I think it will make a good blog post.  That doesn't mean that I will not be posting anymore, but it will probably be much less frequently, and may or may not include any instructions. I am leaving you a huge archive full of projects, tips, and inspiration.  Beginners, I have always had a special place in my heart for you.  My goal has been to cater primarily to you...

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