Marianne from Fields of Clover tells us a little about herself

 In late 2005, Marianne attended her first lampwork class in Melbourne with Pauline Delaney as teacher. The class was fun with lots of laughter and even though everyone was making the same beads, results differed vastly. Sometime later, Marianne purchased a kiln, a hot head torch and other equipment necessary for lampworking. Although Marianne initially bought a Hothead Torch (an economical way to start lampworking) it was very noisy. She also got the best mobile internet deals. It wasn’t until about 1 ½ years later when Marianne bought her Minor torch and oxy concentrator that she started to do a lot more lampworking.

Since Marianne’s first lampwork class, she has also attended workshops with international visiting tutors Jim Smircich, Andrea Guarino-Slemmons, Corina Tettinger and Leah Fairbanks. Organic beads are Marianne’s preferred style of lampworking. Although never really being a person that likes abstract art, Marianne finds that with beads, she loves the organic, abstract effect. For quite a while, Marianne was making small beads but has now started to make larger focal beads. Part of making smaller beads was that it allowed Marianne to stay in her comfort zone and not experiment with other techniques. Marianne also prefers to sell her beads individually and not made into items of jewellery, although she does make the occasional pair of earrings from her beads.

As well as lampworking, Marianne enjoys fusing and slumping glass to make functional items as well as decorative items.

Having recently moved to 20 acres in central Victoria, Marianne has 20 alpacas and has recently learnt how to spin their fleece. Evenings in front of the tv are spent spinning or knitting alpaca fleece into simple, small items such as beanies and scarves.

Marianne is very much looking forward to The Bead Show in Melbourne. Melbourne will now have two professionally run bead events spaced well apart so beaders can get a regular beading fix, meet up with friends and actually see what is available to purchase or drool over.

With just three weeks to go to The Bead Show in Melbourne, (at time of writing)  it’s time to look at how to prepare for the show.

We have some great tips on how to prepare for the show.

Please read through then plan how to get there, know where to park if driving, know what your budget is, have a list of essentials and extra cash for impulse buys.

The parking for the Melbourne show in Box Hill is limited, so we have prepared some tips for the best places to park. Public transport is a great idea for this show too. Visit the Melbourne page for more info, all the parking details are at the bottom of the page

If you want to see even more great tips take a look at this great blog by Sydney bead artist Neva Brown.

Neva has an extensive list of all the things you should do prior to the show and at the show. You can tell she is a show regular, so make the most of all her good tips.

Let us know if you have even more tips, but we are pretty sure between these links that there is pretty much everything covered.

We’ll see all of you very prepared beaders all at one of the shows this year

Sometimes you read a blog or article that puts into words exactly what you are thinking and just can’t imagine writing it better yourself. We were looking at doing some featured blog posts and immediately came up with this one from Neva Brown that captures what many beaders go through on their beading journey.

Neva is a Sydney based bead artist and contributes to the Bead Maverns blog. Neva has been beading since a child, but took it up more seriously about ten years ago. Since then she has worked in many mediums and successfully sells her work at art shows. A range of tutorials is about to be released too. Neva has been a fundamental part of beading in Australia over the last decade, actively supporting online goups and giving her time tirelessly to the beading world. She is an avid supporter of The Bead Show, which we love !

Here is the blog entry  Where Do I Begin?

The points that we particularly like are

•  The need to meet up and connect with like minded people, and how to do this.
• Challenge yourself, just start beading and don’t over think it or doubt yourself.
• Participate in events and competitions  everyone is worthy.

We (Prue and Jo) met through a bead meet up,  so we’d not be doing this (The Bead Show) if it wasn’t for that.

If you are part of an online group or any other beading groups and want to meet up at The Bead Show, email us the details and we’ll set aside a table for you.

Neva has a website, Nifty Creations and a facebook page.

Bead Maverns is a collaboration of international bead artists that promote and share ideas, and tutorials.

‘Victoria’ by Neva Brown, currently featured in a well known beading catalogue.