2015

December - No Meeting

November - Annual Potluck & Holiday Party

October - Melanie Potter

Melanie Potter is an artist/designer teaching unique off-loom seed bead jewelry designs. She is to be aMaster Teacher at the Bead and Button Show 2016.Melanie is also a graphic artist and she professionally illustrates and lays out all her instructions. She was named Designer of the Year 2010 for Beadwork magazine. She also presents Beads on the Vine, a yearly beading experience offered on the California central coast See more about Melanie at www.melaniepotter.com. Her talk will be about the habits she uses in creating symmetry between the demands of creating new design work with her beads while devoting time to her family and friends. She will emphasize her commitment to “meat and potatoes” activities such as exercise and the invaluable habit of cultivating “margin” in her schedule for spontaneous moments. Join Melanie in this presentation that is relevant to cultivating creativity that feels natural to you.

September - Dewayne & Alise LUndmark

The talk was on Geodes, their formation, and a little bit about the difference between geodes and thundereggs. DeWayne spoke about where they are found and some of the mineral formations that are found inside them.  There were a variety of opened geodes to view as well as a variety of unopened geodes that the members could purchase and open themselves with the infamous geode cracker!

DeWayne Lundmark is a transplant from Conneticut, and has lived in Oregon for about 25 years. He is a remodeling contractor by trade and also own a business with his wife, Alise, called The 3rd Rock which is where they sell mineral and fossil specimens from all over the world and crack geodes from different localities.  They live in the foothills of the coast range in Gaston, Oregon where they have a small farm and raise chickens and turkeys. They also have 3 German Shepherds, 5 cats and rescue exotic birds that need homes; they currently care for 18 parrots.

August - No Meeting

July - No Meeting

June - Potluck & Chair Sale

May - Angela Swedberg & Katie Anderson

Angela Swedberg is a Tribally-Certified Indian Artisan, in compliance with the 1990 Indian Arts and Crafts Act.   Angela has been a professional conservator of Native American art for museums, art dealers and collectors for over 25 years.  Her expertise is in 19th century bead and quillwork, with an emphasis on Plateau art and Native horse gear.  Angela's extensive study of 19th century material has given her an in-depth knowledge of beading and quilling techniques which she also applies to her own historically inspired artworks as well as contemporary expressions.  She also works in art glass, using a new medium to add a further dimension to age old art aesthetics she works in.  
 
In the presentation, Katie introduced members to a new project at CCHM and Angela discussed the differing beaded and quilled items currently in the collection of the Clark County Historical Museum.   She addressed the ways in which these items were made, as well as what cultural context in which they were created and used in.

Katie Anderson is the Executive Director of the Clark County Historical Museum (CCHM) in Vancouver, WA.  In her 16 years of museum work, Katie has handled collection relocations, collections crises (pest infestations, mold and water leaks), start-up museum, e-commerce and Point-of-Sale implementation, marketing campaigns, fundraising campaigns and more.  Katie was Executive Director of The Bead Museum in Glendale, Arizona from July 2006 to December 2008.  It was there that she learned to bead and develop a deep appreciation for bead history.

April - Alice Scherer

Speaker Description:  Alice Scherer is the Founder of the Center for the Study of Beadwork, established in 1989 in Portland, Oregon to promote the field of contemporary beadwork.  This organization now serves primarily as a base for her independent research in indigenous beading traditions worldwide> She is also currently the Secretary/Treasurer for the Society of Bead Researchers, an international organization devoted to gathering and disseminating bead and beadwork research through its publications The Bead Forum and Beads: Journal of the Society of Bead Researchers. She is also co-author of the seminal book The New Beadwork, which established the “beadwork as an art form” movement in 1992 and has written numerous articles on beadwork for Threads Magazine, Ornament, Fiberarts, and Beadwork Magazine. Additionally she has curated or juried several exhibitions of beads and beadwork around the United States, including the 1986-1989 groundbreaking show The Bead Goes On, a two-and-a-half-year traveling exhibition which was the first serious effort to cover the work of contemporary beadworkers, initiated and managed by Visual Arts Resources at the University of Oregon in Eugene.

Lecture Description: From Basket Making to Beadworking  showcased the woven beadwork of indigenous peoples of the greater Pacific Northwest from northern California through Oregon and Washington and into British Columbia and Alaska during the 19th and early 20th centuries. It described the evolution from very early basketry-derived techniques to the point when Western-introduced beading looms and frames and easier, more design-flexible bead embroidery became the dominant forms of beadwork expression throughout much of the region. From Basket Making to Beadworking placed Northwest indigenous beadwork in the context of beadwork worldwide during the 19th century and discusses the importation of beads into the region both during the British and American fur trading eras (1808 to c 1860) and the several-decades-long flood of American pioneers which followed relatively soon thereafter (1842 through about 1890). Each era had its stylistic effect on the native work of the times, as did the types of beads which flowed in. Beadwork from Northeastern Indians came in with the fur trappers and traders, the inspiration of which style of working was later subordinated to designs/methods imported via women pioneers and especially ladies magazines of the day, with further inspiration by printed designs on fabrics and wallpapers, as well as advertising images in newspapers and magazines, as the 19th century drew to a close and our hectic 20th century began.

March - Teresa Sullivan

February - David Vance Horste

"The Stones Cry Out:  The Art of Gemstone Nomenclature and Identification"

David V. Horste has been studying rocks and gems since 1976.   In the lecture, David spoke about how stones have received their names throughout history and how stones are named today.  Varieties of stones and how names evolve and change were explained.   The misnaming of stones in the gem trade is an important issue to understand and David covered many stories and examples of this practice.  Being able to identify stones and call them by their "correct" names is an art as much as a science, if not more.

David V. Horste of DVHdesigns is a custom lapidary source for designer focal beads and cabochons.  He works in semiprecious stone and organic gems (jet, fossil ivory, shell, bone, etc.) along with up-cycled materials such as bowling ball, fordite, and recycled glass.  You can see more of his work and find his online shops through his website, www.dvhdesigns.com. 

January - Mary Gobbet

Mary Gobet’s love of   history, fashion, foreign culture and fibers & beads, provides a firm backdrop for being the owner of a vintage clothing/costume shop in Aurora (Imagine that!) and now an event and ecommerce business (Beyond Mirays) - a genre specific to the accessory business.  Frequent travels inside the US and to Europe help with research & resources.  

Tactile Vision: Our vision can be greatly improved if we introduce the tactile element, which then naturally became the path with which she followed in every art form she attempted - from embroidery through vintage clothing restoration to 3D sculpture to bead embroidery.  Mary uses her Tactile Vision to make her art interactive and enjoyable for everyone. Specializing in genre art, Mary brought to light the fun and imaginative world of Cosplay via Renaissance Faires, Fairy Festivals, Swashbuckler Balls and Steampunk Conventions.