can you read my mind?
Ok, things are returning to normal a bit around here. I got over my kiln misfire and did some online shopping and paperwork yesterday, and Chuck promised to get me some new elements (don't forget Charlie! Aim 88 elements!) I fired the big kiln yesterday and although it takes FOREVER it means that I will be able to ship some orders out tomorrow. I will be delayed in future orders a bit though, because I need to fill that big kiln with more than a tiny bowl of beads for the next bisque. Better hop to some beadmaking!
So yesterday I wanted to talk about simultaneous inspiration. In the past, oh five years? that I have known fellow ceramic bead artist Gaea Cannaday, we have experienced the strangest phenomenon of coming up with the same bead ideas at the same time. It is truly bizarre! When we met, we were both already pretty settled into our work and had our own visible and consistent styles. We used some of the same clay and glazes, but the similarities were much greater than that. I think the first thing we really noticed was a face we had each made, very similar with spirals all over it. It freaked us out at first, as we were both sort of afraid that the other would thing we copied. The dreaded "COPY" word is highly feared in the art world, and in the bead world, so the thought of the accusation was troubling. I forget who spotted this one first, but the next time, the other person spotted the same idea on the other person's site. I think that time it was the use of words in charms and links. So since we both knew that the other could not have seen what we had been working on at the same time, we realized that it was simultaneous inspiration.
In the past few years, this has happened numerous more times. We laugh about it now! We both did skulls, kissy lips, devils, goddesses, frames, words, and bubbles (i will show you that tomorrow) at the same time. Yesterday I saw that Gaea had some great wooden twig like beads on her blog, and it didn't surprise me at all that I had the twig link shown above sitting right next to me, ready to be photographed for Etsy. Check out Gaea's new wooden ceramic beads, they are awesome! Since we have our own styles, they are always different enough, even though the basic idea might be similar, so I love when this happens now, it makes me feel connected to some sort of soul sister on the other side of the country.
The funny thing is, after I made my twig above this fall, I noticed pretty much the same piece around the neck of my other friend and fellow bead maker, Diane Hawkey. We have this same phenomenon happen on occasion as well, lol! Or I may have simply copied it, I don't know. It seemed original at the time, but when I saw it on her I thought, well, I probably have seen hers before...the bird too (although I have made birds for a long time, this is the one and only in this large size, which is more her size bead, so...) The difference here is that Diane is a friend I know in real life, and see frequently, while I have never met Gaea, she is an internet friend. Go check out Diane's blog, which I just noticed that she has been updating more frequently....way to go Diane!
So the song of the day is "Can you read my mind" by the Killers. Love this song, and love the video set in Japan, but I have been enjoying the slower, live versions of songs on the new CD, and this one looks live...
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