NEW!
These are pictures from a demo I did for the Frederick Art Club on Thursday, May 13, 2010
I really wanted to save these pictures and this entry from my blog on my home page - so here it is:
May 4, 2010
My cousin, Ellen (Ellen Baker Creative Services), challenged me awhile back to make beads that would go with some of her photography. Well, I sure wasn't successful when it came to her orchid pictures - which I just love! And I still want to figure out how to do them so I am happy. But I did okay on the gerber daisy and peach rose. At least, I think so! What do you think?
This picture was taken at the April, 2009, meeting of the Mid-Atlantic chapter of the ISGB at Accents Glassworks in Rockville, MD. That's me on the back row with Darragh and Alice, Jinx, and Deborah make up the front row.
Here are some pictures of the items Bob Rothen and I did for ConneXtions - the ISGB show at the Association of American Woodturners Gallery in Minneapolis.
From the Frederick News Post:
ARTIST PROFILE: Debby Weaver
Middletown artist practices what she used to teach
By MEREDITH A. IAGER Special to the News-Post
Deborah Weaver, of Middletown, was always encouraged by her parents to be creative and ?use her hands.? Today, the 55-year-old former art teacher has found a new level of creative satisfaction with her art-glass beads.
?When I was very young my parents encouraged me to draw and create and make things. We were also very involved in the Saturday morning art program at the Washington County Museum of Fine Arts,? she said.
Her mother was a nurse and her father was a carpenter, setting the stage for her hands-on creativity, she believes. When she was a child her parents would spread out long sheets of paper on the floor so she and her sister could draw or paint. Not limited to the coloring book approach, all of this positive artistic energy gave Ms. Weaver the foundation from which she draws her current bead artistry.
She attended Bob Jones University in Greenville, S.C., and earned her Bachelor of Science degree in art education. She also attended Towson University and received a master?s degree in art education. Ms. Weaver said, ?I decided very early I wanted to be an art teacher.? She always knew that she should take a practical approach to her love of art and got her teaching degree.
?The teaching degree gave me a lot more flexibility in my field,? she said. Once out of college, she began teaching art at a private school in Florida for a year, before coming back to Hagerstown to teach another 31 years at Hicks Middle School in her hometown. At Hicks, she taught fundamentals of art, including 2-D and 3-D art and computer graphics courses. Her career as an art teacher was fulfilling, but she believed it was time to move on and focus on something else in the art community.
Ms. Weaver has lived in Middletown Valley for the last 16 years, and has focused on glass bead making since 1997. Bead artistry brings her great joy, she says, in creating one-of-a-kind pieces.
She likes all aspects of the art world and enjoys working in different mediums. She especially likes to work in three-dimensional art forms. For some years she and her sister produced Beachwood pottery, she tried her hand at contemporary basket making at the professional level, and has always appreciated stained glass, which she still creates for her own home d�cor.
Somehow, along the way, she found a knack for making jewelry, and thought it would be unique to make and design her own glass beads. The correct terminology for the craft of glass bead making is ?lampwork? or ?torchwork,? which is the art of working glass in a torch flame.
Ms. Weaver makes the beads in her basement studio, which she calls Fern Hill Studio. She begins the process with colored glass rods from a supplier in Hellertown, Pa. ?They mostly supply glass to the scientific community, but in the last few years have begun to supply glass artists on the East Coast,? said Ms. Weaver.
Her basement studio-workshop stores these colored rods by the bucketful. It takes her about 20 minutes or longer to complete a bead, depending on the detail. ?It takes a lot of preparation and is a time-consuming process,? she said, but she readily admits she loves what she?s doing and is pleased with the results.
Ms. Weaver sometimes collaborates with silversmith Beth Carey, also of Middletown, on higher end jewelry. But they each retain their own lines of work. Ms. Weaver said, ?Sometimes the designs are ones Beth comes up with, and sometimes they evolve from my ideas.? Their collaborative work can be seen at the Delaplaine Visual Arts Education Center?s gift gallery in Frederick and at 12 W. Main St. in New Market.
The wide assortment of her jewelry extends to many venues, including rings, necklaces, earrings and bracelets. She also makes decorative bead letter openers and pen sets. The variety of items feature a variety of designs and colors in the beadwork, and every creation is a one-of-a-kind original.
Currently, Ms. Weaver is taking metal art courses to broaden her knowledge and fuel new ideas for her craft.
Glass bead artist Debby Weaver working in her studio in her Middletown home. Staff photos by Sam Yu
Glass bead necklaces made by Debby Weaver of Middletown.
Glass bead artist Debby Weaver uses a metal tool to flatten a side of a glass bead she is working on.
A photo of a glass bead bracelet.
Staff photo by Sam Yu A 2,000-degree flame melts glass from a rod onto the glass bead Debby Weaver is creating in her Middletown studio recently.
Staff photo by Sam Yu Glass bead artist Debby Weaver works in her studio.
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