Okay, after all my rambling the last week I decided I would try out calling myself an artist and it really feels strange.

But I'm going to stick with it as I feel that if we as beaders can't easily call our work art, and its producers artists, there's no way anyone else ever will.

There is a lot of snobbery in the art world and the jewellery world.
- Silvermsiths look down on metal clay artists.
- Jewellery makers look down on bead use
- Glass bead users sneer at plastic beads
- Stitchers are horrified by glue
and I think just about everyone looks down on stringers who seem to fall at the bottom of the snobbery pile all round!
(now before you fire off an email to me add the word 'some' to the start of those sentences)

Now, I don't agree with levels and distinctions and am happy mixing and matching (can you tell?!?) and know that lots of you feel the same, but there is a lot of snobbery towards the use of beads.

I was disgusted last year to visit the opening of the new jewellery gallery at The Victoria and Albert Museum and not see beads (okay in the end I found a great piece by Axel Russmeyer)
When I spoke to the curator about it he just didn't understand and was shocked that anyone would hold beads and beadwork in high regard.
He even said "I don't think anyone is interested in beads"

This from the man in charge of curating the jewellery display.

So what hope have we got of anyone else appreciating us and our work?

After much investigating (!) on my part it seems that a lot of the snobbery towards beads comes from the fact we mainly use pre-bought components- horror of horrors. All we do is 'string together something we bought earlier'

Well ok, sometimes we do just do that, but so what?

How many painters today make their own paint? How many silversmiths hammer out their own sheet to use? 

I really don't see any difference.

Also my experiences standing at craft fairs and dealing with customers is that people rarely put value on time but instead do so with materials.
Try and sell something that took you lots of hours but is made of 'only glass beads' and then try and sell, for the same price even, something that took you all of 2 minutes but contains those magic ingredients of silver and a gemstone and see the difference in what the customer is willing to buy, is willing to pay and values.

One of my proudest moments was at the Wearble Expressions Exhibition in 2008 when my work was up against lots of 'proper jewellery' i.e. using precious metals and gemstones.
I had never been in a competition against anything other than other beadwork, judged by beaders, so when I saw the exhibition and the other entrants I felt sure I was just lucky to get as far as I did.
I had also been told by 'helpful' beaders before I went not to get my hopes up because my work wouldn't be of the same calibre.
But to my surprise and delight I won an honourable mention for Geometric 3-4-2 - you could have knocked me down with a feather!

So beads and beadwork can stand next to other jewellery and be just as valued.

We just need to make sure that we value our work and its producers first and this will hopefully gradually seep through and even 'proper jewellers' and museum curators will one day see the value in what we do.

One a lighter note
Here's some beads I strung together earlier!

This is Geometric 1-9-1 which I finally finished last week and today you can also see Geometric 1-8-1 which I'm delighted to say has reached the Bead Dreams finals.