My latest geometric piece is finished and off to its temporary home to be photographed for Beads and Beyond Magazine.

I'm really pleased with this as not only was it fun to again create a double-sided piece, so you get two pendants in one, I realised that with a simple decison being made, when joining the two sides, it could actually be strung two ways giving you a total of 4 pendants in one- that's economy of beading!

This exact pendant, and matching earrings, will be a project in the magazine soon but the principle and more exploration of the idea is something I'll be working on more with Kate and Dustin in Tucson for our new book.

I love beading but definitely know just how long it can take, especially when making some intense geometric peices using small beads, so being able to make pieces which are reversible, interchangeable and have multiple functions is a real interest at the moment.

A recent piece I made, and kept hidden, has a secret to it which means it's interchangeable and I'm really pleased with it as it's an idea I've had for a few years so being able to finally create it was a real boost.

As I made it I realised it was a real 'show-stopper' i.e. to my eye it grabs your attention with its size and shape. Just the sort of thing you might make for a competition. And that got me thinking...

I have written before about my feeling on competions, and I still encourage others to enter competitons and see them as personal challenges, but it's quite a while since I've entered one and I have never created anything specifically just for a competition that I didn't plan to bead for another reasons. I have often used competition deadlines as spurs to get on and bead something on my 'to-do list', but this piece would be just for the competition which makes me feel differently about the whole idea.

Every year when I see the amazing winners of Bead Dreams I wonder how many were created just for the competition and how many creators spent their whole year just doing that? Unfortunately I don't have the time to do that and replicating a piece just for a competition seems strange to me. But if I want to enter it then it seems to be my only option. I'll have to ponder this some more.

In the meantime I'll add Nick Cave's writing on the subject to my thoughts and see what comes out in the end. Change music' and 'song' to 'beadwork' and his words seem apt and bear consideration. Do they apply to you? :
"I have always been of the opinion that my music is unique and individual and exists beyond the realms inhabited by those who would reduce things to mere measuring. I am in competition with no-one.
My relationship with my muse is a delicate one at the best of times and I feel that it is my duty to protect her from influences that may offend her fragile nature.
She comes to me with the gift of song and in return I treat her with the respect I feel she deserves — in this case this means not subjecting her to the indignities of judgement and competition. My muse is not a horse and I am in no horse race and if indeed she was, still I would not harness her to this tumbrel — this bloody cart of severed heads and glittering prizes. My muse may spook! May bolt! May abandon me completely!"
Nick Cave, 21st October 1996.

But then what is and isn't a competition? As a song writer and recording artist then surely record sales and charts count? It's a battle against other artists to sell work and get publicity for that work. As I read his words and write this I realise that I have actually entered a competition of sorts recently when I submitted pictures for consideration in an exciting looking book from Lark: Showcase 500 Beaded jewelry. I'm sure thousands of pieces were submitted and I'm delighted that 3 of mine will appear in the book which is scheduled to come out this August. Very exciting! But just by sending my work in I pitted myself against my peers in the beadwork world. And I guess this also happens whenever any of us submit work to a magazine. So as a beader making their work available, is there anyway to avoid competition? Does it matter?

On a lighter note, tonight I had managed to get an invitiation to the opening night of a new pop-up speakeasy bar in the basement at the lovely Shaker & Co. The event is sponsored by Four Roses Bourbon and we got to enjoy some great cocktails featuring it. I had never tasted it before, and despite, not being bourbon lovers, we enjoyed them, and the bar. I plan to work on this tastebud defect I appear to have until I devlop a taste for it.

On the way home we walked by a beautiful looking restaurant all lit up and welcoming looking. It was only as we got closer that we realised it was a Mexican restaurant- Mestizo. Excited, but trying not to get my hopes up, I scanned the menu to see if I could spot tamales as my quest is still ongoing...and what do you know they sold them. And they were good. But can you believe they had a tamale festival which finished on the 2nd February. It's in my diary for 2013 already.