This article interests me: http://bit.ly/bSGkb3 . Apparently persons who are diagnosed with depression have reduced ability to perceive colour contrasts. I wonder what we’d see if we looked at art works made when the artists were experiencing depression? Time to look at some of the beads I made in my darkest times.

Love this work, what a jolt of Vitamin C for the soul!

I spent the afternoon in jail. I had the opportunity to do a “jewelry with meaning” workshop at the local women’s prison with the Occupational Therapist and two OT students who are there. It was great to see what the women created and sad to see how hungry they are for purposeful, meaningful things to do. The project encourages participants to identify strengths and then make a bracelet that reminds you of those strengths on a daily basis.
Thanks J, L & L for letting me be a tiny part of the work you do.

I’m really excited about a meeting I had on Saturday! For some time, I’ve been hearing people talk about community-engaged art. As an Occupational Therapist interested in healthy communities as one determinant of health, and as someone who knows that art heals, I am really impressed with the initiatives coming from Arts on the Avenue. And now it looks like there may be a possibility to be part of this through doing a wearable art workshop in the spring. OT and community-engaged art – a good match!

The Aurora Borealis Fireflies, a local beadmaker group that I co-founded with my friends Pat and Janelle, celebrated Christmas this week with our Annual Xmas party, full of good food, great company, and this year – the changing of the guard. Pat is stepping down as Secretary, and I’m stepping down as President after 4 ( or is it 5? ) years. We’re delighted that some really competent and energetic people are stepping into these roles. To celebrate, I got darlink dollar store tiaras for the new Executive team – pictures were taken, so when I get a copy I’ll post it here. We are, at this point, the only Canadian chapter of the International Society of Glass Beadmakers, and Edmonton has become a real hotbed of bead-making talent. So I’m glad to see the group healthy and with plans for the next year.

Thanks Cindy, Tara, Kyra and Marianne (who is carrying on as Treasurer)! And thanks to Cindy (hostess supreme) and everyone at the party for a lovely evening.

My business partner Liz and I did a Purple Mangoes workshop this week. We called it “Comfort and Joy” and made beautiful small glass vessels and toppers, which we showed our participants how to wire-wrap into a pendant. We had 5 different essential oils – lavender, bergamot, orange, pink grapefruit and tangerine – for people to fill their vessels with. When people wear these little creations, they’ll be able to enjoy just the slight scent of something that brings some comfort and joy in the midst of their day. In this hectic season, and in these challenging economic and political times, it seems more important than ever for maintaining health to remember to take time to savour what is good. Here are some other ideas about ways to savour – to enjoy the moment. Enjoy!

I spent the past 3 days writing abstracts – 2 with colleagues for presentations at the Canadian Association of Occupational Therapists conference next July in Whitehorse. The other abstract was for the program for the Edmonton and Area Teachers’ Convention next February. I’m doing a workshop there on using jewelry projects in the classroom – more of my work at bringing together my occupational therapist and artist selves. I need to recharge my camera and get permissions before I can download my Red Deer pics – in the meantime, check out Carrie’s pictures of her PMC class at RDC – the wonderfully coloured fish was made by Katherine Shuttle – how did she get that patina??!!

I’m here to teach a 5-day beginning bead-making class. Red Deer College has a summer arts series every year – an amazing array of classes and instructors from near and far. I met a few of them this evening at a very nice Japanese restaurant. There’s another hot glass course happening this week, as well as drawing/painting, ceramics, silver-smithing and a Precious Metal Clay course. I’m hoping we might be able to do some collaborative work. My friend Carrie (Beadtree.net) and her mom are in the PMC class, along with someone I work with at the University. I can’t wait to see what goodies they make. And, of course, I can’t wait to introduce my students to the wonderful world of hot glass!

It’s hot here, but lovely. A resolution I’ve made this summer is not to complain about the heat. It’ll be gone so soon. It’s amazingly green here too. Usually by this time of year and with a run of hot weather like this it would be turning brown, but there’s been lots of rain at night.

Hopefully my class will let me take some pictures to show what we’re doing in the class. We’re in a new classroom this year in the trades part of the college.

More to follow in the days ahead …

Here’s one of the beads I made as a practice for our “service”. I think a dozen of these along with some glass disks in between would make an interesting necklace. Or perhaps it would be fun to add a few crystals below and a wrapped loop above and hang this in a window, or from a rear-view mirror.

The main intent of this project is to picture the sugarcube as something that is taking up space in one’s life and preventing the possibility of something new from entering.

Letting go often seems more difficult than holding on …

I’m getting ready to do a session tomorrow at Westwood Unitarian – “Spirit and the Material World”. Just a chance to talk a bit about beads, bead-making and bead-using as an element of spiritual practice. Because this is a summer service, I don’t know how many people will be there, and I want to have people actually make some beads. So I’ve spent the evening coiling quite a bit of 22 ga. copper and german silver wire. I found a fun bead to make in one of my books – basically slightly stretched out coils wrapped around a sugarcube. Then you dissolve the sugarcube under running water and are left with a large, lacey funky wire bead that’s very light. I’ll take some pictures tomorrow – after all that coiling (and thanks to my husband for helping), my eyes are shot.

I get to do such cool things!