Signs and beading - a new collection in the making

Signs are an important way of communicating in many ancient and contemporary cultures and the process of making meaning from the signs of cultures other than our own can be puzzling, fascinating and inspiring all at once.

In my new pattern collection I am celebrating our human capacity to communicate through signs in and across cultures. My first pattern is based on the musical notation of a G Clef and it celebrates our capacity to communicate music to each other through one particular sign system that originated many hundreds of years ago in Europe (around the 10th Century) and is now commonly used in western musical forms to indicate the pitch of the written notes that follow it. As with all signs it will mean different things to different people - for non-musicians it's meaning will be much less specific than for musicians. I wonder what it means to you. For me as a designer and a beader the wonderful curl of the clef was fascinating to try to emulate, it was a beading challenge - The C and F Clefs are equally fun and challenging to do and the designs are on the way.... stay tuned!

A bead for auction: raising funds for Indigenous education

Kicking Goals for Indigenous Education

A dinner auction featuring bush tukka and raising funds for indigenous education is the inspiration for this beaded bead. The auction is taking place in Queenscliff, Victoria, Australia on 4th June 2011. Supported by the Uniting Church and the Queenscliff Reconciliation Mob, this event will raise funds for the Gavin Wanganeen Indigenous Scholarship fund as well as supporting the local Uniting Church in Queenscliff/Point Lonsdale.

I have donated a beaded bead necklace for the auction on the night - my first ever auction donation so will be fascinated to see what happens.

Meet Vida Goldstein, the Fab Femme collection and a new beaded bead

I have been working on The Fab Femme collection: designs to enchant, stories to enliven for some time now and looking forward to sharing them over the coming weeks. I have just listed a beaded bead in the collection - the Vida bead. (Link here for the pattern)

The fabulous women (Fab Femmes) of the Suffragette movement (1890s – 1910s) who have changed our lives inspired the Fab Femme collection. Each design in the collection honours a specific suffragette. Many of the suffragettes wore jewellery as a mark of feminine solidarity as they fought for women’s rights, especially their right to vote. This was so widely known and recognised that the UK London-based royal jewellers Mappin & Webb, issued a catalogue of Suffragette Jewellery for Christmas 1908.

The Vida beaded bead honours Australian suffragette Vida Goldstein (1869 – 1949). She was a tireless campaigner for women’s right to vote and for a wide range of progressive social welfare reforms. She gained an international reputation for this work. Here are some snippets from an online biography of her.

In 1890 Vida helped her mother collect signatures for the Woman Suffrage Petition and she was involved in the National Anti-Sweating League (a labour rights organisation), the Criminology Society and various other social welfare campaigns. In 1902 spoke at the International Woman Suffrage Conference in the USA, was elected secretary, gave pro woman’s suffrage evidence to USA Congress committee participated in the International Council of Women Conference. Australian women were granted the Federal vote in 1902 and in that year she became the first woman in the British Empire to be nominated and to stand for election to a national parliament. Whilst she lost this election it did not deter her and she actively campaigned to educate women on their parliamentary rights.

Source:
http://adbonline.anu.edu.au/biogs/A090042b.htm