Honesty, Inspiration and Celebration of Self

Or more appropriately named.... 

My Thursday Ramblings.

Honesty and integrity are extremely important to me.

Both in my personal and professional life.  

I can't stand dishonesty.  

I lose sleep over it.  

It makes me rat myself out to friends sometimes, when I'm planning a surprise for them.

Tabitha, please don't hit me too hard when we go rafting at the end of this month, ok?

And it also makes me do things like remove people from the eggs list who blatantly and bead-for-bead copied the work of other jewelry designers.  On multiple pieces.

I struggled with this.  I never want to say "No" to a customer.

I'm not good at saying No.

I know it is not my place to judge others or their actions.  I try very hard to understand others' perspectives and what it is like to be in their shoes.  But I couldn't on this.  So I removed the name and sent an email to the person about why I did this, apologized for not following through on the custom order and hoped that s/he would understand.

This generated a big discussion at our dinner table with the family.  We talked about cheaters in school and that when you work really hard to learn different concepts, it's not really fair for others to be allowed to copy your work and get the same nice grades.  When we talked about this, it was interesting to see the change in my kids' facial expressions as they grasped this concept.  And they agreed as they thought about all their hard work these last two weeks practicing spelling words.

Which leads to the topic of copying and integrity in the beading and jewelry world.  On the beading side, I am always always always happy to try new techniques and be challenged with custom requests.  I haven't yet called Uncle in the attempt to get things right, although I have come close a time or two.  I love when people email me with descriptions of what they want....this color with these kind of stripes, or encase this, oooh, but can you add that?  LOVE it. 

That being said, I would prefer to not receive pictures of other lampworkers beads to see if I can make the same.  Yes, it is a fun personal challenge to see if I can teach myself different techniques without a tutorial.  But that wouldn't be right for me to then sell those beads.  Not if I didn't change it up and make it my own.  Granted, there are basic bead designs that are well, just basic.  If I'm encasing a small bead in tons of clear, there's really not much I can do to differentiate it from other lampworkers encased beads.  But still.  I am betting you understand what I am saying.

Erin Prais-Hintz of Tesori Trovati wrote an absolutely fantastic post about how you let yourself be influenced.  If you have more than a minute, I would highly recommend clicking over to read her contemplations and conclusions on this.  She warns you at the start to grab a cup of coffee before you sit down to read.  It is very thought provoking about inspiration and how you run with that inspiration.  She included this quote, which I love:

"It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation."
~ Herman Melville

There is also a post written by Kerry Bogert of KABs Concepts about where inspiration takes you after learning the techniques of other artists.  She is celebrating her Totally Twisted Flickr group and the designs from others using her techniques.  Many wonderful creations and none of them are copies.

And while I have you clicking all over the place...check out what Lori Anderson of Pretty Things wrote.  She discusses celebrating yourself.  For who you are and not wasting time/days wishing that you were as good as someone else.  It made me think about appearances in that some of us may seem more blessed than others.  Some have it easier than others.  Some are prettier, more talented, wealthier (as if these should ever be a basis for determining sense of worth or value as individuals), smarter or who has more legos than others.  Or who has a Little Horse and who doesn't.  ;) But we don't know what those seemingly more fortunate people have been through on a daily basis or in their past.  

I don't think that you guys truly need any of these reminders because I am totally convinced I have THE best people who come to my blog to visit with me.  You guys are so wonderfully kind.  And encouraging.  I wish I knew all of you in real life.  That you could sit in my kitchen and share a dinner with my family before taking you to my studio and making one bead before pushing you to sit at the other torch and try making one yourself.  But I need these reminders some times.  

The duck on the pond looks so calm and serene, but underneath the surface those feet are paddling like heck to move it forward and away from its past.  Some of us are unemployed, battle daily migraines, are the crisis managers for supporting families and friends through heart attacks and suicides, contend with multiple sclerosis, juggle work and family as single parents, cope with fear as our children are overseas either with the military or just continuing education.  

So with that, I embrace my own challenges and pray I don't collect more along the way.  I will celebrate being me and focus on my own strengths.  My own challenges and battles?  Well, at least they are familiar and I know how to deal with them.  :)

All of the beads in the pics on this post are in my Etsy shop if you liked what you saw.  Some were added just last night and others are waiting to find out what they will be when they grow up.  If you missed my post from LATE last night, go back and look at more pics of these lovely cobalt blue eggs here.

Aaaaaaand, one last thing...

Kristi/DreamSome Designs has a couple dozen of my raku beads that she's working with now.  You can see her current project and read a bit of a tease about my raku beads, but will have to stay tuned to see what she does with them and how they grow up.