Jennifer Geldard's Class ~ October 2007

This is Jennifer Geldard, a well known & respected Glass Bead Artist from Massachusetts.  There are so many things I like about Jennifer & her style of beadmaking.  She's extremely modest & easy going.  She shares everything she can with you & doesn't hold back on any sharing any tips or tricks.  She's an outside-the-box thinker with glass & that's very refreshing.  She also has this amazing ability to explain aesthetics ~ why certain looks & designs are appealing.  My friend Sabine summed it up nicely, saying Jennifer talks & thinks more like a painter than a beadmaker.

Jennifer taught us how to blow our own glass shards!  This was one of the coolest activities I've ever done in beadmaking.  You melt a wad of glass on the end of a hollow tube called a mandrel & blow it up like a glass ornament.  Then you break it off the mandrel into smaller pieces which you can add to your beads to create cool surface shapes & designs.

Here's Sabine (pronounced Sabina) blowing her glass.  I love the look on the faces of Kimberley & Wendy behind her - as if they're waiting for a big bang to happen.

My work station ~ just thought it might be fun to show you how crazy things get in a short time.  Lots of glass, pulled into thin "stringers" & in the plastic container at the top are some of my glass shards. 

On the second day, Jennifer made a beautiful glass vessel with such ease, it was stunning to watch.  She ended up giving all her demo beads away (scroll down to see the one that I got).

Jennifer also makes some pretty cool jewelry, here's a bracelet she made.

And some pendants with some silver pieces she designed.

Wendy posed for me with a flower bead that Jennifer made as a last minute demo, it took her only 5 minutes to make this bead ~ incredible!

These are the beads I made in the class.  Lots of new techniques that I can't wait to incorporate into my own bead style.

And here is the demo bead that I won.  It's so beautiful!

I'm really happy I took the class, it sort of jazzed me up again & I needed that.  A special thanks to Kathy at Bedrock Supplies for organizing & bringing Jennifer in.

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