My name is Elena Markovski, I'm known as "ElenaMK" among beadweavers; I live in the town of Landsberg, Bavaria, Germany. My love to arts and crafts was born in my early childhood. When I was 5, I learned to knit; when I was in first grade, I myself learned crochet by books. In my list of hobbies there are leather crafting, felting, tapestry embroidery, cross-stitching, sewing and more.
I always liked to draw, and our apartment was nicely "decorated": walls, furniture, cloths, books; I even painted my own body. No wonder that in the 10 years my mother brought me to art school. After graduating from high school, I went to the Ural College of Applied Arts in Nizhny Tagil, Sverdlovsk region.
My passion for gems comes from there, and a book of Pavel Bazhov's tales "Malachite Box" is still my reference book so far. I'm very grateful to the wonderful college teachers that have developed and strengthened my creative qualities as a sense of harmony and spatial imagination. It always helps me in any field related to creativity, whether it's fashion, interior or jewelry design. After graduating from college, I worked as an painter in the puppet theater, where my skills and knowledge acquired in school were supported by practice.
I don't remember when I first got beads into my hands. Perhaps it was my mother's scattered Czech glass beads necklace. I was very happy when my mother allowed me to collect beads on a string and demonstrate my creative inclinations. I didn't just string beads of that necklace but combined them with others! Then there were the baubles and bracelets for my classmates, who were my source of materials bringing me their mother's beads in transparent boxes. My passion wasn't permanent at that time: there was no literature and good materials, and gradually beading has come to naught at this stage of life.
In 1998 (the Soviet Union had already collapsed) I moved from Kazakhstan where I lived to Russia. When I was on my way to a new place of residence I had a transfer in Moscow (there was a big gap between trains) I didn't miss the opportunity to stroll around the capital, I accidentally bought a book on beading in the underpass. Unfortunately, I don't remember the author and the book was poor in general: lots of photos of the simplest items, some of them had quite an unfinished look, "raw" patterns, which I have refined by myself later on.
But thanks to this book, I drew attention to the beads resulting in that I created my beaded topic. Because it was a long time ago, no photos have survived, but the topic remained in the memory with the feeling that when I walked in a topic in the city I was hearing the following: "Look! Is that made from beads???!!!" People didn't even try to hide his delight. Thus a new stage in my spiral "bead" of life began.
In Russia, I graduated from the Pedagogical University, faculty "Technology and business", as a "Crafts Teacher." My specialization at the University was beading and the theme of my Thesis was "Development of creative activity of schoolboys in the bead workshops." During my studies and later work at the university, I had several groups of pupils and students whom I taught beading. During this time I have learned how to create training materials for workshops and to organize courses.
Developing tutorials, I pay a lot of attention to patterns always trying to achieve such clarity that they are universal for artists from different countries, as it is impossible to translate descriptions in all the languages of the world. My tutorials are sold around the world and customers write in feedbacks that all is clear even without translation.
And then there was quite a long break. In 2005 I moved to Germany and get married marriage, then I had a child and have learned German. I didn't weave at all, but ideas of jewelry, accessories and interior decorations permanently came to me. From time to time I've bought beads and just collected them. Then our family went through a bitter period, and it so happened that I even had to ask for help from a psychologist (at the end of April 2009), who advised me to think of any hobby and do it.
I decided not to invent the wheel and just to remember well forgotten old. I sat down at the computer and found through a search engine a website , where I has been registered once but so long ago that I forgot my password and username. Fortunately, everything was easily restored. When I looked through archive beadworks, I was deeply impressed by how far forward beadwork stepped.
Thanks to the courses by Galina Pchelkina I started a new climb - not step by step but from floor to floor. I have learned techniques, which has not been previously familiar to me. I had lots of cabochons occasionally bought and didn't know what to do with them, and I understood how I could apply gems. Now there is no unknown techniques for me.
Someone from my colleagues compared bead weaving with sculpturing and painting with embroidery; since my favorite subject in the art school was sculpture, then weaving for me is in the first place. My favorite are square and ndebele stitches, although from time to time there is a huge desire to take "a brush in hand" and make bead embroidery.
I really like miniature items, and mostly I work with beads 15/0 and smaller. Many people compare my beadworks with jewelry from precious metals and I incredibly proud by that. The size of my brooches and pendants is very small, some no more than 4 cm in diameter and sometimes hard to be seen from a distance (but people say they remain in memory for a long time), that is why I don't participate in bead competitions. I respect those designers who create three-dimensional beadworks, but I think that it is much more difficult to achieve a stunning effect in a small piece.
I was greatly inspired by beadwork of a well known designer Tatiana van Iten. I gently love her for her ability to combine incongruous, to draw inspiration from nature, literally "from the puddle" (do you know a saying, "Someone can only see a puddle in a puddle, and someone - a reflection of the sun?"). I also like creativity by Olga Shumilova for its inescapable personality. Her beadwork is incomparable with anything and is very close to me in spirit. I've got a folder in my computer named "Inspiration"; there are the photos of my favorite beadworks as well as many works of jewelry designers, beautiful nature photos and graphics.
Now my plans are not just creating and selling my own jewelry, but also writing tutorials where I want to include topics to teach artists to photograph their beadworks without the use of professional equipment, as well as to draw patterns and to create and sell their own tutorials. I wish you all the joy of creativity and good luck!
My gallery on MyLovelyBeads.com
About author:
| Elena Markovski, Landsberg, Bayern, Germany | |
| Email: | elenakryiov@yandex.ru |
| Blog: | emeraldwelt.blogspot.de |
| Online Shop: | emerald-welt.de |
| Facebook: | facebook.com/elena.markovski |
