My name is Ekaterina Muravyova, and having a few years of journalistic experience, I do not know how to write about myself. I believe, it is always more interesting to tell about others. For a year now I've lived in a small village of Nikolsk (Arkhangelsk region, Russia). In fact, that is in the south of the Far North of Russia.
Last spring our family of three people and four cats moved here from Moscow, got a huge old merchant's house and now enthusiastically restore and rebuild it. Acquiring a home is one of the most insane and right acts in my life. And one way or another, we're here thanks to beads.
How is it said in fairy tales? "Once upon the time..." So, once upon the time, more precisely, almost 10 years ago I had a stable, well-paid job in Moscow. And there was absolutely no time for anything else, including hobbies. And one day I was "lucky" to get seriously ill, so seriously that I had to spend a lot of time at home and my further prospects with good Moscow job became unclear.
I honestly planned to recover at home, but already on the third day of my forced rest it became clear: lying in bed just didn't work, I urgently needed to do something. I looked through my craft passions, got to the beads and... In a day I was sitting over a box of Czech beads picked up in a basket at random, and I was happy.
It seems there were about four kilograms of beads. Four absolutely unsystematic, but very beautiful and shiny kilograms! A month later I ventured to take pictures of my timid attempts to make some pendants and place them on the pages of my blog. And three months later I realized that I would not return to offices and my editorial work anymore, I would prefer to stay at home with my family and beads.
Probably, this way my beading has turned from a hobby into a work - complicated, but interesting. And, apparently, successful because since then, for almost ten years I have never thought about returning to the mysterious world of big journalism.
I'm not looking for any special sources of inspiration. The tree, the stone, the building, the ruins of the old farm, the field, the pattern on the wooden ceiling, the new working materials - literally everything can inspire me, I need just look around to see something.
It's hard for me to imagine what a creative crisis is, when there are no ideas at all, when it's not clear what to do next. Moreover, I would be happy to find in my head the tumbler of the generator of ideas and periodically bring it to the "off" position. Sometimes I don't even have time to write down everything that I managed to come up with during a day.
I don't draw complex sketches for my jewelry. And more often I don't draw even simple ones, I just have a picture ready in my head, so I need to use my hands to resolve a beads-and-stones puzzle. In the work with beads, the process is important to me, it's my main pleasure, and therefore I easily let my items go without regrets. They should be worn, shine, attract attention and evoke positive emotions.
Being the shoemaker without shoes, I myself could offer only the unenviable fate of museum exhibits to my jewelry... But why should a bead necklace be dusted on a mannequin in a glass cabinet, if its main purpose is to please its owner? Here is a simple philosophy of the master: I do things that need to be worn, and I sincerely rejoice when a person and a piece of jewelry find each other.
If we talk about your favorite techniques, the first one on the list is, of course, bead embroidery. I started with it (to be honest, I cannot look at my first attempts without laughter with some admixture of horror) and I'm still in love with this day.
I add woven elements, metal accessories, natural components and various "oddities" to my compositions with pleasure. Probably, there won't be enough magazine turn to list all applied techniques and materials. But the basis for me is still the classical embroidery with beads. This is my personal type of meditation.
To find a job that you really love and which will become a matter of life and not a heavy necessity is great luck. I was lucky. Over the years, the first four unsystematic kilograms of Czech beads have turned into almost seventy kilograms of fabulous materials. And my skills came to the level... And here I am lost, it is very difficult for me to evaluate myself.
It is unlikely that I will ever be able to seriously call myself an eminent artist, climb up to the imaginary peak of the Olympus of crafts and skeptically glance at the beginners. No, it's not about me. I will always learn, although for a long time I have been teaching people who wish to do what I know myself.
If I once understand that nothing is new and interesting in the vast world of beadwork for me, then I will leave everything without regret, I will give materials to those who wish to work and go to search for new horizons. But this hardly ever happens.
I want to say to all beginners and doubters: be creative! Do not doubt, just do it. Today you make an indistinct thing that's better to be hidden from others' eyes and a year later you'll design an incredible beauty of the competitive work that thousands of people will see and appreciate.
Today, you doubt your own abilities and in a few years you will confidently correct mistakes of your students at workshops. Today you are thinking about the need to purchase the next package of Japanese beads and in a dozen years of "non-serious work" with beads will successfully pay for the construction of a house or the purchase of an apartment. And this is very serious.
My gallery on MyLovelyBeads.com
About author:
| Ekaterina Muraviyeva, selo Nikolskoe, Arkhangelsk region, Russia | |
| Email: | unfinishedch@gmail.com |
| Blog: | someoneblack.livejournal.com |
| Facebook: | facebook.com/unfinishedch |
