AOTM
Artist of the Month - May 2012
Trudi Doherty
Introduce yourself
Hi I’m Trudi and I’m lampworker artist making glass beads based in Northamptonshire.
When and how did you get started in your art/craft?
I’ve always been interested in making my own jewellery, and about 5 years ago some of my friends started to lampwork .. I’m nosey and I just had to see for myself what it was all about.
Have you had any lessons? Where do you get your knowledge from?
When I started out I had only had a brief demo on lampworking, and so most of my early skills were picked up from reading books and researching on internet forums. Since then I have been fortunate enough to have lessons with artists such as Di East, Sally Carver, Sarah Hornik and Becky Fairclough
Are there any artist / crafters you admire? What for?
There are so many talented workers out there, and there is so much to learn from them all. I recently attended the Flame Off in Towcester and I so admired Claudia Trimbur Pagel. Closer to home I’m blown away by the fine stringer work of Lorna Prime (Pixie Willow) and I love the sculptural work of Madeline Bunyan.
Where do you get your inspiration from?
It comes from all sorts of places, some times I can see a piece of fabric and I try to pick out the colours and incorporate them into a bead. This is not always as straight forward as it seems as some colours react with each other and you often need to play around to find a solution. Sometimes I work from a challenge set in one of the forums I belong to and other times I ask on facebook for some colour combinations.
Have you got a 'signature' style? How would you describe it?
Styles usually change and evolve as you learn, but it would be fair to say that I lean towards the brighter colours and more often transparents rather than opaques.
Which piece are you most proud of - can you tell us the story behind it?
I’m really proud of my Patchwork beads, most of these have been heart shaped.
The idea is that the bead has lots of “sections” to it that are put together. Inside a typical bead there will be 2 colour tones, dichroic glass, goldstone, a reactive twistie (these give off the lovely reflections), fine silver mesh, and murrini. They’re made up from lots of components and layers so there’s a lot of planning and components to gather before I start making up the bead itself.
Which of your personality traits comes through in your work, do you think?
My mischievous side tends to come out, I like to be light hearted and fun and I think that this shows especially in the colours I put together.
Where can we see more of your work?
I’m all over the place (in a good way)
My website is http://www.glitteringprize.co.uk/
On Etsy www.etsy.com/shop/shineon2
I have a facebook page, and I love to interact and share things on there, sometimes saying what I’m up to and showing off makes from my customers. For the past couple of years I’ve also written tutorials for some UK magazines including Beads & Beyons and Bead, and later on in the year I’ll have a tutorial on an online magazine called Soda Lime Times (one for lampworkers)
Trudi Doherty
..... next month I hopefully will have a fabulous painter from my local town.
If you feel there maybe someone who would like to be apart of this, please contact me
tootsieshandmade@live.co.uk with their details so I can check out their work and get something set up :)
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