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home:
Diana East Class
Name
Dropping...
Last
week, on Thursday & Friday August 5th & 6th 2004, I got the opportunity
to take a class with Diana East at the last minute. Corina of Corina Beads
got sick & could not fly out to California, so she asked on her site
if anyone was interested, and boy was I. So on Thursday morning I got up
real early & drove the 70 miles or so to Jim
Kervin & his wife
Peggy's house in Livermore Ca. Jim wrote the book "More than you ever
wanted to know about Glass Beadmaking", I believe the book is in its 4th or
5th printing. He also wrote Pate De Verre & Kiln Casting with Dan
Fenton. Most recently he has decided to write books about individual glass
artists, such as the one called "The Wild & Wonderful World of Sharon
Peters & her Silly Sculptural Shapes" & "The Fanciful Floral Beads
of Leah Fairbanks & her Garden of Glass". I believe he is working on
a book about Diana East as we speak. You can find his books at many glass
web sites & book stores such as this one Flame
& Fusion CA,
So I got there in time for my class which was all
about surface work, like Sandblasting, Gold & Silver Fuming, carving
with a dremel &
Etching. New ways of using enamels, silver, gold & dichroic glass on
these beads that are constructed one layer at a time, only to be revealed
later with one of methods or all mentioned above, such as Diana's Wave
Bead, photo below.
All the beads we made in class took 2 days to complete. Here is
more name dropping, the other students in class were, Shirley
Cook, Janice
Peacock, Lisa Niven
Kelly, Kim Sullivan, Sharon
Peters, Julie Wuest,
& Nanette Young-Grieiner, each & every one a true & awesome
artist in their own right, ok I better stop, this is where Sharon would
say to me that I am sucking too hard. You can click on some of their names
to be taken to their site. As a side note, most of the class students also
has a bead or two in the new book "1000 Glass Beads" I was going
to bring my copy on the second day & get autographs but sadly I forgot
it.
Diana East was/is a great teacher, I learned all kinds of new tricks &
got lots of new ideas of how to incorporate all kinds of inspirations from
class in to my small beads. In class all the beads were over 2 to 3
inches...and took 2 days to make, by the way that is why you will only see some
of the finished beads from class as others had to be fire polished after
the surface work was done & put back in the kiln again on the second
day. Diana's beads sell for hundreds of dollars each and have won prizes
and have been showcased in art museums...I am a lucky girl, thank you again Corina
for giving me the opportunity to take this wonderful class...
Click on photos to enlarge, sorry my photos do not do justice to the
talent.
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Here is the teacher herself Diana East
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from left, in green, Kim, Peggy, Jim, Lisa,
Julie, Nanette, Diana, Janice, Sharon & Shirley...we had great
Indian food 2 days in a row...yummy & fun company
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Lisa & Janice...
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Some of Diana's beads before they were
Sandblasted or etched
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Here are some of Diana's beads after they had been etched or
sandblasted, the wave bead goes through so much work to look the
way it does, I am just sorry my photos do not do justice to anyone's
beads...
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Julie's beads before, sorry I do not have
photos of after of her beads, she had to leave early & I did
not get a chance to take photos of her lovely gorgeous beads, I
can tell you, the first one of the left ended up being a wave bead
that not only had waves on the bead by also an impression of waves
in 3 dimensions on the side...such awesome talent.
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We all watch as Diana shows us how to mask
off the parts of our beads that we like to keep shiny and get the
bead ready for sandblasting or etching or carving with a
dremel...which by the way is how you finish off her wave bead...
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Some of Janice's beads, what is hard to see
in photos is that, there are designs under the enamel, after the
beads is annealed you mask off part of it & sandblast it,
moving the mask gives you the design that you see for example on Janice's
beads...she has to promise to send me a photo of her big bead with
metal spokes, that have a smaller bead at the end of them, that
looks like it is a space ship on a lunching pad, it was in the
kiln when we left, if I get the photo I will add it to this page,
that goes for everyone's beads that were still in the kiln when we
left...including some of mine.
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Lisa's Beads, so gorgeous...you can not see
it in the photo but she not only has gold stars on the star bead
but she has etched clear ones too...such art...
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Sharon Peters beads, again just beautiful I wish
you could see more of the golden stars on the blue & red dot
bead...a note about all the sandblasted beads, they have ridges
around the designs...the same can not be done with just etching
your beads...Jim had a $3000.00 sandblaster that we all used to
get these beads look the way they do...
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These are Nanette's bead, I love the the
long greenish one, it has golden bands all over it...you can not
see it, but the short bicone also has golden strips on it...so
lovely
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Here is one of Shirley's beads, love the fall
colors & the gold leafs...
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My beads before the second one from the left
has antennas & a face & the little round yellow bead with
black dots is for one of his antennas, after Jim sends them to me
I will take photos & show him off, same for the second one
from the right...
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Here are 3 of my beads after cold working
them, I love the middle one, it has a core of dichroic glass over
blues & pink which you can see better when you are holding the
bead in your hand. the one on the left is ivory with goldstone
stringer and purple enamel on top that has been gold fumed...the
star one I wish I had sandblasted some more so I could see all of
the blue & ivory designs under the orange 3D stars...I want
to do this again...anyone got a sandblaster sitting around not
being used...? I can start saving for one now...
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This lovely bead/pendant necklace is a Diana
East piece of art that belongs to Sharon who brought in to class for show & tell...oh my gosh have you seen anything
this gorgeous before...? the dots are not dots rather windows to the
inside of the bead...hope you enjoyed your photo trip to my class
I sure enjoyed taking it...
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