Lisa St Martin is principly known for her large, dramatic dichro focals. In fact, I took a class from her many years ago in which she taught her techniques, which I used in making my own dichro focals series.
Perhaps for that reason I selected her newer[1] work. Both beads being showcased are made with handheld (i.e. stamping) brass textural tools. I admired them last time I saw her stuff, so this time I finally got a couple for my collection.
34x58x15mm, sodalime glass, including silver bearing. Lisa St Martin 2014/15 (approximately). 1/60sec, f2.
This bead is decorated with a brass stamp mounted on a handle, which I think helps to showcase the variation in the blues. But another appealing—and fairly subtle—aspect of the bead is its transparency, which this second photo showcases:
f2, 1/125sec, photoflood lighting. E620, zuiko macro 50mm prime. Click on the image to see it full size.
I did two things to emphasize the transparent body of the bead in the second photograph:
- I changed from a black to light grey background
- I propped the bead 90 instead 45 degrees from the background, allow for more backlighting.
As you can see it shows quite a different aspect of the bead, and also showcases something not immediately obvious in Lisa's work, which is that this focal would work well either in a necklace against dark fabric or as a suncatcher in a window.
also f2, 1/125sec.
And in fact, I wanted this gold and pink bead because I thought it would look great in my current bead curtain. It's kind of like hanging xmas cards from all your friends, except you get to enjoy them all year round.
[1]She's actually now exploring acid etching and sandblasting, but I had already formed an attachment to these...‘newer’ to me can sometimes mean, within the last decade.
Unless otherwise noted, text, image and objects depicted therein copyright 1996--present sylvus tarn.
