It's a good thing that I'm not a great artist, because if I were, detangling the chronology of my many sketchbooks, loose doodles and undated drawings would be an absolute nightmare. However, I didn't start making beads until 1996, and didn't have a properly working kiln till (IIRC) 1998; initially, I only took notes of stuff at Gathering, and I didn't start attending that till Oakland, in 2000.
Pen and ink splash page for lampwork glass studio notebook, 01Jan2025; 5.5 x 8", graphite & microns ranging from 12 to .005; sony A7c, sony 90mm macro, available light; transform, crop, curve (lighten) tools applied in gimp; long dimension scaled to 4000 pixels (click for full size)
The upshot is that while I did eventually start documenting my own work, not just that of the presenters, it took awhile; The oldest one I could find (without tidying up the 30–40 years of assorted sketchbooks that have piled up for the years) is one starts 03Jan2009 at 331.3, and ends 15mar2012, with 910.4 hours—so about 180 hours per year.[1]
So of course the next one starts 15jan2012 at 881.0 hours. Whoops. It ends 4Jan 2016 at 2371.9. This is my most productive (documented) period, at just under 300 hours per year.[2]
In 23Jan2016, I got my Bethlehem Bravo, Brega (which has been & continues to be awesome), at 2383.9. This notebook had the same number of pages, but was only 5.5" x 8" whereas the older ones were 7 x 10".
Nevertheless, it lasted 5 years; and there's a chunk missing from early 2020, when I misplaced it. Like many creatives, my output plunged from late 2016 on for several years, and frankly, has yet to recover: I did not make any beads in 2024 until March, for example. However, it was with this sketchbook that I started making[3] the fancy splash pages to make it easier to tell when the year turned.[4]
But by the last five years, my output dropped to something under 150 hours/year.[5] Without Page nagging me for beads, or with Fran only occasionally in town to come over and make beads, I had only sporadic projects, such as omiyage for trips to Japan, or xmas beads for the fam, or Patricia B's bead curtain strands. (In fact, both the last entry of 2024 and the first of 2025, were made by Fran:)
Looking at the thumbnail on my phone, I saw some issues with the distribution of the background for the splash page, and it's simply not as nice as the splendid 2022; but on the other hand, it was completed on 01JAN, and that's not nothing. And now that I've been making beads again, it's generated some fun new ideas. More bead making, less doom scrolling wasting time on pintrest & instagram.[6] That's one of my resolutions for 2025.
May the year bring you some joy also.
03Jan2025: added links to other splash pages & footnote about the pink & green sketchbook.
[1]Since the hours on the concentrator is at 331.3, so there ought to be at least one prior. Somewhere. Though come to think, the regalia was a floor model, so mebbe it already had that many when I bought it? Nah, I got it at Gathering in Minneapolis in July/Aug of 2007...so there should be one more, even if it's a bit erratic!
[2]I probably did more back when Page and I were collaborating in the late 90s and early 2000s, buuuuuut, I don't think I kept track back then;)
[3]Technically, studio notebook. The first is actually in a sketchbook Fran gave me.
[4]And as the style is basically a doodle extension of henna designs, neither playing with henna nor all that doodling while listening to youtube videos was entirely wasted;)
[5]I mean, strictly speaking, the concentrator was running that amount of time. Fran might have been making beads, or I might've been letting it run while I ate lunch or otherwise futzed around.
[6]Admittedly I mostly follow other artists or other folks passionately doing something, but still—more doing, less watching.
Unless otherwise noted, text, image and objects depicted therein copyright 1996--present sylvus tarn.
