My favourite part of making a piece of jewelry is the designing process itself. Selecting the colors, drawing the lines, forming the shapes. I do it instinctively, and try to make every piece a representation of a thought, a story or a character. Sometimes it comes easy, and other days there are dead ends and a lot of rippping and starting from scratch again. Combining the beads intuitively is something I enjoy very much, but when I have to use the scissors too often I wish even harder for education in design.
However, there is jewelry where you can clearly see that the person who made it is a master of her / his art, and she / he did not skip the hard years of learning and sitting in the school bench. It’s a great pleasure when you can have a sneak peek of their way of thinking and working. Marsha Wiest-Hines is one of them and she was kind enough to answer my questions and show us, how her perfectly-designed pieces of jewelry are born.
You will find here interviews with jewelry makers and fashion designers every second week. Together with them I wish you a pleasent time reading!
Please tell us about yourself and your brand a bit!
I am 62, and have been beading for 8.5 years, as Haute Ice Beadwork. I have been interested in clothing and jewelry since I was a teenager, and have another business I started in 1987, creating Ballroom dance competition clothing, called Made for Movement. That very glitzy world has influenced my beadwork. I like dramatic and sparkly jewelry, and use lots of huge Swarovski stones in my work. I have a BFA in Design for Theater and an MA in Costume Design and Sceneography, and I use that education every day in both of my businesses.
How did your story as a designer begin? Do you remember the first piece you sold?
I stumbled across a book, “500 Beaded Objects” while trying to figure out how to shorten a bracelet a friend’s daughter made for me. I opened the book and knew immediately I wanted to DO THAT! I bought the book and studied the photos. Each piece had techniques listed, so I found a local bead store and began taking a few classes to learn the techniques, Peyote stitch first, and then many others. The first pieces I sold were on Etsy, mostly simple, but it was very encouraging to know other people liked what I made. “Her Tattered Heart”, my second sale on Etsy. I don’t have a picture of the first one.
Please tell us how does your average day look like! It’s so exciting to get to know more about the lifestyle of a designer!
I get up around 5am and try to bead for at least an hour at my kitchen beading bench, before I eat, clean up, and go to my studio to work on costumes. I am at my best first thing in the morning, and find I have sometimes solved problems in my sleep.
What makes your designs stand out of the crowd of other designers? Which are your favorite colors, shapes, materials etc?
I work really hard at both cohesiveness and focus, as a designer. I would like to believe that that shows in my work. I don’t work very hard at selling my work. I would rather bead than market. So I don’t know how well my work would stand out in a marketplace of other designers. I do enter competitive beading events and have done reasonably well, and often those pieces sell, sometimes from galleries, or on Etsy. I also work really hard at neat, visually clean, mistake-free beadwork. I rarely can produce a piece I think is perfect, but I think the quest is worth something. I like open, airy work, and I think outlines and silhouettes are very important. I try to give both positive and negative space lots of attention. I find all colors beautiful, although I struggle a bit with grays and silver. I love all things sparkly, but like natural stones and beads and lunasoft glow too.
For what kind of occasions can we wear your pieces? What’s the woman who wears your design like?
I make a range of things, from everyday, to very formal, to fantasy pieces. The woman who chooses to wear my work is confident in herself. My work is usually bold, not for the meek. It is “shown”, on a body that becomes an art gallery. It is an expression of the wearer’s taste and aesthetic. It is worn because the wearer wants to share her joy in it with others. I almost always make jewelry meant to be worn next to the face.
Where does your inspiration come from? Do you have some rituals to boost your creative energy?
Art is a visual dialog with the world. Everything I see has the power to inspire. I love nature, and especially flowers, so that is often a starting point for me, realized here in a piece called “Picnic in May on Lilac Way.” But sometimes, inspiration comes from non-visual art forms, especially literature. As a trained costume designer, interpreting character visually is at the core of what I love to do. Walking outdoors and reading are inspirational rituals for me as a designer, and I like taking pictures of what I see too.
Do you have a piece of jewelry you made, that is somehow special to you?
The first piece I did for Battle of the Beadsmith honors my mother, who passed away while I was beading it.
If you could design something for a well-known person or maybe a fictional character from a film or book, who would it be, and why?
I do this often! I designed for Maleficent, the evil fairy of Sleeping Beauty fame, in this piece, called “From the Forest of Fairy Tales.”
What kind of clothes and accessories do you wear? Who are your favorite designers and why?
I love an American design house called Art of Cloth, and design jewelry to wear with things from their collections for myself. Their work is structurally interesting and employs both shibori techniques and printing on fabric, and is usually wonderfully colorful! I wear my own jewelry every day.
What is your goal in the future? Where would you like to see your brand?
Yikes. What a hard question! I feel like I am at a crossroads. I have just learned to create vector drawings for beading diagrams, written my first tutorial, assembled my first kit, and I am wondering about teaching. Both are available inmy Etsy shop. I face a challenging year with my costume business. I am fully booked for 2016, and over booked for the first half of the year, which is when I usually do my big competition pieces, but I do not see how there will be time for any big work around my over-full schedule. I also just created my first clothing with bead embroidery and would like to further develop that idea. So my best answer is, I just don’t know. I originally planned to retire in September of 2017, allowing me loads of beading time. But US laws changed this year regarding social security, so I may find I need to keep working for another couple years. I wish I had the courage to jump into trying to make a living with my beadwork. I have a small bead related income each year which pays for my beads and supplies and allows me to attend the Bead & Button Show in Milwaukee, with a little actual profit leftover. But since I do not work hard at selling what I make, and I have not taught, I do not know if it could be a reliable income. You might say I am failing to plan. I hope that is not a disappointing answer!
Where can we see and buy your designs?
You can see my designs on my blog www.hauteicebeadworks.blogspot.com and in my Etsy-shop www.etsy.com/shop/HauteIceBeadwork.
Thank you very much for answering my questions, Marsha!
Tell Marsha Wiest-Hines in a comment, how do you like her art!
And what do you think about the new series “Face to face!”
Whould you like to tell us more about your art and be featured in one of the upcoming interviews?
Don’t hesitate and drop me a line here 🙂
Thank you Erika for featuring my work. Lovely job!
Dear Marsha, it was a pleasure to work with you! Thank you so much!