presents

Featured Bead Artist

Barbara svetlick

by lisa lilla

“I am a constant artist.  I draw on everything,” Barbara Svetlick reveals, noting that no matter what she’s doing, a doodle is nearby.  When she is on the phone, you will find a page full of doodles.  Barbara loves pen and ink; doodling is what her mind does when she lacks a canvas.

A paralegal specializing in criminal law and the death penalty, Barbara has been married for 36 years with one son and two grandchildren.  She was raised by a father in the military and a mother who gave up her career as a commercial artist to care for her children.  Despite her mother’s eventual migration to the business world, she never abandoned her creativity.  Artistically, her mother’s work was always precise and clean; these aspects of her were also present in her home and overall personality.  Unlike her mother, Barbara is a self-proclaimed “haphazard artist” who is “asymmetrical and bohemian” in her designs – she loves anything “eclectic and bold.”  An avid reader as a child, Barbara still loves children’s books and continues to collect them.  She feels the memories of fairy tales and adventures guide her inner child while she’s at the torch; these memories also fuel her love of flowers and gardens .

In May of 2003, Barbara left her grandson’s communion party to attend a bead show in Miami and afterward bought a Hothead torch, thus beginning her beadmaking journey.  Prior to the bead show, Barbara had dabbled with seed beads for quite some time.  She continues to do loom work and freestyle seeding; it is a calming experience for her that she can do anywhere.  In addition to her bead work, Barbara also enjoys working with ceramics, pottery, fiber art, pen and ink, watercolor, murals, and clay.  She loves mixing mediums and integrating a lot of fibers.

Though she’s taken a class taught by Patti Cahill, Barbara recognizes she doesn’t do well in a classroom because she “can’t sit still long enough”.  Barbara has learned more by assisting Pam Dugger for a few years, remarking, “I learn a lot if I can just sit and watch an artist work or instruct.  I am always amazed at the amount of knowledge in the beadmakers who have been doing this longer than 10 years.”

Finding some inspiration in her favorite artist, Dan Adams, Barbara’s major source of inspiration is Pam, whose work she is exposed to constantly.  The endless possibilities and the visual differences between a bead entering a kiln and one emerging are the most interesting aspect of working with glass in Barbara’s eyes.  She is also impressed with their appearance when submerged in water; she’s found that “beads look better underwater because it enhances the colors.”  She adds humorously, “Unfortunately, few of us live underwater!”

Barbara’s love of flowers and the expression of color in glass have led to a floral signature bead.  Her original flowers were compact and bulky so they could be used in bracelets.  Slowly but surely, her flowers grew larger and more detailed.  “It was just natural and they continue to evolve as I learn about the glass,” Barbara explains, adding, “There’s a lot you can do to make a flower more realistic, but then you make it too delicate for jewelry, so it’s a balancing act.  When I make sets of flowers I actually design the piece in my mind but find quite frequently that the jewelry artist does something totally different.  I absolutely love seeing my flowers in a finished piece by another artist – it is like they are incomplete until then.”

Barbara sells her beads in The Auction Boutique on The Annealer Magazine website, the ISGB Gathering (at the Bead Bazaar), on E-Bay, and on her own website.  She considers beadmaking to be a hobby due to her full-time career, but states, “selling beads allows me to support this habit.”  It also allows her to move onto the next level.  She remarks, “I probably give away as much as I sell.”  Barbara makes bracelets annually for the Sheriff’s Special Olympics; she also makes jewelry for her family and friends, but she does not sell any of the jewelry she makes.  Though she no longer has the first beads she created, Barbara does have the first garden bracelet she made.

Using a GTT Lynx torch, Barbara works with Bullseye and Moretti/Effetre glass (probably equally).  Her favorite tools include Corina’s Magic Wand and Floral Plunger, her pliers, razor knife, an angled pair of tweezers, and a lot of marvers.  Barbara loves marvers; they can be found on and under her torch in handheld and various sizes.  She claims her Creation Station to be the “nicest thing on (her) bench” and holds her generator in high regard as well, vowing she will never give it up.

Barbara’s tools are kept in a studio inside her house designed and built by her husband.  Her husband also designed and built her “The River of Glass Studio,” a full teaching studio in a cottage behind her house.  She prefers working out of her personal studio to the teaching studio because it was designed for how she works.  Barbara advises newcomers to design a studio so that “you never have to leave your chair except when you are finished!  Everything should be within your reach – your tools, glass, mandrels, and the kiln.”

Though Barbara falls in love with her creations momentarily, she does not claim any as her “best” or “favorite.”  She doesn’t believe she’s reached a point in her learning where she is completely satisfied with her work.  Using a Nikon Coolpix L2, Barbara has taken over 2,000 photographs of her beads and is impressed that she has made “so many flowers that are really very pretty.”

Please join us in the forum to congratulate Barb, ask her questions or just say hello!  click here to go directly to the thread.

You can see more of Barb's bead designs at:

www.riverofglassstudio.com