SPOTLIGHT ON ... DESIGNER
October 2007

Our featured designer for this month is Jean Yates

Hi! My name is Jean Yates. Some of you may have heard of me: I am the one with the website no one can spell: www.prettykittydogmoonjewelry.com . Whoops! We should have thought ahead on that! Ah well, It's all worked out, anyway! I have had numerous beading designs in magazines such as Beadwork, Stringing, Simply Beads, and BeadStyle, as well as offerings in the Salon section of Belle Armoire Magazine, and the "Your Work" gallery of Bead and Button Magazine. I have three back cover magazine designs for FireMountainGems, all which have already been published. I have had two designs on the covers of two books, put out by different publishing companies, and have projects which have appeared in four books! A project of mine will appear on PBS TV's great show, "Beads, Baubles and Jewels", and I am also in Australian Beading Magazine, coming up in February 2008. In the works for 2009 is the Beading Bead-A-Day 2009 Calendar. Wow!

The cool thing is, I get to do this from my home, while caring, with my super-husband Jim's help (we are a team!), for our children, two of whom are severely autistic. Yes, all this, and now, in addition to all this, this terrific, extremely GREAT honor which I have received; being chosen Designer of the Month for October 2007 for The Soft Flex Company! As Designer of the Month, I will be following in the paths of some of the most prestigious designers around! I cannot tell you how excited I am to be writing here on the Soft Flex Company website. It is something I have been looking forward to for six months! I am thoroughly delighted and proud!

Perhaps you are wondering how I reached my dream of becoming Soft Flex Designer of the Month.

I think it partially came about because I have forever been immersed in a lifelong relationship intertwining reading, drawing, and essential study of EVERYTHING going on around me; all the minutiae which I have found fascinating, ever since I can remember. Even when I was a little girl, my mind would be constantly working overtime thinking about the details of the things which delighted me. These things were usually fantasy oriented, or based on the affinity which I have always had with ancient cultures, such as the Ancient Egyptians and the Ancient Greeks. It's been a great privilege to have available to me all the wondrous treasures which you can discover and marvel at if you grow up near New York City. My family and I would wander all over the fabulous museums, and all over the city as well. It was a great balance to be near New York City, and then to return to the quiet town I lived in, which was right on the beautiful Atlantic Ocean. When not running around in the city, during times I was at home as a kid, you would always find me reading or drawing.

I think that eventually all this study I did throughout my early years became a dress rehearsal for expressing my great love of creating jewelry!

I am completely intense about what I do, and I hate to waste time! Consequently I just about fall over onto my laptop at around ten at night. My husband puts up with a lot!

I adore dreaming up a full blown jewelry design in my head, as if I have given myself a challenge of some sort. I literally see it come to life! For example, last year I wanted to use some lampwork beads from Lisa Kan for a magazine piece. I used her Serenity Leaves. I chose soft colors of rose quartz and peridot and stung her beads with those gems, and with coin pearls as well. This design is shown below next to my picture. I was confident that the .014 diameter, 49 cable Soft Flex beading wire I used for that piece would hold up to the task and be sturdy enough to be a great starting point, material-wise.

To make a piece like the one I just described takes a lot of care. One thing which is imperative, I repeat, is quality material. As a designer, I want everything to be perfect when I am making something which will appear in a magazine, or for one of my customers. That is why I use Soft Flex beading wire when I string. I know it is reliable, will always have a good "feel", and will remain flexible and strong. It's kind of like what I like about my husband, Jim!

I would like to show some more of my strung designs, so that your Soft Flex Company website readers here might get an idea of what I do, and what my thinking process is like when I design a beaded piece.

The next design I wish to show is one of my private collection bracelets: I call it my "Bee-d" bracelet. There is a fun reason for that name! It has a sterling bee box clasp, and a sterling bee pendant, and some cool other charms which are made of pewter, all by Green Girl Studios www.greengirlstudios.com Everything is strung in a fanciful, playful manner. What I really love as well is that is has "bee-ds" made by Kim Miles www.kimmiles.com, another of my favorite lampwork artists. They are all striped and "bee-like" in look and pull it so colorfully together! How on earth could I keep this bracelet on my wrist, with everyone grabbing at it for a closer look, wherever I go, if it weren't for the quality materials I strung it with? Soft Flex gives me confidence when I string a heavy bracelet like this, using .019, 49 cable beading wire.

The following design is a necklace. I call it the Nouveau Leaf Necklace. It is all in vermeil, with vermeil framed Swarovski 10 mm crystals in tones of browns and clear, and a carved shell pendant. I made this design especially for The Soft Flex Company website, as I wanted to offer readers an "October" colored necklace, never been seen before, except here! I really enjoyed making it. I loved combining the golds and the browns. Incidentally, the little bead spacers are made of red and brown bone beads. The influence you might pick up is a kind of Nouveau Egyptian. Maybe there's a word for it, but I haven't come up with it yet!

The beading wire I used for this again was .019 diameter, 49 strands. I had no intention of having such a lovely and rather heavy piece break due to the wire! I know that it won't, because I strung it with Soft Flex!

After this is a lovely strand of oval tourmalines, multicolored, interspersed with a few rose and clear Swarovski crystal briolettes which I strung in flowery clusters to add a slightly different dimension. It has a sterling flower tag pendant. Two birds form the clasp in a romantic manner, touching their beaks to close the necklace. I used .014 wire for this, because the tourmalines had very fine holes.

Last but not least, I rock out with my friend Emma Ralph's www.ejrbeads.co.uk wild "Art House Blues and Greens" lampwork beads, using them in a bold and lovely necklace with a PMC key, charms and a heart toggle by www.zoaart.com.

It is such fun to go from elegant to funky to fanciful, and back again! I really love what I do. Does it show?

I wish to thank Soft Flex for giving me this opportunity to discuss my work!

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