Does your group have challenges?
Lets have a discussion!
We have a very active group here in the Seattle area. Most meetings we do challenges. I was wondering if any other groups do challenges and what kind of challenges they do.
So, Where are you???
ANd What kind of challenges do you do?
Leslie
I work with two groups that regularly do challenges. One is the Frederick Hot glass Society in Frederick, MD and the other is the Flame Whispers in Ellicott City, MD. Here are some examples:
- beads to match socks (got that from Sam's SW group)
- Beads inspired by artists like Miro, Monet, van Gogh, etc
- beads inspired the wild and wacky table cloth one of the members owns
- beads using the silver rich glass
- fall beads - leaves, acorns, pumpkins
- holiday beads
- flower beads for spring
- sculptural beads other then flowers on a bead
- something inside a hollow
- everyone write down your favorite color combination (2-3 colors) and members randomly pick them
- pick 3 crayons out of a bowl - eyes covered!
We are always looking for ideas - can't wait to see what else gets added to the list. These challenges always get me to think past my comfort zone.
Debby
Leslie, thank you for posting. Fire&Rain does some great challenges, as you know. I really like the new chapter information table they did at the NW Bead Society Bead Bazaar - photos were great...cards, printed details...all fantastic! Do you want to list some of the things they do?
Debby, these are terrific ideas! Thank you for sharing.
I really like this thread...perhaps it should be a section of information on the website as well in the Regional Pages area (?).
More discussion...and ideas...please!
-Kendra
One of our recent challenges was to take a cheap wine glass, cut the stem and add some 90 coe glass. The trick is to keep it hot, keep the addition of glass horizontal so the wine glass additions wouldn't break. I think we will be seeing them next week.
We all vote on them...who gets the most interesting gets a prize.
It's a great way to learn and try something we wouldn't pick on our own.
We encourage everyone to participate. Good beadmakers as well as new beadmakers!
I want to see those wine glasses and hear how that worked?. I have thought of doing that but did not know where to start.
Debby
Debby,
you cut the stem in the middle. work off the foot end, it's easier to control. Add your decorative glass. usse transparents, then you will be able to see if it has cracked. only work from one end to the other, don't go back to reheat anything. When you have your colored 90 coe glass on, add your gobblet end. just heat the gobblet so the stem heats a bit. Don't work too long. Heat it, attach the two ends and be done. keep the goblet horizontal so the heat doesn't go up into either the foot or the gobblet. Mine personally look like junk. I can't get the foot and bowl to be in the same plane. But as Roger Paragon says..."If it holds booze...then it's a glass!".
Maybe if I try ehough of them I would be successful. but right now it isn't in me!
But it is FUN to try.
Leslie
Southern Flames started a new kind of mystery challenge 2 months ago.
How it works; Members at the August meeting put into a bowl pieces of papers with different kinds of challenges on them, anything of there choosing.
A non participating secret keeper was chosen to be in charge of the 1st. challenge. She pulled from the suggested challenges, then secured away the results.
The next month, beads of all sorts were brought in for the challenge. The secret keeper judged these according to the slip drawn.
None measured up, the prize is now added to this months challenge on Oct. 16. Everyone who attending last month meeting knows what it was not. Members will try once more to guess the challenge adding another prize each month until it is won.
A little complicated, Yes. that's what makes it fun.
If this doesn't make sense I just found it written up here.
http://www.southernflames.org/Forms%...0Challenge.htm
We did a bead like "telephone" in grade school.
Someone made a great bead. The bead went to person #2. Person #2 gave their bead to person #3.
the beads were to be made in your own studio. It was to take a few weeks to happen. It didn't work. The beads didn't get completed and passed around. It would probably work in a group studio setting.
it's too bad, I was looking forward to seeing how each person's original bead would be interpeded and excuted.
Hi Leslie
The challenge you described sounds like the "Round Robin" challenges on a German beadmaker's forum. There is a given topic and a group of people. Everyone makes a focal bead to fit the topic and sends it to the next ons in the row. Then everyone makes two beads to fit the topic and the starter bead and sends then to the next in the row. This adding and mailing is repeated untill everyone gets the strand of beads with the own starter or focal bead back. The strands or necklaces are photographed and everyone gets all photos. In most cases there is a little booklet going with each strand to write additional notes and greethings to the starter and the following beadmakers.
This needs a good coordination and some additional rules besides the commumication. In that way it works really well and is fun. I participated in some of those groups as a "mystery guest" when my friend participated in such challenges.
Dietmar
yes, Deitmar-
That does sound like a great idea. As you say, it needs to be very coordinated. Anything that gets the group to become tighter and more creative is a good thing!
Round Robin is a much better way to discribe it.
Thanks-
Leslie
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