Working with Wire

This week, I tried to add some aesthetic value to the wire that I used to attach the beads to the fish hooks. Instead of simply wrapping the wire around once or twice to make it secure, I tried making a design with the excess wire to add to the look of the earrings. For my first try, I think it went really well. I wrapped the wire into a spiral pattern and then looped it around itself at the bottom to keep it secure.

One of the difficult things of this technique was that since you need two earrings to make a pair, I had to make the wire decoration the same on both earrings. It was sort of hard to make the designs look like each other, but after a bit of messing around with it I learned how to manipulate it enough to get it to do what I wanted it to do. I think the finished products turned out really well:





















I have really enjoyed making earrings so far. As mentioned in Gelber's Crafts, Tools and Gender article, crafts give people something to do in their spare time to help them feel productive. Even though I may still be sitting around in my room, I still feel like I'm accomplishing something rather than wasting time watching tv or being on facebook. This way, I come out with a finished product that I can be proud of instead feeling as if I've wasted my day. I feel that this is a common reason and motivation for people who spend their spare time making crafts. It's not considered actual work so they can still enjoy what they're doing and relax, while at the same time avoid feeling idle.

Next week, I want to take the level of individualism and uniqueness of these earrings to the next level. In order to do that, I'm going to use the beads as a canvas for my own art work rather than have the beads be the center of the art themselves. I'm excited to expand my horizons as an artist and try something new.