Starry Night

Here you have it. This is the necklace I entered into Stringing Magazine’s beading Challenge for winter ‘09. The theme for the challenge is “Inspired by Art.” Instantly I thought of all the star beads I had and my favorite piece of artwork: “The Starry Night.”
Now, I’ve come to realize that these challenges often end up to be a popularity contest: How many friends do you have with internet access and who are willing to vote for you? And, unfortunately, sometimes: How many different email addresses do each of those friends have? I would certainly ask my friends to vote for my jewelry submission if they liked it the best. But I would neither expect nor ask them to vote more than once, because first of all, I wouldn’t feel right about it, like I was cheating or something. Second, if by chance I won, I wouldn’t enjoy the victory knowing that some people voted more than once. Be fair! It makes everyone happy. And if someone is competitive in an unhealthy way that might make them feel it’s okay to cheat, well then I don’t know. I guess they have personal issues. Anyway, I know I am too honest. It can sometimes be a bad thing. I’m working on it.
But here you have my necklace, which is almost like the design that popped into my head when I read what the next Stringing Challenge was going to be. I had more stars in my bead boxes than usual because I had intended to enter the previous challenge, which was “All Around the World.” For that challenge I envisioned an earth-looking pendant with star beads all around it. Stars are all around the world. I didn’t manage to get it made in time, because the design wasn’t working as I planned and the closest thing I could find for an earth pendant was glass with a blue swirl. I had some limited resources at the time, in addition to lack of time.
But it worked out. I had all the beads I needed to make this “Starry Night” inspired piece. It may not be the most beautiful necklace in the world, but I think it’s pretty cool-looking.
Oh, I must add this: My other idea for the “All Around the World” Stringing Challenge that I missed was to have big orange and blue beads with lots of dangling chili pepper baubles. That didn’t work out as it was in my head, and didn’t look right any way I tried it. So then I thought I’d just do a bunch of hanging chili peppers on a chain, but then the deadline passed. I was also trying to get ready for my once a year big craft show at that point, so I was pressed for time. But do you get the reason for the chili peppers in my 2nd idea for the “All Around the World” challenge? Because when I saw the title for the challenge, I immediately thought of the Red Hot Chili Peppers
song “Around the World.” But I wasn’t too sure if anyone else would get it. I’ve learned over the years that oftentimes not many people think like me. I should have taken a pic of the necklace with the Red Hot Chili Peppers album cover. That might have helped. Oh well. I didn’t enter anything for that challenge, so it doesn’t matter now!
But here is my “Starry Night” necklace. Vote for it!
Link for voting to come in a few days. As soon as www.stringingmagazine.com makes it available on November 18.