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Jo
Ellen has been beading for 15 years, but has been creative for all her
life in a variety of different ways, including cooking, gardening and
various needle crafts. Her formal education and career has been as a
Biochemical Geneticist, but the creative side of her brain kept looking
for ways to be let out during all those years in the laboratory. When
she and her husband moved to Oxnard, CA several years ago, she
semi-retired from the science world. Since coming to Ventura County,
she participated in NanC Meinhardt’s 13th Master Class, a
class designed to find your artistic voice, sponsored by Creative Castle
in Newbury Park and Kandra’s Beads in Grover Beach. She now works and
teaches at Creative Castle. The journey with beads continues to play an
important part in her life.
Beads allow me to express my thoughts and feelings in new ways and they
provide a vehicle for self exploration. It is a process that centers
me, slows me down, and focuses me on telling my story. Ideas come to me
from many sources, including personal experiences, nature, daily life,
what is around me, what I am reading. Specific words or phrases or
sights capture my imagination and soon I am seeing them through and with
beads. Translating these thoughts into beads with the myriad of
available techniques and the endless color and texture of the beads is
the challenging, but fun, part. The beads often tell me which direction
to go.
Exhibits:
- July 6 – 30, 2006: Voices, Beadwork from the Vista
Point Artists at San Luis Obispo Art Center, San Luis Obispo, CA
- January
8 – February 25, 2007: Bead Works: Selections from NanC
Meinhardt’s Master Class at Houston Center for Contemporary
Craft, Houston, TX
- December 2 – 30, 2007: Absolutely Beads 2007 at Beads
and Beyond, Bellevue, WA.
- January 12 – March 1, 2008: The Beaded Object at Studio
Channel Islands Art Center in California State University Channel
Islands, Camarillo, CA
Galleries:
- Artisans Gallery, Idyllwild, CA
Teaching:
- Creative Castle, Newbury Park, CA
- Naturally Jennifer’s, San Luis Obispo, CA |
