May's Artisan of the Month! Come meet Michele Rowe!

Michele has been lampworking (steadily) for about 8 months now and is enjoying herself immensely. She's not affiliated with any groups yet - just the great folks on Lampwork, Etc. but that may change in the future ;)

Right now she's trying a little bit of everything.  She hasn’t yet narrowed down her “style” quite yet.  She likes to watch folks on LE and knows that it's possible to get to where people can easily recognize who made what – but she's not quite there yet.  She loves silver glasses and is completely fascinated by the reactions that can be achieved.

Michele has always been into various arts and crafts.  She's tended to switch between them just to keep up her interest:  she's painted in all mediums, but but watercolours is by far her favorite.  She's drawn – mostly portraits in charcoal.  She's been a jewelry maker for about 10 years with her favorite being seed bead creations. All of this creativity gets stored and adds up! "But I’m NOT a salesman, so I usually do things to satisfy my creative urges and give them to friends and family. My forte in any of the areas I try is being able to duplicate what I see. (Insert: slight perfectionist!)" 

When she lived in Alaska she was part of a bead group and one of the ladies began to do lampworking.  She was totally obsessed! Michele was fascinated by her work, but didn’t get the obsession at the time and was hesitant to invest in yet another “hobby”.  A couple of years ago while living in New Orleans her husband bought her that beginner’s lampworking kit from Hobby Lobby.  (OK – so she bought it and told him it was his gift to her :)…)

She had fun trying it out, but had no room for a proper set-up: she was sitting in her front room with the door open behind her for ventilation.  At that point, it was just another “hobby”, so she put everything away until she got a new job last fall and moved to a larger house in Mississippi.  With a new job that didn’t suck the life out of her and a front enclosed porch with room and ventilation, she decided it was time to get the glass out.  That was all it took – she was hooked, lined, and sinkered!  

She was still using a Hothead clone and the small bottles of MAPP gas, which was getting expensive.  She watched all of the YouTube videos that she could and joined LE for all the great information available.  She knew that she ultimately wanted to upgrade to a surface mix torch and tanked oxygen in order to do all that she wanted to.  Then, of course, the kiln came next. She now has a full-time job but probably spends 30+ hours a week at her torch.

She would take her beads into work, and many co-workers would buy them from her.  They would encourage her to try selling in various venues.  She’d done bead shows with her jewelry creations, and had only minimal success so she didn’t really feel like going down that road again.  She felt like Etsy and eBay were too big for someone like her to even be noticed, and she was content with making things for her own pleasure!  

Then Theresa Ehlers started a Facebook page for people like her to be able to auction their artwork.  She figured that she'd give it a try.  She purchased what she might need to mail out packages and posted her first “set” about 3 weeks ago.  Success!!!  She sold something – and it went higher than the BIN! Now she's’m watching closely to see what kinds of things people are interested in buying (sets vs. singles, shapes, sizes, etc.) but trying not to actually “copy” another artist.  She's got a few more ready to go but just needs to post them.  Until she finds her own “style”, though, she feels hesitant to post much. She wants people to see her beads and say “Oh, that’s another bead/set by Michele Rowe,” like she says when she sees work by some of her favorite artists like Judith Billig or Amy Kinsch. "And really, the only reason for me to even try selling is just to offset the cost of this wonderful obsession.  If I could afford to just give away what I made, I’d be happy with that!  My mother is by far my biggest fan – and biggest recipient of my work." 

Michele had sent in three gorgeous pictures of bead sets that were sold or for sale on "Lampwork Beads for Sale" but they wouldn't download, so here's the link to the Facebook site: 
 

https://www.facebook.com/groups/lampworkbeadsfs/

There aren’t many lampworkers in Mississippi but she did find someone who lives an hour away and met her a couple of weeks ago.  Michele is looking forward to building that friendship and having someone with whom she can talk with in person about their shared obsession. 

She feels so grateful for all the wonderful folks on LE. She's been the recipient of several RAOGK as well as some drawings and plans to “pay it forward” as well as she knows how much it meant to her. She feels like she has a whole new set of friends and would love to meet them someday. She couldn’t afford to go to the Gathering this year, but seriously considered driving there just to meet some of those great people in person. Maybe the 2015 Gathering will work out better for her.

She's thoroughly enjoyed using Leslie’s free BOC samples to try out by making beads for the BOC program and sees it as a way to work on her skills, help kids out, and feels that maybe she'll accidentally find her “style”.  "Plus – there’s no selling involved!!!"