What do you think inspires your creativity?
Almost everything I see inspires my creativity. Nature all around inspires my floral beads, tree beads and scenery beads. Glancing at a wall mural or magazine ad will inspire unique color combinations that I import into my heart beads or other geometric or abstract designs.
I also gain much inspiration from the people around me. Many of my friends and co-workers suggest designs or ideas that I have never tried before. This gives me a challenge and is a huge inspiration.
Who inspires your creativity and how?
Wow! There are many great artists out there that I do not think I could chose one in particular. But (this may sound cheesy) I believe my biggest inspiration, from a very early age, would have to be my parents. My Mom was always making something, from ceramics and oil paintings to sewing and baking – she was very creative and always involved me in her crafts. My father was also an inspiration because of his great attention to detail (he was a machinist) and he was also crafty in his own right, creating his own metal tools and designing various woodworks. We even made a doll-house, exact to scale, of the home I grew up in. I believe they planted the seed of my creativity long ago.
Outside of being creative, what do you do?
I am a Supervisor for Prescription Drug Claims in Scottsdale. I have a wonderful team of great people working for me and they are very supportive and inspirational for my craft.
I also like to read, bake and swim (or just chill-out in the hot tub). Traveling to new locations on vacation or for my beading career is also fun, too.
What are your top three favorite:
books – (these are series, really – when I really like a character, I never want them to end!) Stephen King: The Dark Tower Series, Dean Koontz: The Christopher Snow Series and Orson Scott Card: The Alvin Maker Series.
movies - Star Wars, Indiana Jones and Singing in the Rain
bands – Aerosmith, Scorpions and oldies (60’s, 70’s, 80’s – a lot of the one-hit wonders are cool!)
web sites – www.lampworketc.com - a cool site with tips, demos and information about lampworking and glass, www.hammondscandies.com - this place still makes the old-fashioned candies by hand – so good!, www.kingarthurflour.com - this site has all kind of goodies for baking from all over the world, they’re not cheap, but their stuff is top quality!
What do you want to be when you grow up?
(Am I ever going to grow up? I hope not!). I would love to be a full-time artist and be able to “play” all day long at what I love to do.
And if you were a character on a TV sit-com, who would it be and why?
The best I can come up with, I think (???), would be Gonzo from the Muppet Show. He was always trying new experiments and he liked fire (he blew up a lot of stuff). He was also funny and upbeat even in the worst of times. I just hope that I am a little more successful with my experiments than he was.
Jeannie's work is also featured at:
http://www.jeansbeads.com
http://www.creationismessy.com (her bead is on one of their page banners)
(and I also stumbled upon her work in a MacFest slideshow)
http://www.azcentral.com/commphotos/azcentral/8206/4/11
