Becky Fairclough
(http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1317/1021761366_05cb792f54_m.jpg)
I have always liked playing with beads and making jewellery, from when I was a child and I would have loose beads and string them into my designs, and then after college I took a course in jewellery making from which I went to work with a jeweller mainly doing repairs.
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I've also had a lifelong fascination with glass having collected perfume bottles for years so I guess lampworking was destined to happen at some point. I actually discovered its existence when my glass degree course at Staffordshire University was closed down during my 1st year and one of the 3rd year students told me I could do "lampworking" at home. I went home and googled it, found Diana East and signed up for a class.
(http://www.chameleondesigns.co.uk/images/DIVA.jpg)
I made my first beads in that class with Di and took the class hot head home with me. I set myself up in a corner of the kitchen and started a wonderful collection of fuglies !! I had to stop for a few months while we relocated to Surrey but then took a weekend course with Di and came home to find a studio set up in my garage for me where i work to this day. I have since taken a course with Sarah Hornick and a neon lampworking course with Wayne Strattman.
(http://www.chameleondesigns.co.uk/images/Atlantischain.jpg)
There are many lampworkers I admire, I love organic beads, particularly those of Naos (Amber Van Meter) and our own Izzy, and I would love to have the stringer control of Dora Schubert or Mindy Macgregor. The marbles of Anakin (Anakin's glass eye) are awe inspiring and one day I hope to do sculptural lampworking and combine it with other glass processes like Julie Anne Denton.
(http://www.chameleondesigns.co.uk/images/KNAmberBlues.jpg)
I am inspired by nature and places around me, I love to travel and this works its way into my beads too, I have beads inspired by Venice and other places I have been to and Im currently working on beads inspired by the idea of travelling and old maps.
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I don't think i have a signature style really, I like to experiment and try to improve my skills all the time so I end up making lots of different styles of bead. I do go back to some techniques and colour combinations (ivory and silver anyone?) and I like to think you can see a sort of evolution of these in my beads as my skills have improved.
(http://www.chameleondesigns.co.uk/images/aotmpebs.jpg)(http://www.chameleondesigns.co.uk/images/morepebbles.jpg)(http://www.chameleondesigns.co.uk/images/Brooks.jpg)
At the moment I am working on a multitude of things which is usually the case, I am currently off uni for the summer so I am making as many beads as I can so that I dont have to temp in an office, so each week I try to make sure that at least some of the beads I make are ones that will be popular and easily saleable and balance that with the need to experiment and make beads from the ideas floating round in my head some of which work others are terrible and go back in my head on hold until they form into something better.
(http://www.chameleondesigns.co.uk/images/goldfumedhollow%20set.jpg)
I have just returned from Cambodia so I have lots of new ideas to work on and I want to pursue the "traveller" beads that I started working on before I went away and see where they go. I would love to have better stringer control but having just started working with boro my current really really want to learn is to make blown boro beads.
(http://www.chameleondesigns.co.uk/images/aotmscbb.jpg)
My beads and a small selection of jewellery are available on my website, and I have jewellery for sale through galleries in Shere and Reigate. For anyone going to the International Festival of Glass at Stourbridge you will also be able to see one of my beads as part of the Tempest exhibition.
http://www.chameleondesigns.co.uk/