Featured artist – MadeByOlga

Name: Olga
Shop name: MadeByOlga.etsy.com
Blog: mamma-foxan.blogspot.com

What do you create?
All my creations are beaded or beadwoven pieces of jewelry. Most of the pieces that I have made so far have a story behind. Beading is a perfect way of relaxing my brain from daily problems. Watching hundreds of tiny seed beads gathering into a pattern is a great type of a meditation. It is the same feeling as flying.

How did craft came into your life?
Well, my mother and my grandma tough me how to knit and make embroideries when I was around 5-7 years old, and I’ve been doing traditional crafts ever since.
However, I got an extremely powerful urge to express myself in art after a miscarried pregnancy in summer 2007. This urge grew stronger and stronger, and, finally, I started beading while 6 months pregnant with my second child in spring 2008. Got hooked on beadweaving and bead embroidery in August’08 and now not a single day passes without me doing some sort of beading. That’s how one becomes a beadaholic…

When you’re not creating, what do you do?
Taking care of my little rascals and making career in science.

What inspires you?
My inspiration comes from many different sources. Sometimes, I watch other people’s work and get ideas about how to use the concept or materials in a different way. Or, if I work with precious stones or designer’s beads, they usually tell me their wishes for shapes and colors. Jaspers are such a talkative stones, you cannot imagine! Often inspiration comes from nature: living creatures, different natural textures and structures, sunsets, ocean, fire, snow – everything goes! The last, but certainly not the least, is good music.

What question would you ask to the next featured artist?
What do you get if you multiply six by nine?

Question from previous featured artist LivaRutmane: what do giant pandas eat?
Giant pandas enjoy bamboo diet. Primitive creatures, I’d go for chocolate!