Bead Embroidery Tests & References
As I look at things that attract me and the ideas that come from them, I realize I can’t restrict myself to small animals. There’s not really a need to do so, either, because the market for more popular animals (cats/dogs) still has less than stellar products. My desire to make things for small animals just came from my love for them, not from confidence I’d have any good ideas to make; the majority of the problems related to small pets come from people’s ignorance, not fixable by any design I could come up with. People generally at least try not to be ignorant about dogs and most owners understand their needs unlike rabbits/guinea pigs, and it’s because of that it’s 1. easier to come up with better products 2. a demand for these products because dog owners tend to spend lots of money &/or recognize they need items they otherwise wouldn’t buy. I think people who do recognize small pets have needs, often more complex than a dog’s needs, wouldn’t really buy expensive products because the kind of people who have those pets are usually DIY-types or the fact they own it gets them into DIY hobbying related to their pet.
So, as I was putting way too much thought into small animal products, I realized inspiration for designs came a lot easier for dog products, so I shouldn’t really bother wrecking my brain when there’s something else I’d rather be doing.
For my pet project I’ve decided to focus on connection between pets & owners through design - and my first thought might be a bit kitsch but I feel like I’d get told that anyways. Matching jewelry sets for dogs/cats & humans - an idea which is very “Etsy” in my mind, or one of those things people laugh at enough that they buy it semi-ironically.
Two things brought about me wanting to make this; native beadwork and this magazine ad for a beaded dog collar:
$150ish for a hand-beaded collar doesn’t seem super unreasonable to me; the $4000 felt dog bed, however, had me gagged, but upon realizing I’m also making expensive handmade objects for posh people’s dogs, had me much more confident in my decision to stop focusing on small pets.
I saw Native American beadwork on Instagram a while ago, and while researching the history & techniques, quickly realized this is a craft that is practiced across many cultures (presumably without even knowing each other), but there’s a sense of each culture's practice of it is very connected to where they’re from; modern Native artists often depict things like eagles in their work, and old beadwork from ~200 yrs ago incorporated shells and materials from their land, while Chinese embroidery tends to be very ornate & floral. Even the dog collar’s pattern above has a sense of the brand’s South African identity.
As much as I can appreciate this aspect of bead embroidery, as a half-Persian American living in London, I have a hard time connecting to a particular culture to reference in my work, so I don’t bother—rather, I want to make a beaded pair of jewelry (collar/earrings/necklace/etc.) that references the history/”culture” of the dog. Each dog breed has a reason it was bred to look how they do - if I was making a collar for a herding dog, like an Australian cattle dog, I might make it sheep-themed. Considering those kinds of dogs should be working (though some parents of Bluey fans might ignore this), I don’t think an expensive, sort of fragile collar is suitable for a kind of dog that gets kicked by sheep on occasion. Dogs like dachshunds, cavaliers, and greyhounds however have a history I’m interested in & also confident I can make something pretty for them.
While I wait for the books I ordered I watched some YouTube videos to start, and I don’t have much to say about the process other than it’s very time-consuming but relaxing, and though I’m not super stoked on how they look, I find small improvements in each small piece I do:
