Perhaps it’s just the Dog Days of Summer, but the lampworking blogosphere has been a little, well, cranky this week. It’s made for some interesting reading, that’s for certain!

• Before we start getting to the cranky stuff, Cindy Gimbrone gives a brief lesson on borosilicate glass beads, with examples, at Art Bead Scene.
• If you’ve been hearing about Mountain Honey and wondering if it’s a new bluegrass group, let Otter educate you about this new color of glass and its possibilities.
• Megan Potter, one of the staff at Just Be Connected, says that it’s not just sleep deficits, it’s creativity deficits as well, that we need to deal with in our lives.
• Now for the crankiness, and yes, it’s all lampwork-related! Andrea’s still contemplating the copying issue,
• I’m annoyed about ageism on Etsy and in print,
• Jelveh’s nailed it on the nose when it comes to new names for old stuff,
• and Andrea’s also miffed about misconceptions on the use of tools in lampworking (yep, she’s on a roll this week — maybe it’s a good thing she’s leaving on vacation next weekend ).

Most of us know better by now than to make racist or sexist comments, at least in public.  Ageism, though, seems to still be considered fair game, at least among certain venues in the craftosphere.

First there was this little gem from the Etsy Forums:

Vanessa says

(snip) Here’s the thing. We really want to represent the older demographic of Etsy sellers. We are not looking for the hip, the indie, or the alt craftster seller for this one (though we love you guys, you know we do)! We are looking for the classic, traditional, old school crafter. We are dreaming of a charming, little old lady who has been quilting for 60 years! Or a blacksmith or a furniture maker whose techniques have been passed down through the ages! Lacemaking, whittling, miniatures (and there are so many more examples…)

If this is you or have noticed a shop like this on Etsy, (or your grandma or grampa or uncle that you’ve been dying to get on Etsy, now is the moment) and you’re in the area, this is your moment to shine!

I wasn’t aware that “classic, traditional, old school” was the sole province of “charming little old ladies.”  In my experience, “the hip, the indie, or the alt craftster” doesn’t imply young.  After all, it’s my generation, the early-to-mid part of the Boomers, that was the ’60s hippie movement.  If that wasn’t hip, indie, and alt, what was?

Other Etsy staff tried to backpedal, but it was too late. The word is out.  Etsy has to make special allowances, as it were, for the older folks who just aren’t as hip as the presumptive target demographic.  I wonder if the Etsy staff has any real idea how old their sellers actually are, or for that matter how old their non-selling buyers are?

Follow that with the recent interview with Carter Seibels in Belle Armoire Jewelry’s latest issue, which adds insult to injury: (emphasis added)

She stays on top of trends in lampwork beds by tracking the listings on eBay, where you can see a huge range of quality and style from the omnipresent mold-pressed beads to one-of-a-kind works of art, from the traditional colors and shapes of beads created by the typical middle-aged bead artist to the more experimental pieces being created by younger artists just starting out.

Does she know the ages of the bead artists on eBay?  I doubt it.  I’m aware of a number of rather young lampworkers selling on eBay that make what most people think of as traditionally colored and shaped beads, because there’s a decent market for them.  I’ve also seen many of the most innovative and creative bead artists that I know of, young and old, leaving eBay for other venues.

Carter was called out on Lampwork Etc. for her comments (not just the one above, but her dismissal of presses and other such tools as producing inferior quality beads — not true, but that’s another post for another time).  Unfortunately, I didn’t read the thread and it’s gone now because it turned rather nasty.  I have it from my reliable source, however, that her attempts to justify her words only showed that she actually believes that young artists are more creative and edgy, more artist-y if you like.  She’s apologized on her blog, but it comes across as damage control more than anything.

Odd, that.  Many of the lampwork artists that I regard as doing truly unique and experimental work left their twenties behind long ago.  Andrea Guarino-Slemmons, Marcy Lamberson, Pam Dugger — those are just three that come immediately to mind.  Their work, for me, is far more innovative than anything Carter Seibels showed in the Belle Armoire article, on her website, or in stock today at Matilda’s Garden in Alpharetta.

Would either statement have been taken differently if the speaker had used women vs. men, or Caucasian vs. African-American, instead of young vs. old?  Would either statement have even seen the light of day?  The fact that Madison Avenue constantly promotes youth, youth, youth does not mean that it’s okay to disrespect anyone over 40 — Madison Avenue is full of crap anyway.

Ageist remarks are just as offensive as racist or sexist ones.  You probably won’t ever change your race or your gender, but you damn well are going to become one of us “middle-aged folks” sooner than you think…and you don’t want to find out just what a bitch karma is when you get here.

During the lazy days of summer, sometimes it’s good to just take a break from that hot torch, and sit back with a nice cold glass of tea and read what’s going on in the lampworking world!

• The copying discussion continues — Mincot continues her ponderings while mixed-media artist (and sister of my lampworker friend Ellen) Nina Bagley shares her frustrations with the imitation of her own work. Incidentally, if you don’t read Nina’s blog, Ornamental, you should subscribe — I am always inspired by Nina’s words and pictures!
• Laura Sparling has been trying to make “cloud beads” for some time. Watch as she persists, and succeeds!
• That Karolen! She’s at it again, working her magic with the Triton!
• Sarah Hornik’s back from her Australia trip, sharing her memories of birds and beads from Down Under.

Stay cool and hydrated, y’all!

I’ve had a very interesting time today reading some, ah, unofficial information about Etsy.  The official Etsy communiques like to make it sound like everything is sunshine and rainbows and unicorns and cute little kittens.  If you go digging a bit, though, you find there is a seething cesspool underneath.

Since I don’t hang out in the Etsy forums, I don’t hear about a lot that goes on.  But the recent saga of a certain “lampworker” who was discovered to be actually buying other lampworkers’ work and reselling it as her own beads caught my eye.  She was doing this on Etsy, in clear and incontrovertible violation of Etsy’s standards — yet it took several weeks, a huge outcry from real lampworkers (and a boycott from some), and some real negative publicity for them to shut her store down.  Apparently she was a big enough revenue source for Etsy that they dragged their feet in their investigation.  Sad, when you hear about how fast they have been to shut down other sellers without such thorough investigation.

If you want to dig into this yourself, start with the Unofficial Etsy News and Etsy Bitch.  Both sites have posts about the lampworking scandal as well.

So first eBay goes in the toilet as a sales venue for independent artisans, now Etsy looks like it’s trying hard to head down the same highway to Hell.  It’s not done a lot for me, that’s for sure — the tiny little side-biz lampworker just trying to sell a few beads and pendants between the two or three shows I do a year.  Unless you spend a lot of time trying to game the system, you get lost.  Add to that a mediocre website and a deteriorating reputation, and I have to wonder if this really is a good venue for me.  Perhaps it’s time to begin investigating the competition…again.