ABS Blog Carnival - Anticipation

This month’s ABS Blog Carnival theme is “anticipation.”

My first thought was to just post this picture and be done with it:




After all, for those of you who know my bead habits, this picture kind of says it all, right?

But, then I remembered that the guidelines for the Blog Carnival require that I somehow relate this theme specifically to “Art Beads.” I also realized that readers might be showing up here anticipating (ha! see how I did that?) a little more bang for their bloggy time than just one picture.

So, I started to really think about the concept of anticipation and I began to realize that it has had different meanings for me during different times in my life.

As a young child, I remember being so wound up with anticipation on Christmas Eve that I could not go to sleep no matter how hard I tried. I ended up crying in bed because I was so frustrated that I couldn’t fall asleep…because it had been patiently explained to me that if I didn’t fall asleep, Santa would never come.

My other childhood anticipation memory involves a ketchup bottle hovering over a hamburger while Carly Simon sings “Anticipaaaaaaation is making me wait…” in the background.

In college, I learned about anticipation’s dark side: dread. It was that awful feeling in the pit of my stomach the night before a final exam or the few moments before I stood up to give an oral presentation…en Francais (just to make things more difficult).

As I entered the working world I learned to anticipate questions that were likely to come up on a given project and have my answers ready to go.

Later on, I tried to anticipate what it would be like to be a mom, but I’ve learned that NO ONE can ever really prepare you for that particular job. I mean, where in any parenting manual is there a chapter on “what to do when your kid floods the entire second floor” or “how to get the three foot high pile of trash the kid has created out from behind the entertainment center.” Certainly, I never anticipated having to face all the daily dilemmas of parenting completely on my own.

As I was thinking through all these various encounters with anticipation, I even started to wonder whether or not animals “anticipate” and if they do, what does it feel like for them?




(anticipatory thought provided by our local front yard lizard)




(more animal anticipation musings provided by our local resident grouchy parrot - Zuni)

Lastly, I started to think about what involvement anticipation has in my creative process as an artist. Sometimes, a design pops into my head all but completed and all I have to do is the labor of physically putting it together. Not much anticipation there.

Most of the time, however, I start with a color or a theme or, in this case, a particular focal bead:



(Spirit Horse pendant from Star Spirit Studio on Etsy)

Then, I start to gradually build towards a final design from there. It’s the ability to anticipate that allows me to hold certain beads next to a focal piece and decide “yes, these go well with that” or “nope, not workin’.”

Should my secondary beads be these:



Or these:




What other stones would works in this design?



Or these:

or these:

And finally, the most anticipated question of all…will the end design fulfill my expectations?

Stay tuned to tomorrow's entry to find out. Until then, you can anticipate the results ;-)

KJ