Melissa Grakowsky Shippee

We just had a great class with Melissa Grakowsky Shippee. I found her designs to be very feminine and beautiful. It was fun seeing all the projects from her book I Can Herringbone. I have several that I am going to do now. As I was sitting there.. I was thinking about how many times a customer will say, I don't like the project, I will never wear that, or worse yet.. I don't like the colors. I have long been know to say that doesn't matter. If you want to become a better beader, whether you want to become a designer or not, you must sit and study, learn, and discover what other people have done, including their approach. I keep remembering what I learned when I went to the Renoir exhibition and they said that people would pay to learn from the masters, then the master got to keep the students works, and put their own name on them and sell them as theirs. Pretty interesting. Well we do pay to learn from the teachers, but we don't have to give up our bead work after learning. I learned alot from Melissa and  I am going to continue saying what I have always said... "It doesn't matter if you like the project, will ever wear it, or like the colors... If you want to be a better beader you need to travel the masters thru their road of creation! It you love the project.. that's an extra bonus.