Featured Artist – Kaleidoscope Dreamz

 

My name is Yuliana Goldin and I LOVE color! Since I was a child I loved all pretty, colorful and shiny things. While I have some favorite colors, my main favorite are bright colors.

As a child I tried to use my love for colors in painting and drawing and quickly realized that unfortunately I can’t draw or paint unless I use a coloring book, which led me to sewing. I started cross-stitching when I was about 14 years old. While I made something for my parents who cherished it, it was far from the color spectrum where I belonged. I quickly moved to larger scale projects and brighter results. By my early 20’s I was making poster sized cross stitch designs, one of which was voted 2nd place in the LA County Fair in 2005. I was also making and selling my own patterns but still my quest for color was not complete. You can check out some of my cross-stitch work.

In 2002 I received a lampwork glass bracelet with my name in silver cubes as Christmas gift from my now mother in law. I had never seen that amount of color in something one could easily wear, and I was in love! I wore my bracelet every day, and when I had tough and stressful days I would look at each bead on that bracelet and it would take me away in a daydream.

I found new details in each bead every time I looked at my bracelet, until one day it broke and I was heartbroken! We shipped it back to the designer who kindly fixed and returned it. It broke again few months later only to be fixed and returned once again. When it broke for the 3rd time I decided to fix it myself, and that is how I entered the beading world.

While searching the web for supplies to fix my bracelet I stumbled into a world of color I didn’t know existed. Having purchased what I needed to complete the repairs I had also ended up with a new stash of goodies I couldn’t wait to get my hands on. Also I learned very quickly about lampwork glass, how unique and precious it is and therefore why it was so expensive.

I started making my own jewelry and purchasing lampwork from artisans all over the world when I could. As I made my jewelry designs I realized that my work looked edible, almost like Jolly Ranchers and had bright colors through out, and that’s how the name Kaleidoscope Dreamz came about. I couldn’t keep my work stocked long enough to show the next buyer my stile, so I created my website mainly to keep records and history of my previous work.

In March of 2009 I lost my full time job due to the economic recession and I decided to take this time and really focus on my arts. I started making more jewelry and growing my inventory, however my need for lampwork was growing as well. Having considered learning lampworking in the past I never had the time, but not 1 week after having lost my job I was in a class getting my basics and loving every part of it. I immediately realized that I had a new addiction and my need for color was finally satisfied!

Since March I have revamped my website and spent lots of time on taking pictures of my creations. I have found even from the beginning that pictures are not a substitute for the real thing; therefore I am doing more shows to showcase my designs. You can find my schedule here. I am now doing a lot of lampworking and incorporating my own beads into my designs. I am also selling my beads to other jewelry designers; the current available beads are listed on my website .

See more of my work at Kaleidoscope Dreamz.

           

Tags: bracelet, colors, cross stitch, glass, Handmade, jewelry, lampwork, lampworking

Posted in Handmade Harbor