Zoya Gutina

During my childhood in the USSR, my mother taught me to sew and knit, both with hooks and needles. I really took to needlework, and have continued its pursuit in all of its variants during all of my life. Very many different categories of objects have been produced for my children, my family, my good friends, and myself. Also, during my childhood, I became familiar with beadwork. At that time I was studying ballet, and needed a dress for practicing. A dress was sewn for me. However, I decided to decorate it, and sewed a gentle beadwork flower onto my chest. The beads were a transparent yellow color, very pale, and the dress was of a cream-colored material. At that time I felt is was an appropriate combination, and I was right. It looked very pretty.

When I came to the USA about 10 years ago, I decided to continue my beadwork. I scurried around, trying to acquire everything about beadwork, but it turned out that too few books were available. At that point I started to experiment by myself, with beads of a whole range of various dimensions, and with gemstones. The experimentation started to bear fruit, there were my first serious efforts. In a while I have been invited to participate in selling my handicrafts at an art market in Manhattan. It gave me a good feeling of encouragement, that my artifacts are desired and appreciated.

Inspirations for my designs come to me night and day. At night, when I close my eyes, fantastic colors and forms of my future efforts appear before me. Often, I cannot even find beads of those colors. During the day, images appear when I see flowering trees outside, or just flowers in the spring; during the winter, geometric frozen shapes; and then, both during sunrise and sunset.

You can see my work at:

http://MyLovelyBeads.com

You can reach me by e-mail addresses at:

zoyagutina@gmail.com
zoya@mylovelybeads.com

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The necklace in the middle has won First Place in the Glass category of 2007 Your Designs Rock! Rings-And-Things Contest:

http://www.rings-things.com/gallery/