Art As Alchemy

Tom Boylan has been making beads since 1980. He started making beads before there was a bead movement and before there were bead stores to offer contemporary glass beads to the public. He credits the rise of the bead movement with providing an opportunity to introduce his beads at bead stores and bead shows nation-wide.As a self-taught bead artist, his designs are entirely his own unique creations. He does not employ elves, faeries, or bare footed and illegal immigrants to help in the making of his beads. He does not consider his beads a “production” commodity. He focuses on quality rather than quantity, and so, does not pump these beads out in volume. They are made by hand, one at a time, via a sometimes painstaking process that Tom himself developed.

Tom mixes some of his colors, and buys the rest from commercial glass companies. He would prefer to spend his time making beads rather than spend his time making the glass to make beads. What fascinates him about glass is that it is made from sand, the most common material in the crust of the earth, and then artists, such as Tom Boylan, impose their dreams, visions, and inspirations to create something so wondrous as his world-wide recognizable beads.

“Art As Alchemy” is the constant refining and transformation of one’s self through the artistic (creative) process. Art to the artist is much like the meditative path to the monk. It represents a turning inward to discover what the world, with its constant outward pull, does not want us to know. The world wants us all to be the same.

Art wants us all to be different. We cannot be different walking the same worldly path as everyone else. We can only be effectively different by going within to find our own core of personality, unique psychology, and private dreams. Then we bring them forth and share them with the outside world. And it isn’t a choice. Some of us were just born this way. So we gotta live it!

“I like the idea that the art we bead makers create is not hidden away in some vault or museum, but rather is worn in the open, as adornment for all to see and appreciate. I am thrilled when people tell me that when they wear my beads, people stop to ask and to comment about the beads I have created.” Tom Boylan

**Come to the meeting, hear Tom describe his pathway to the creation of these works of the rainbow. You don’t need to see his name written in an ad, you instantly know when one of his beads is featured. His beads will be offered for sale ~

Tuesday, May 17, 2016 at 7:30 pm
Social half-hour at 7:00 pm with coffee/tea

Courtyard Marriott, 5555 Shellmound, Emeryville, 94605.  The parking lot is a gated surface lot around the hotel.  Bring your parking ticket into the hotel; get it validated after the meeting and BSNC will pay the parking fee.  Members free with membership card, non-members $5