EMBELLISHMENT® TEACHER FEATURE #6
Red Ventling
of Livingston, Montana, USA

Red Ventling is not your typical teacher. In fact, she may not be your typical human being-and we mean that in the best of ways. Possessing a clear love of fun, a sharp wit, and an "anything goes" attitude, Ventling's life and art seem mostly like one big rolling good time-something she tries to impart to her students.

Red Ventling

A self-taught bead artist who has been pursuing that love for more than 20 years, she has recently expanded her interests to cabochons. And from a local museum that stocks her work to her numerous classes, often "team taught" with Kristi Daniel and Karen Davis, Ventling is a one-woman dynamo with no signs of stopping. "My husband is my guide, and when he says something has 'way too much' embellishing, I know I'm on the right track!," she explains. "My stuff tends to be bold, gaudy, and bodacious-and if you can't see it from across the room, then I have failed!"

Afflicted with "busy hands" syndrome, Ventling has also used her beading and creating to get through some tough personal tragedies in the past year, including the deaths of both her parents and major surgery for both her and her husband. Still, she is also very active on the internet with teaching, showing her work, and communicating with fellow beaders and students.

"The most important thing to me is that I love hooking beaders," she sums up. "I just love watching them blossom.

TEACHER FEATURE Q&A: RED VENTLING

Tell us a bit about your personal background
I was born in Oakland, California, and raised in Portland, Oregon, until we moved to Claremont, California, in 1960. Finished high school there. Spent the summer of '62 being in a dance group for [surf guitar legend) Dick Dale and the Deltones. Remember "Miserlou"? And I did a lot of surfing too.

Then I met my husband in California and we produced three children in a hurry. One day he came home from work and said that I needed to get out a little more because I was doing way too much babyspeak. I went to Mount San Antonia College and got my degree in nursing specializing in Labor & Delivery and the neonatal intensive care unit.

In 1975 Southern California was getting a bit tense, so we made a monumentous decision to give up high paying careers and moved to Montana. We picked our home in Livingston because we liked the view. So we chose to live here and find work, rather than live where the work was. But the big sky, few people, and lots of mountains and wildlife (the four-footed kind) are worth much more than the monetary thing.

How did you first get involved with beading...and what has kept you interested?
I think it was Campfire Girls and a little Walco loom and that very first headband that hooked me. I do crochet and needlework, but have always come back to beading because no pattern is required. It's the magpie in me that loves those little sparkly bits of glass and what I can do with them with my "What if?" way of designing.

What are your favorite techniques of beading?
Depends on the piece I am working on. Peyote seems to be the one I always come back to. When learning ndbele stitch, I made a bracelet and was quite pleased with it. I took it to a bead retreat, dragged it out so I could be back-patted appropriately, and explained what the stitch was. That's when the entire group broke into hysterical laughter as they passed it around. I was bewildered; then Kristi & Karen explained to me that ndbele was soft and supple and I had probably invented a brand new technique because my bracelet was a hard-shape-holding bangle. Seems like I used a tad too much tension! But those silly beads keep trying to go east and west and I needed them to stay at the equator, so I pulled hard and often. I still love that bracelet!

How do you get your ideas for works of art?
From everywhere. I study nature's colors and shapes and then do the "What if?" thing. I don't consider what I do works of art; I consider them to be expressions of my moods and surroundings. When we were dealing with several doctors and hospitals this past fall, my beading color choices tended towards black. I did a gorgeous black and garnet lariat which still needs to be fringed. I put it down when the surgeon came out of surgery and said the cancer was encapsulated and we had a surgical cure. I immediately started a lavender lariat and finished when it was five feet long; it pretty much relieved me and then [I began] singing with my cranked up stereo. Oh, yeah! That Deltone groupie child is alive and well in this 57 year old zebra beader!

What made you decide to move from being just a beader to a teacher as well?
I love sharing beady knowledge and the look of delight I see when someone "gets it!" I attended my first major bead show in Denver and it was like I had followed the yellow brick road to Emerald City. And there would no stopping me.

For me, teaching has a three-fold purpose. I love it, it's not a "have-to" job, and as I said, I really enjoy seeing the light bulbs go off and students understanding, and most of all enjoying what they are doing. It helps me to explore what's going on, what's current and flexes my brain when translating what is in my head to paper and make it understandable for others.

Teaching is also the way I get to meet lots and lots of beaders with similar interests. My usual lifestyle is to be a hermit in a small town with few beaders and I look forward to the teaching as a way to go out and about and bond. Put a group of beaders who don't know each other at all together and you can literally watch the magic happen and by the end of the session, there are lifelong beady bonds amongst us. And it's so much better than boring old group shrink therapy.

I know that you are making more cabochons these days. Tell me about them and what kind of challenge they give you as an artist?
I have always loved cabs, gemstone, glass, or porcelain, doesn't matter. Picture cabs tell a story, a philosophy, make a statement, or they remind of a past happy time, or celebration. Cabs and spirals combine beautifully and if someone is color combination challenged, picture cabs give ideas for colors to use. My stuff tends to be monochromatic and when I play with cabs I can pick colors easily that I might not have combined otherwise.

I designed a reversible cab necklace, one side was a snarling cheetah and the other side was a serene jaguar. I called it my PMS necklace, one side meant "come closer" and the other side meant "approach at your own risk." I wore it to our very first class and told the story and everyone giggled and the ice was broken and the tone of the class was set.

How has the internet changed your ability to sell and show your work?
The internet opened up a whole new beading world for me, first with online bead lists and learning how to build websites. Lists are great, you get to expand your knowledge, help others with questions and answers, and best of all, look at lots of beaded eye candy for inspirations and sharing. I have received e-mail from all over the world and have several free tutorials at our Co-op CoMoWa website which Kristi, Karen, and I founded a few years back

The selling is a wonderful by product of the internet. I probably give away as much as I sell in finished work. But it gives me great pleasure when someone likes my work well enough to buy it. The cabs that I sell are all over the country and I provide support, tutorial, and unlimited answers. We have a guest gallery for those who love to play with cabs too!

I met Kristi Daniel online and we both took a leap of faith; she by inviting to a Coeur D'Alene, Idaho, local bead show and asking me to stay at her house. That was the first time I had ever left home by myself. I met Karen Davis at the same time and it was an instant and solid friendship. We traveled to Denver together to attend our first major bead show, and the rest, as they say, is history.

What are the benefits of team teaching with Karen and Kristi? Disadvantages?
There are no disadvantages at all. The ambience and warmth that happens when we are together is extraordinarly special and the students feel it. Kristi is a very talented designer and if she didn't have to work a day job to support her beading/eating habits, we would all be in awe of the patterns and art pieces she creates. She is an avid photographer and it shows in her beady designs.

Karen is an extremely accomplished water color artist which also translates into her bead work. Her freeform work is to die for! Her color sense and design is awesome to behold. Both Kristi and Karen are dyed-in-the-wool bead artists. I am in awe of their talent and honored to be included in their company!

The benefits are multiple as we each design our own spirals and build our own kits. The students have three times the pleasure in picking the pattern and kit they want and there are always two of us walking amongst the students for answering questions or one-on-one help or perhaps a little massage to their neck and shoulders. The hard copy handouts contain many specific pattern counts, instructions, as well as overviews of each facet of the class and lots of tips and tricks.

What are your favorite parts of the Embellishment® show?
I consider Embellishment® to be the Rolls Royce of Bead Shows and I am still flabbergasted at being invited to teach. I know last year several teachers were very happy with how Embellishment® treated them.

I also am delighted that Embellishment® seems to be remaining in Portland, because it's only 75 miles away from my favorite place on the planet, Cannon Beach! And I must go there to renew and refresh myself periodically. All I have ever heard is good things from other teachers regarding your show.

Any other comments about your artistic philosophy or anything else?
I had a difficult time with the artist statement, until my beady friend said that I had one and it was this: "Bead happy & play nice!" I haven't really discovered my "artistic philosophy," but I will start looking for one soon.

Ventling's Paladin Workshops & Embellishment Classes:
To preview them online, go to
https://www.angelfire.com/wa/kristicomowa/paladin.html

Class #214
Wednesday, July 17
Bracelets, Bracelets, Bracelets
"This is going to be a lot of fun. I will be teaching three different styles and each student will get the findings for all three bracelets in their kit including 24 KT gold delicas.

I couldn't contain my magpie tendency and nothing sparkles like those 24 KT gold delicas! My not-so secret-weapon for this class is that Ava Farrington will be joining me with her newest book hot off the presses. I designed the bitty beaded bead bracelet using her coil stitch that was in her Bracelet O' Beads book. She will be my extra hands if needed. And if the students haven't met her, they are in for a real treat!

What I hope to see a student take away from the class is that they really enjoyed themselves, learned a little or a lot, made some new friends, will have fond memories, and hopefully, try my "What If?" method on their own."

Class #403
Thursday, July 18
Spirals, Spirals, Spirals
taught with Kristi Daniel and Karen Davis
"This will offer very comprehensive instructions for multiple types of spirals, as well as cabochon embellishing. We have the ability to range from absolute beginner and, we hope, enough to interest the advanced beader. Three teachers gives us the ability to do the hands on, one on one, instructions if needed without taking time away from the whole class."

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