There be DRAGONS!

 Dragons are not a North American species of Owl.

Yet when Beth Dewey approached me in 2014 and asked for dragons, I said, "What the hey. I'll give it a try."

Requests can be inspiring, educational, or a drag. There are animals I just can't relate to, creatures whose energies I have no interest in connecting to. Slugs.
 There are artists who make slugs, and love them, and even I love them when they make them. But making slug energy in my life, Ehhh.... not so much.
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For others, this may be crocodiles. I love crocodiles, snakes, eagles, big horn rams, bison, bears,... Well, the list goes on.
Dragons I wasn't so sure about.

This year, Beth Dewey returned to my booth at The Best Bead Show in Tucson, and gave me a special brooch, a dragon eye. It was her thanks for the dragons I'd made for her. And she had a new challenge, a contest she is entering, which she would like some new dragons for.

I.Love.This.Brooch! I think I tried really hard not to cry. I wore it for the rest of the show. My sister, the indomitable Kit, was amazed that it went with everything I wore, and every piece of jewelry I put on.
I returned from the land of sun to the land of snow and single digit temperatures, to face the long night of the studio.

As a creative, you know what I'm talking about. Somehow some stinker let a gremlin into the studio while you were gone, and the twerp is sitting on your workstation, glowering down, thrilled to see a victim walking in. He has claws and teeth and they are all sharpened to sink into the weak, tired flesh of a creative idea, new and startled and hatching. This gremlin is ready to devour in doubt all your new fresh ideas, before they have a chance to grow into something groovy.

Well I had a Dragon Eye Brooch, to stare down that gremlin! I showed him the door, and he left without a goody bag or an invite back. In his absence? Inspiration stampeding like a classroom of schoolkids who have heard the tinkle of the ice cream truck!

and so, pictures of dragons. While I have been thrilled and gushing dragons, I by no means feel like these are the finished thing. There is something more, whether bodies or a definitive creature bent (birdlike, lizardlike, etc) but I am happy to say the dream goes on!