Originally posted on April 18th, 2009. Resurrecting it and re-publishing cause that’s how I roll.

Last month, I entered a beading contest for the first time, ever. I’ve contemplated entering various contests before but they are generally sponsored by bead stores that require you to only use supplies purchased from them. Or they’re jurried contests which are just to scary to attempt. However, when I was searching for a contest to enter, the one sponsored by Land of Odds caught my eye. Why? Because it was no ordinary beading contest that required the entries to be breathtaking and beautiful and sparkly. Instead, Land of Odds wanted bead artists to create something ugly.

Could I ignore the little voice in my head that told me what was pretty and what colors looked good together long enough to make a necklace ugly? Could I go against all common sense and bead a necklace that should never be worn? Could I force beautiful beads into something only my hubby’s Aunt Mary would love? And most importantly, would I be able to write the required poem to accompany the piece even though the last poem I wrote was over 10 years ago? I had to try.

Because of my fickle nature, I have a tendency to want to combine multiple bead types/colors/shapes in one piece. Luckily, my Virgo nature usually vetoes any ideas that would lead to clashing or cluttered pieces. For this contest entry, I put a muzzle on her. I thought about what beads I had on hand and tried to figure out what I had an abundance of because this piece had to be multi-strand. The answer came to me very quickly: flowers and leaves. I had a lot of different sizes, shapes and colors of glass flowers and leaves that I had yet to use. What would I get if I took all those flower and leaf beads, regardless of whether they go together well or not, and put them in one gigantic, hideous necklace with no regard to color, design or proper layout?

Walk in My Garden Necklace

A five strand, multi length, necklace that looks better bunched up and cluttered like it is here then when it’s displayed on a bust:

Walk in My Garden Necklace on Bust

or worn:

Walk in My Garden Necklace on Me

It looks just a bit better when you focus on each strand:

Walk in My Garden Necklace - Detail

Walk in My Garden (A Poem)

In this delicate necklace,
I tried to recreate the beauty of a garden,
Full of bright blooms and fresh green leaves,
Leaving out the dirt and mess.

It seems that my black thumb
Comes out even if the flower is just a bead,
Because my garden is full of blooms that clash
And leaves that look kind of dumb.

Please don’t walk among these flowers,
For you will crush them,
And be left with nothing but glass shards,
Stringing it together took me hours.

No, I didn’t make it blindfolded,
But there were other distractions,
TV and Internet and other shiny things,
So that is were the blame should be holded.

Maybe someone will dig deep,
And see it’s inner beauty.
If you want to wear is on your neck,
It is yours to keep.

After the piece was finished, hubby assured me that it was ugly. I was doubtful because he’s supposed to say that (well, actually, he’s supposed to say everything I make is beautiful but I let it slide, this once). Besides, the pieces created by the previous years winners were complicated monstrosities made of various beading techniques and non-beads turned into beads. I just strung a bunch of beads. I was pretty sure I wouldn’t even be a finalist in this contest.

Imagine my surprise when I got an email last week from Land of Odds saying: “Congratulations, your Ugly Necklace has been selected as a semi-finalist in The Ugly Necklace Contest 2009.” That’s right, “Walk in My Garden” was good enough (or bad enough as the case may be) for the judges.

So, now I’ve got to mail the actual necklace to the good people at Land of Odds by May 5th. All the semi-finalists photos will be on the Land of Odds website around May 30th for people to vote on their favorites until July 15th, when the winners will be announced. Between June 1st and September 15th, all the semi-finalists pieces will be on display at The Center for Beadwork & Jewelry Arts in Nashville TN.

I’ve seen the other finalists pieces on the Land of Odds blog and I’m not quite sure how I fare in the ugly department. What do you guys think?

UPDATE: The voting opened and closed and I ended up in last place. Yep, I lost the Ugly Necklace Contest and I lost badly. But, the consensus seemed to be that my necklace wasn’t ugly at all. As a matter of a fact, my mom liked it so much that she called dibs on it and it was mailed to her as soon as i got it back from Land of Odds. There’s talk about me entering the Ugly Necklace Contest again but this time having hubby make the creation…maybe I’d win then.