04.10.08
My Interview with Wilma, Owner of Wilma’s Whimseys
Meet Wilma Travis, Owner of http://www.wilmas-whimseys.com/
Where are you located? Crystal, MN
What do you design? Lampwork beads, and jewelry from my beads.
Where/How did you learn this? Self taught with guidence from a forum I belong to. Then after doing this for a couple of months, I found a local shop that offered lampwork lessons to hone my self taught abilities!
Favorite Artist who inspires you? Oh I have many favorite artists, Leah Fairbanks; “Tink and John” Michelle Boukowski.
Where does your inspritaion come from? Actually, my inspiration comes when I sit down at my torch and look at the colors I have and try to put together a scheme that will go well. Also, I get inspiration from paintings (colors) and fellow lampwork artists.
What do you do to combat creative block? When I reach a block, I send out a help signal on my favorite forum that my “muse” is missing and will anyone who finds it vacationing at their house, please chase it home. I then get a link to the gallery for some inspiration and the tutorial sessions on how-to’s.
Where do you design your creations? I have an area set up in the family room which I really took over. I ripped up the old rug so that no flying hot glass would start a fire. For my jewelry design, I took over the dining room! We now eat in the living room while watching t.v.!
What does your work space look like right now? The torching area is the biggest mess I have seen in a long time! My jewelry making area is really clean and well organized and that’s because I made the mistake of leaving the catnip bag on my beading/jewelry table and my cat had a blast rolling around in it. Beads and catnip everywhere. That resulted in cleaning the whole table off and reorganizing eveything.
How does your family feel about what you do? My family is very supportive and behind me 100%. My daughter acts as my PR when she can…
Do you have any advice for someone looking to make their own creations using this method? It is the most wonderful stress reliever. You get great satisfaction when you have created something and it sells!
Favorite part of owning your own business? Satisfaction when your items sell to repeated buyers.
Least favorite? Not enough time to do all that I want to do.
How do you relax? Making jewelry.
Favorite color? Ahhh, my favorite colors are wedgewood blue and purple together.
Does this color show up in a lot of your work? Not as often as I would like. People look for the colors of the season, so the purples are lighter and so are the blues, but I try to sneak as many as I can into my beads and jewelry.
If there were more hours in the day, what would you be doing? Torching and making jewelry!
A sample of Wilma’s Whimseys products. For all products, please visit Wilma’s site.
Jane C said,
April 11, 2008 at 7:18 am
Lovely interview with a lovely person. Wilma is a member of the Etsy MN Street Team and is always so supportive of other members and a wonderfully active, contribution team member. So thrilled to see Wilma and her beautiful work highlighter here.
Cindy Lietz, Polymer Clay Tutor said,
April 11, 2008 at 6:00 pm
I went to Wilma’s site and her beads are beautiful. I especially like the ones called ‘Desert Stones’. It’s fun to hear that someone else’s studio is also in a mess! Thanks so much for sharing.
Crescent, Wilma's Daughter and P.R. said,
April 13, 2008 at 10:29 am
Wonderful interview! I am so proud of my mother, she is one of the most creative people I know. She is not kidding when she says she spends ALL of her free time torching! It is truely her passion and rightfully so considering her incredible skill. Keep up the good work Mom!