On names, and purposes, and beads.
To be scrupulously accurate, the shop title should be Bleeding Hind, not Hart -- note the lack of antlers -- but I think a tiny bit of adjustment is acceptable in the long run. Bleeding Hind Studio is somewhat misleading as a name.
The shop logo is in fact taken directly from my signet ring, via Illustrator. I have both Shaw signet rings, the woman's and the man's, and I like the woman's better: it just shows the transfixed deer without the official motto beneath. When I was first imagining making this shop a reality, I loved the idea of using that signet to seal packages, now that wax seals have come all the way around again. It's mine; it's who I am; it's the name I have chosen.
What this is all about, when you get right down to it, is that I love beautiful things, and I love sharing them with other people. I've always made things -- illustrations, stories, cosplays, clothes, truly abysmal ceramics, silverwork, and now putting together beads, which don't require a metal shop to play with, and which can be acquired and hoarded and then rediscovered to find a place in something completely new. Bleeding Hart Studio is the result of my embracing that rediscovery, and the constant desire to keep on making things.
The Shaw motto is Te Ipsum Nosce, which means basically Know Yourself, and here I am, knowing who and what I am: I write books and I make things, and I am a Shaw. For now, at this time and in this place, that will do just fine.