theartfulbadger

Springing from a need to provide people with tiny wearable works of art, The Artful Badger was born. Pins to show your sense of humour or add a splash of colour to an outfit. Art to decorate your home and let your personality shine! Have a look through my shop and see what sparks your sense of fun.

Here is my story:

My name is Sarah Beck and I make my living mainly as a potter (www.wildfirepottery.ca)
I have a pottery shop and sell my raku sculptures to tourists that visit our island. Sometimes I need a break from making pottery because I have been doing it for about 45 years so I switch gears to drawing, painting or using my laser cutter.

I have always liked pinback buttons, so a number of years ago I bought a used button maker on ebay. Well, that was great, but then I wanted more sizes. I bought one that could make mirrors, another for coasters, I bought one that makes little tiny buttons and then thought, hey, I could make jewellery with these small buttons and off I went on that tangent. I was drawing all sorts of designs and then shrinking them down to fit the buttons. I decided to make cards out of some of that artwork and then that led to other card designs. I started getting inspired by different materials and making some buttons from handmade papers.

With me, the creative process happens by letting one thing lead to another. One day I was sitting in my studio/shop/used bookstore and thinking about all the used books I have that are damaged, or just simply don't sell. I was wishing I could do something with them and suddenly I thought, hey! I could print on their pages!!! I rummaged around and found an old dictionary with the pages falling out and printed a puffin design on it. (We are lucky enough to have puffins that nest very close to us, so puffins are featured a lot in my artwork.) I was so excited about the extra depth that the dictionary text gave to the image. Now I do a lot of different things with book pages. Some of those designs can be found in my other shop www.etsy.com/shop/theprintedmenagerie
My pottery can be found at www.etsy.com/shop/wildfirepotter
I think I am happiest when I am coming up with new designs.
I hope you enjoy browsing my shop, thanks for visiting!
Sarah