Dystini - a biography

Dystini was born many years ago in Sheboygan, Wisconsin. She lived there and in nearby cities until she was an adult. Her parents encouraged her to be creative as a child and nurtured in her a deep love of reading.

A shy only child, Dystini spent many hours alone with her books and her imagination. She also enjoyed listening to her father's music, which was extremely varied. One of her favorite stories told about her as a child involves her dancing around the living room singing the chorus to Pink Floyd's Another Brick in the Wall at just 5 years old (with all the right words and even the correct accent).

As a teenager, Dystini developed her own tastes in and collection of music, which she listened to constantly and often at parent displeasing volume in her room. She also wrote poetry (which she admits now is mostly bad). She was involved in several colorguard/drum corp groups (Accents of Sheboygan, which no longer exists, and Brass Revolution, now called Evolution), marching in parades in the summer and doing shows in the winter. At 16, she switched from the colorguard to the drum corp, playing the bass drum.

Dystini was lucky enough to meet her true love early and they married not long after that. After a couple of years, the pair (along with their cat, actually he didn't have much say in the matter) decided to move to North Carolina. They fell in love with the mountains but due to forces beyond their control had to move back to their hometown.

They recently bought their first house. Dystini enjoys planning and digging her new garden with her husband's help. Slowly but surely they are fixing and decorating their house to fit their needs and tastes.



Their beloved 19 year old cat, who had been with them 13 of those years, passed away in 2008. He is still loved and missed. In early 2009, Dystini and her husband adopted a pair of kittens, who are a constant source of amusment and aggravation.

Dystini has dabbled in a variety of art forms in her life but she finally discovered her great artistic love was beads. She worked with seed beads for many years, finally creating her own patterns and designs.



She tried polymer clay as a way to make accent beads for her beadwork but was soon swept off her feet by the many things you can do with polymer clay and the beadwork has pretty much fallen off to the wayside. Dystini used the internet for much of her early study of polymer clay, eventually moving on to books and videos and her own experimentation.

She spent many years making pens and tins, etc. As she put it, "If it sits still and fits in the oven, I'll cover it!" She also "found" a community of dragons that she helped find adoptive homes for.



Over time, she returned to her first artistic love - beads. Today, she creates thousands of beads a year, using all the knowledge of her over 10 years of study to create gorgeous little works of art. She will still make the occasional pen or tin, etc. Every now and then she finds another dragon that needs a home. And almost every Christmas season she goes back to her seed bead roots to create a few Victorian style ornaments.

She actually quite shy.

She really dislikes having her picture taken, which is why you'll generally see a pic of her favorite dragon instead of a pic of her in bio pics.

She likes to read fanfic - Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings in particular.

She's a pretty good cook. She makes an awesome chili.

She doesn't like most cooked vegetables.

She's a night owl.

Dystini draws her inspiration from many things.

Flowers are a favorite, those from her garden as well as those in flower catalogs. Lampwork beads are a wonderful source of color combos. Some ideas come in dreams or just as she's falling asleep. Others come from books and videos as she learns new techniques. Even more come from music and movies. And sometimes she just lets the clay lead the way.

Ocassionally the most beautiful things just happen by accident. Cutting into an ugly cane with a wavy blade can produce amazing patterns. Grabbing a chunk of scrap clay and swirling it can make a beautiful bead.

A couple of years ago, an Ebay group Dystini was a member of requested that she do a few tutorials for them. She agreed and everyone loved them. They said they were so easy to read and follow and that she should write books.

Dystini looked into self publishing and found that she simply couldn't afford to do such a thing. Then she noticed that PolymerCafe was asking for submissions. She wrote up a few articles and had them accepted much to her delight.

She went back to researching self publishing options and discovered ebooks. Deciding that maybe this would work for her, she wrote a few and they sold. And kept selling. So she wrote some more and they sold as well. And more people told her how wonderful her writing was and Dystini became in danger of getting a big head.

Her best-selling ebooks are her color mixing and color combo ebooks. She discovered that she has a knack for looking at a color and immediately know which colors to mix together to get that color. Her eventual goal is to create recipes for 1001 color combos (released 50 at a time in a series of ebooks) and collect them all, hopefully with accompanying photos from other polymer clay artists using each combo, into one printed book.

2005
"Eight Counties"
John Michael Kohler Arts Center, Sheboygan WI
February 18 - April 24, 2005



2004 - 2005
"Double Take"
John Michael Kohler Arts Center, Sheboygan WI
December 5, 2004 - February 27, 2005



2004
"It's Your Move"
John Michael Kohler Arts Center, Sheboygan WI
June 6 - September 12, 2004



2003
"Cake Mix!"
John Michael Kohler Arts Center, Sheboygan WI
June 29 - September 28, 2003



2002
"Shoes: The Sole of Humanity"
John Michael Kohler Arts Center, Sheboygan WI
October 20 - January 19, 2002-2003

PolymerCafe Magazine
Fall 2004, Vol. 2 No. 4
Photo Lighting on a Budget

PolymerCafe Magazine
Winter 2004-05, Vol. 3 No. 1
Crazy Colorful Checkerboard Set

PolymerCafe Magazine
Summer 2005, Vol. 3 No. 3
Lightning Cane Beads