TGL Designs is the business name for a family of designers. Our primary artist is Tracy Isley, a self-taught artist and teacher who has been involved in many mediums over the years. In the fall of 2004, she designed her first piece of jewelry for the employees of a local museum for a fundraiser and was later asked to put items in their gift shop. When asked to teach a summer camp on jewelry making to middle school aged children, Tracy decided to teach her class how to make their own ceramic beads and pendants to use in their jewelry. 

After teaching herself the basics of ceramic bead making,  she was inspired to continuing working with this medium.                   

Today her designs use her own handmade exclusive beads, her own handmade stained glass pendants, semi-precious stones, fibers, sterling silver and 14kt. gold filled beads. Tracy is continuing to expand her line of jewelry, ceramic beads and pendants, as well as refine her skills as a designer. She is a member of the BOC (Beads of Clay), a group of artist promoting ceramic beads as an art form.

About the Process 

In our studio, each of our exclusive ceramic pieces are hand-formed out of clay from the earth using stoneware and porcelain clays.  We use several techniques to give our pieces their distinct textures such as custom hand carved tiles and rubber stamps. Each piece is then dried and bisque fired in a kiln to the appropriate cone setting for each type of clay. We then sand each piece and brush anywhere from 2 to 6 coats of commercial glaze highlighting and enhancing the textures before firing each in the kiln again. The art pieces are then ready to be made into one-of-a-kind jewelry.

 Our stained glass components are hand cut from larger panels of glass, ground on a grinder to remove sharp edges, copper foiled and soldered using the Tiffany method. We hand make the bails and any decorations before soldering these onto the pendants. Each pendant comes with a sterling silver jump ring large enough to use as a slide on our snake chains and omega necklaces. 

If you would like to learn more about making ceramic beads visit www.Beads-of-Clay.org

I have filled him with the Spirit of God, in wisdom, in understanding, in knowledge, and in all kinds of craftsmanship, to make artistic designs for work in gold, in silver, and in bronze,..and in hearts of all who are skillful I have put skill, that they may make all that I have commanded you. Exodus 31:3-4, 6b(NAS)