Category: friends

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California I’m Coming Home…

“Day of the Deadheads” Calavera Mask

Hopping on a plane tomorrow to go visit one of my oldest friends down in southern California. Kim and her daughter are crafty too — Kim makes beaded jewelry and really cool wine bottle decor, and Alli does a little bit of everything (poly clay, gourds, henna, soap making) — so we’re going to share a booth at one of the local festivalson Mother’s Day weekend. The show is called “Dead on the Mountain” and it’s a great big hippie fest with tons of Grateful Dead cover/inspired bands.

I’ve been beading a lot the past week or two, which is a nice change of pace since I’ve been so focused on leatherwork for the last several months. So I’ll have plenty of beaded jewelry for this event, as well as a good selection of leather barrettes, fascinators and hair slides. Not sure how well the masks will do, but I’m bringing a bunch for good measure. Hopefully, we’ll do well there as I’d love to have a reason to visit more often. I miss the sunshine, the redwoods, the ocean and mostly, my peeps. I’m very excited for a chance to see them!

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A light at the end of the tunnel

Gypsy Fortune Teller Pin by Mary Tafoya

Now that my mask making mayhem has quieted down a bit, I’ve been able to turn my attention back to completing the vintage bead & cameo site. Building this site has been a labor of love on so many levels. First and foremost, I really hate coding. I’m not a dumb girl by any stretch of the imagination, but HTML, CSS, java and the like just make my eyes glaze over. Add to that a litany of computer woes that has been almost laughable — at least, if you have a very dark sense of humor. And let’s not forget the sheer minutiae of researching, photographing, editing and describing  thousands upon thousands of itsy bitsy beads; plus the agony of having all of that data lost in a computer crash shortly before I was ready to launch. I’ll stop before this rant reaches the point of no return, and simply say that it’s been a long road. A very long, dark road…

Beaded Vessel by Julia S. Pretl

The past three weeks have found me alternately re-counting every bead, cabochon and rhinestone that I carry — or holed up at the keyboard, with my eyes glazed over and a litany of expletives frothing from my lips. During this time I have avoided friends and family, not only because I can’t afford to get distracted, but because I’m just not fit for human consumption when I do this type of work. I expected today to be more of the same, but guess what? I had a paradigm shift! As I worked on the site I was reminded (yet again) of how grateful I am to my talented, beautiful and inspiring friend Julia Pretl, who designed my adorable new bead site. Yes, I am gushing and no, it is not over the top. As painful as this process has been, my agony would have been tenfold if it weren’t for her help. So a million thank you’s, Miz Julia. I appreciate you more than I can say.

Vintage Style Filigree Bracelet from A Mon Seul Desir

Also, I was able to complete the preliminary work of loading and coding all of the product, and move on to something surprisingly fun: building the customer gallery! The images scattered throughout this post reflect the work of a few of my fabulous clients and beady friends (simply click on the captions to visit their sites). As I looked through these images, I was reminded of the creative and inspiring people that I’m able to connect with in the course of my work. It may sound silly, but beads have brought many beautiful friendships into my life. Somewhere in the midst of my CSS induced psychopathy, I realized how very grateful I am to do what I love for a living … yes, even if it means that sometimes, I have to write code. There’s a light at the end of this tunnel. The site is (knock on wood!) almost ready, and I’m feeling particularly grateful for my amazing friends, talented customers, and good fortune.

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A peacock, proper…

These leather peacock feathers are destined to become pins, fascinators and barrettes. I haven’t decided yet if I’ll add bead and/or feather work. I’ll probably try a few that way, and leave the rest plain — insomuch as a peacock feather of any type could ever be considered “plain”.

This series was inspired by the passing of an old friend, whose symbol was a peacock. I made several to give to her friends and loved ones, and the ones pictured here will (eventually) be finished and sold. A portion of the proceeds from each sale will be donated to the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance  in memory of Mahala.

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Blasts from the past…

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Over the past year, I’ve had the pleasure of reconnecting with a group of old deadhead  friends that I used to be very close to. This community was colorful and eclectic, and I learned so much from them. Being a bunch of hippies they naturally loved beads, so I also learned a lot about beading. In fact, I would say that some of the best beadwork I’ve ever seen came out of the the deadhead parking lot scene.

My fascination with cabochon beading – and also my love for antique microbeads – probably began during my deadhead years. I’d been doing beadwork, and even collecting beads before I got into the Grateful Dead, but those years really fueled my interest. I was exposed to the work of talented bead artists like Nome May, and of course, selling my work was a great way to support my gypsy lifestyle.

A few of my friends still have some of the pieces that I used to sell to fund my travels. I was delighted when they shared pictures of these older pieces with me.  This one belongs to my beautiful friend Janna, who grew up to be an inspiring yoga teacher. It was made in 1989, and it features a large chrysacolla cabochon with a small (I think) raw emerald cab below it. The blue-green stones are tourmaline, and the quartz crystal at the bottom used to be a much longer, crossed/double terminated point, but it broke at some point over the last 20 years.

This barrette belongs to another amazing old friend, Hollie Rose – Java Goddess and owner of Klekolo Coffee in Middletown, CT. It was made in 1988, and it features 3 teensy opal cabs and 1 aquamarine cab set with size 18/o vintage micro seed beads. The funny thing is – I remember exactly where I was and who I was with when I made this (In fact, I still have some of the beads from this dye lot!)

Seeing these pictures reminded me of just how long I’ve been creating beadwork. It’s interesting to me that even though I’ve learned many different techniques over the years, I am still drawn to the same types of materials, such as cabochons and vintage beads. This picture shows me doing beadwork when I was about 15. Back then, I might not have guessed that my love for beadwork would last a lifetime, or play such an important role in my life.

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Precious Things

I was cleaning out my studio recently, and it struck me that I tend to collect – and cherish – the oddest things. I have saved every little note or scribble my daughter has given me over the years, along with pebbles, feathers, sticks, bones and other random mementos.  As I tidied up, I arranged some of these things into more contained groupings. This one is my favorite:

  • The abandoned nest came from good friends – they came across it doing yard work and they saved it for me, knowing that I would love it. 
  •  The little white stones were collected over a decade ago, when I lived on the beach. My daughter and I loved to go beach combing with the neighborhood kids. They would pick a different color of rocks and shells to collect each day, and we’d bring them all back to my house and put them in clear glass jars, which we lined along the long stone wall between my yard and the beach. When we moved out, I saved this small handful of white pebbles to remind me of how much fun we had.
  • Friends of ours have an old family cabin out on Whidbey Island where they hold an annual camp out, which is where Robb and I met. We found this feather on the beach that weekend.
  • The rose petals are from one of the first rose bouquets he ever gave me.
  • The little dove skull is particularly special to me. I’ve always found beauty in the antlers and skulls that I find while hiking. A few years ago, I (very randomly) told Robb that I thought birds have the most beautiful skulls of any animal, and I wished that I would find one some day. Later that week, I was hiking in my favorite city park and I stopped to catch my breath. I noticed some owl scat at my feet, and a little voice inside my head said “maybe it’s in there?” I laughed at myself for being so ridiculous, but some hopeful part of me kicked it with my toe just in case. Out tumbled this perfectly clean and intact mourning dove skull! Whenever I see it, I am reminded that sometimes the universe grants our wishes.

Those are the stories behind this little collection. Most people will see an old pile of worthless tidbits … I see symbols of time spent with family and friends, precious reminders of childhood innocence, memories of falling in love, and proof that dreams and wishes (even really silly ones) can come true.
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Long lost box of beadwork unearthed!

We recently cleaned out a storage unit that had been untouched for some time. I was psyched to find a box of beadwork that I thought had been lost in a move years prior!
I’m guessing this work is circa 1997-2001, and it’s in various stages of completion. There are some pieces I’d still like to finish … like these two necklaces in the upper right:

They’re from a “goddesses and angels” phase I went through. In 1999, a dear friend of mine died. I can’t help thinking that if she’d nurtured herself as much as she did everyone else, she might still be around. It became really important to me to remind my women friends that they’re amazing — divine, even — and to honor that. These necklaces (and brooches) were the result. It’s nearly 10 years later, and this sentiment still resonates with me.

Besides, they’re almost done! The bright blue one below is worked in microbeads (mostly 16/o to 18/o) and features firey opal and rainbow moonstone cabochons. I have her pictured above her big sister there for a sense of scale. All she needs now is some arms (or wings) and to have the neckline polished off:

Other pieces will probably remain unfinished, like the multitude of amulet bags. Below are just a few. Some are pretty cool — but it’s been more than a decade since my big amulet craze, and I’m still burnt out on making them! 
I think the little dove amulet is the most recent work in this box. It was a sample for a pattern Julia created as a Bead Quilt fundraiser in 2002. At that point, the quilt kind of took over my creative/beady energy and I didn’t bead again for quite awhile.
This box runs the gambit from “wow, I need to explore that idea more!” to “OMG, what was I thinking?”. Some pieces will be finished, sold or gifted, while others will stay as they are. All of these pieces are special, they represent a piece of my past — of myself — that I thought I’d lost long ago!