I guess I'd better write mine. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I'm a beadweaver (seeds, and sometimes larger beads) and bead embroiderer; I also do a little wirework and stringing. I do *not* do lampwork. I'm also a mixed media collage artist. I don't do a lot of any of this, though, because I have a pain disorder that exhausts me and drains my creativity. So don't look at me to make tons of stuff all the time! (But you may *send* me tons of stuff all the time)
I live in the San Francisco Bay Area (Berkeley, to be exact) with my sweetie pie husband, Kevin, and our Siberian husky, Mercury. Kevin and I have been married about a year and a half. I don't have a job, being disabled for the past 16 years with the fibromyalgia and back injury scourge. I've lived in the Bay Area all my life, except for a short stint in NYC in the late 70s, where I modeled a little.
I've done a bunch of different jobs in my past -- I didn't have trouble with direction so much as being interrupted by multiple surgeries. I've been a graphic artist, a veterinary office manager, a cocktail waitress, a maitre d' (at a NYC bistro where celebrities congregated!), a model, a writer, a poet, a nonprofit-animal-welfare-organization founder (Greenpeace USA), a makeup artist, a rubber stamp company owner, a doggie-midwife, and more I don't remember. But I've always been an artist. My first piece was published (in the S F Chronicle) when I was 4.
I started collage when I was in 3rd grade, and making jewelry when I was 12 (hippie love beads!). I used to paint and do ceramics, too, and god knows what else. I started modeling when I was 12, (I looked 20), but I started flunking math so my mom said I had to quit. (Now is that even remotely fair? ---I would've flunked math anyway! ~whine~) I've had sled dogs for 30 years, and art forever. I'll be 50 in November, Kevin's 30, and Merc is soon-to-be 11.
I love to garden and bead. I'm a freak for CSI, Law & Order, used to be a total X-Files geek, still love Star Trek (from the very first episode in '66!). I've always been a dog lover through and through; my 2nd words were "Bow wow." I adore Halloween, but it's kind of lost its luster since I was injured 17 years ago this coming Halloween, and then 10 years later one of my best friends died in his sleep on the same date. I love travel but it's pretty impossible for us; it's so hard on me, and Kevin's a quadriplegic (complicated and expensive to travel -- and there are no curb cuts in Europe). So we're homebodies. I used to sled my dogs, but Merc's too old and I won't be getting any more sled dogs after him. I love birds and gardens and flea markets, beaded jewelry, the wild ocean and the Pacific northwest. Chocolate and whipped cream, cake, cookies, strawberries, pizza, goat cheese, fresh tomatoes, artisanal breads! Mmmmmmm! Massages and hot tubs, beauty products (paints and good smells!), doggies doggies and more doggies. I'm dying to get some ducks! And a herding dog to live with them happily and busily.
I also love to encourage other artists, to show them how gifted they are, and how they deserve to be honored. I love to share knowledge and sources (see the Links List
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). I am enthusiastic, loving, generous -- but exhausted and cranky. I love filling my home with beautiful artist-made items and mid-20th century vintage things, preferably 90% useful -- love functional art and antiques. I love RCB, too. It's my home. ~~ Sooz
------- "Those in the cheaper seats clap. The rest of you rattle your jewelry." John Lennon (1940 - 1980) Royal Varieties Performance ~ Dr. Sooz's Bead Links
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