What motivates you to Bead/make beads?

GREAT TOPIC, Karleen! ~~ 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

Debbie, have you tried taking any classes? I'd been beading for 30 years when I started to take classes in it. It made all the differenc ein the WORLD. My frustration dissipated, and I became very professional. Sometimes it's that way. ~~ 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

I love what you said and how you said it. Diana

I've got it all set up but just have to get the money. She's a little expensive but fairly knowledgeable. So I have been saving my change. I have almost enough.

I've been trying to get to the LBS for bead night and life gets in the way. Health, weather, etc. I did join the monthly club and the first meeting is next month. I'm looking forward to that.

One day on a quilting trip I met a lady and we got chatting, and she told me how she was making a quilt for a little boy she knew and he was choosing the fabrics. She asked why he had chosen a particular fabric, his little face lit up and he said excitedly 'cos it makes me want to dance! Well I dont quilt anymore, it didnt really make me want to dance. I ventured on to beading (via a beaded quilt) and found that people really loved what I had made, and as importantly I really love what I make, it makes me want to dance.

Like so many of you if I am having a crappy day my beads and beading seem to make it a little better, it is my refuge. :-)

For me it is the need to create. I have to do something creative or I goes nuts. Almost everything I do is creative from being a hairdresser to painting, beading, silver smithing and lots more. To me it doesn't matter what medium it is but I think beading is my biggest love. Roxan "Karleen/Vibrant Jewels" wrote in message news:Tg90c.26085$ snipped-for-privacy@newsread3.news.atl.earthlink.net...

Thank you!

-Kalera

Diana Curtis wrote:

Thanks dear Sooz! Just trying to accentuate the positive! A lot of negative crap is going on in my family right now... what a waste of time and energy..... sheesh!

I haven't piped up on this topic, so if you aren't throughly sick of talking about this, I'd like to contribute.

I come from a family that makes things. My mother is an expert seamstress, and my brother makes incredible furniture. My sister does all sorts of paper crafts and candlemaking, and my father... well, he's really good with the remote control.

My brother and I are also heavy duty computer geeks. Being a computer geek for a living pays very well, and is interesting and fun, but it gives no tactile feedback. No matter how many lines of code you write, it's just not the same as "making" things.

I used to paint and dye fabrics, but with my health problems, that's no longer an option. I really don't like to sew, although I know how, and most "crafty" things don't offer enough opportunity to break the rules and create on your own. I now know that polymer clay would have satisfied my need to do what I want and still make beautiful things, but right now, I'm really into my beads.

One day a little less than three years ago, my mother and I were out shopping in Boston's Quincy Market. We went into some fancy boutique and I spotted a necklace that I liked - a simple strand of seed beads. They wanted $40 for it, which totally offended my frugal New England (and German) sensibilities. Knowing that I could make something equally nice for almost nothing, I stopped at Wal-mart at the way home. About $20 bucks later, I had enough seed beads for a dozen or more necklaces. I was hooked.

In the beginning, I spent ridiculous amounts of money on crappy stuff. (Like $60 for a small bag of Indian lampwork. Ouch) I started to read and learn. By sheer chance, I got two bags of Toho seed beads on Ebay. I couldn't understand why these beads were so much easier to work with than the ones at Wal-mart. So, computer geek that I am, I started looking online.

Being a Usenet veteran from way back, I found RCB very quickly. I lurked for a long time, getting the feel of the place and learning the culture. Amazon.com provided me with ample opportunities to spend money on bead books. It didn't take long to realize that I had spent a lot of money on lousy supplies, and I decided then and there that I wasn't going to ever do that again. I made tons of newbie mistakes: buying10 kilos of supposed Miyuki beads that turned out to be made in Hong Kong is pretty memorable, as were my many mistakes in attaching findings to things. Talk about ug-lee!

Still, I was reading and learning. I heard that people actually _made_ glass beads (go figure), and I bought Cindy Jenkins' lampworking book. That was about the end of any thought I ever had of lampworking, but it taught me a lot about the process and helped me realize what was good stuff and what was garbage.

The more I read about beads, the more I realized that beading was just the activity for which I was most suited. There are so many variations on beading, so many kinds of beads, so many cultures with beading tradition, that there is zero chance of getting bored. I really like that.

I started out by making bracelets and giving them away to strangers. I used to save the empty spools of Stretch Magic to estimate how many bracelets I've made. When I filled the grocery bag to overflowing with spools, I stopped saving them. It's fair to say I gave out at least 1,500 bracelets and maybe up 3,000 bracelets. There are no bracelets of that type in my house anymore: I don't leave the house so making give away bracelets that never go anywhere is depressing.

After many, many false starts, I taught myself peyote stitch, and later, brick stitch. Made amulet bags for everyone I know, and I still have several hiding in my storage areas. I leaned Ndebele and Right angle weave, and greatly expanded my experiments in seed beading.Tried French wire flowers: total and utter failure. I'll go back for a second try sometime soon.

I kept running across a pattern on bead-patterns.com with a lovely kimono, made of Delicas. At that point in time, Delicas and I were having our problems. Besides, anyone can buy and follow a pattern, and that's not me in the least. I wanted to make a kimono of my own design, in a much larger size than I'd ever seen before. Thinking way too ambitiously, I bought a 12" tee frame bracelet display. Then I started buying fire polished glass (don't kill me Beki, the place sold them to me as crystals, and that's what I've called them ever since) I bought 5 masses, thinking that I'd have enough crystals left over for some necklaces or whatever. Ha. The five masses became twelve masses, and the "Crystal Kimono" was finished.

But while I was making the kimono, I became more interested in research and beading in other cultures. I first announced (to the family) that I was going to make a beaded project from every country in the world. Since I do not have seventeen lifetimes in which to bead, I have narrowed the scope considerably. I'm doing an around the world perspective of different cultures where beading was an important skill practiced by women.

That led me to the kokoshnik. I learned so much about the customs and strictures imposed on women of the time, and discovered that women have been using beadwork to create art in a time when women were considered unable to produce art. Babies, yes - A damn fine beef stew, yes - but art? Bhahahaha! Women don't create art!

But they do. My project, which seems to be turning more and more into a mission every day, is to reflect the art that women created using the universal medium of beads. So far, I have found no beadwork pieces that have been signed. My work is dedicated to all those nameless women who created such beauty and combined it with function long before any philosopher said that form and function combined was the essence of beauty.

So here I am. I found some way cool gourds to make a Huichinol style bowl to represent the Central Americas. Egypt is plugging right along, and once I find the right weight of velvet, I'm netting a traditional Greenland collar.

I really feel like I've found a purpose for my beadwork, and it makes me happy.

Kathy N-V