LOPACKI'S DICTIONARY DEFINES BEADWORK:
YOU HAVE TO BE NUTS, A DESIRE TO GO BLIND, THE PATIENCE OF JOB, CRAVE ARTHRITIS, LOVE WHAT YOUR DOING, WORK FOR YOUR SOUL.
Back in 1977 as both myself and my girlfriend (Wife to Be) Suzi were trying to figure out exactly what we wanted to do with our lives we had some answers and just needed to put some direction to our plan.
We both knew that we had to get out of Southern California, and knew in our hearts that their had to be a richer more serene life out there somewhere. We left in the summer of 1978.
To satisfy her creativity, Suzi's choice early on was and has continued to be Bead Work. Her first ever project was a beaded bottle in "Peyote Stitch", Suzi was so excited about her new love she took it with her when we went to visit my parents. Being somewhat nervous because she did not know them that well at the time, she pulled up a chair and started work on her Peyote Stitch on the bottle, nerves won out when for whatever reason her bowl with the beads falls from her lap and scatters all over the kitchen. I don't think that bottle ever got finished and Suzi has talked about her embarrassment more than a few times over the years.
Suzi tried #12 beads on some early work and then discovered #14. If you have no idea regarding size a #12 bead measures 22 to the inch a #14 26 to the inch. I just measured some of Suzi's beads, the average diameter for the #14 1.5 mm to 1.6mm.
Her early pieces were all designed with color pencils and very small graph paper, many a time I'd watch her erase one color so she could try another. In the mid nineties while on a trip to Canada we were at a computer store and discovered some software written for people that did needle work ............... Praise God .......... creativity with no eraser, since this time being able to play with her designs on a computer has marked an incredible blooming of her desire to produce works of art in loomed beadwork.
As you would expect the quest for the not nearly as common #14 seed beads was always on our minds and when we spied out beads anywhere we saw beads we'd go look. We settled in the Zuni Mountains
south of Gallup, NM in 1980. This provided an unexpected blessing, Gallup is pretty much a little island surrounded by Native American land, welllllllll......... Native Americans love beads as much as we beaders do.
Over the years Suzi has acquired an unbelievable pallet of colors to use in her art. I remember the time I went into one of the jewelry supply stores in town, I walked toward the back of the store past a discount bin, in the bin there were a few small zip-loc bags full of what look like #14 beads. In fact the person I was doing my business with affirmed they were #14 that they were discontinuing as they were a slow seller, being the wheeler dealer that I've always been I just had to ask .......... Got any more? .....He said yes .......... How many? ......... 11 kilos ......... I'll take them all. This was once in a life time, there have been many times Suzi has found one or two hanks of very rare unusual color beads never to see the color again, if we had the money we always bought.
QUESTION COMMENT
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7 7/8" X 5 3/4"
Total bead count 15,750
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8 1/4" X 5 1/4"
Total bead count 14,560
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8" X 8 3/8"
Total bead count 29,028
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9 3/4" X 4 1/2"
Total bead count 14,560
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16" X 6"
Total bead count 33,333
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13 3/4" X 7 1/4"
Total bead count 15,504
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14" X 13 1/2"
Total bead count 30,000
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0" X 0"
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This is a bag Suzi made about twenty years ago, its done with size 14 beads. The bag was done on a loom and then folded and sewn together,as you can see the handle is done with glass beads we collected, typical of many of Suzi’s designs there is an optical illusion in the pattern.
This bag measures 3 3/4 inches wide and 4 1/2 inches tall.
Suzi just came in and said look what I found, it’s a very small bag she made sometime in the early eighties, she had it in a box and forgot all about it, sure glad she found it.
Its made with size 14 seed beads the bag without the tassels measures 4 inches by 2 ½ inches, as I said quite small but very nice for its size............ or any size!!
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