Bead & Button Show Day 2 part A

On the second day, I had all day to myself until 4 pm, when the Show Preview floor opened for registered attendees. This year I was registered, so I got to go!
Not thinking clearly, I decided it was a good idea to spend the morning/early afternoon walking around the local mall before spending the rest of the afternoon/night walking the show floor! It was still fun though--I met a few attendees from the night before on lunch break from their classes! I bought a new music album by my favourite band, released just a few days before: Hanson's 'Shout It Out'.

They get better with every album. Sadly, I had neglected to pack a cd player, and there were none at the Borders location (what respectable Borders sells music but not a single music player??) but it was still exciting just to have it in my bag!
After buying my music, I went back to the hotel to pick up the box of food I'd shipped to my hotel room before my flight out. Just in time too--I'd about run out of food, and I didn't want to spend bead money on consumables! So I had a quick snack and shoved a sandwich and a can of orange juice in my small rolling bag for some good dinnertime energy--and set my alarm to remind me to EAT! Because If I don't, I won't, not when every shopping minute counts! That's how I roll.

I went to the Airlines Center early, to look at the world-renowned Bead Dreams exhibit. While there, I became aware of a soft-spoken woman with amazingly long hair (at least three feet of it) nearby. It was Tatiana van Iten, beadworker extraordinaire, responsible for countless breathtaking Bead Dreams and Fire Mountain Gems contest entries! One of them was in this exhibition, an amazing bead-embroidered, life-size one-shoulder top with matching bracelet. She showed me its story of a sea dragon who fell in love with a mermaid who repudiated him.

 She showed me pictures of other beadworks, with accompanying stories, like of the beaded dragon that a little girl made and sent her upon reading that Tatiana's favourite creature was a dragon. Tatiana took that dragon and incorporated it into a beaded scene of a dragon's treasure box, symbolizing her meeting with her future husband (symbolized by the dragon). Tatiana, if you're reading this and shaking your head because I got it wrong, I'm sorry! :D

Later after Tatiana had moved on, I spotted Suzanne Golden and several of her staggering beaded bangles. Arriving at her table, I kept quiet as I saw how animatedly she was talking to some editors of a German beading magazine (one of them toting an alarmingly large camera). They nodded permission for me to look at the beadiness, and I tried to stay out of the way. But man, those beads. Suzanne Golden is the exact kind of little old lady I want to be. From the moment you take in her maraschino-cherry-red hair, outlandish red sequinned jacket and 7-inch circumference bracelets in bold black and white, you know she is without fear, and, as I found out after her time with the editors ended, speaking with her only confirms that impression.

I wonder, is she without fear because she's a New Yorker, or is she a New Yorker because she is without fear? Maybe I've got it wrong and New York City has nothing to do with any of it, and I'm still just a tourist gawping at anything that reminds me of the electric billboards in Times Square.

More to come tomorrow!