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!

Plink plinkety plink-plink plink-plink

Plink plinkety plink...

Ahem. That's my interpretation of the piano intro of 'Merry Christmas Baby'. And I'm not thinking Christmas songs because it's Christmas time--no, I'm thinking of that particular song because it opens my favourite Christmas album, 'Snowed In' by Hanson. It's the only Christmas album I can listen to during the season and NOT think 'bah humbug, I've heard this song a jillion times already!' Anyway, I was thinking about that album partly because it's missing when I need it now, and, well, I'm snowed in. See the wasteland that was once my driveway?

Pay no mind to those odd peaks in the snow--it's just the snow-sharks coming out to play.
It started snowing Friday night, and lasted all Saturday. There is now literally over two feet of snow on the ground, and almost three feet on the deck. In Virginia. In December.

Look at that deck furniture drowning in snow!
Last time we had this much snow was FOURTEEN YEARS AGO, and that was in the winter wasteland months of January/February, not December, before Christmas!

Must be global warming. What, I saw The Day After Tomorrow! So what if it's dumb like all other disaster movies? It's one of the only two movies with Jake Gyllenhaal in it that's not too serious for me. The other one is Proof, and that was a bit dry. Curses, when is he going to be in something I fully want to watch? But I digress. ....Aw heck, who am I kidding? I'm done talking about the snow anyways. People, tell me about the movie gems with him in it that I'm missing, that I might like.
The following is a list of his movies that I know of, and why I won't watch them:
Donnie Darko and Zodiac (too disturbing)
Brokeback Mountain (too depressing)
Brothers (too human-nature scary and possibly depressing)
....Ok, I can't think of any others. I won't say I WON'T watch Prince of Persia, but I saw the trailer and, well, wanted to laugh. Not sure why; I usually like at least the trailers for this sort of movie.
Lastly, a photo of (slightly messy) Christmas cheer, my front door.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, or feel free to 'translate' the sentiment to whatever greeting is most appropriate to you. Happy friggin' Festivus? Anyways...

Speech

A week or two ago, I had an appointment with a newly opened bead shop's owner who was interested in carrying some of my jewelry. She'd been really impressed; said it was really unique and all that jazz, and I was excited.

Well, it turned out the only way she was going to outright buy any of my things was if I didn't charge for labor--at all. Wanted to buy meticulously beaded glass and crystal rings for $1. Double-sided UFO pendants, done in peyote/herringbone stitch with Delica beads, for $5. I'm not calling her a 'bad person', and understand that it's a cutthroat world out there in business.

Now I'm pretty hard up for money (no allowance, no job and no prospects despite months of trying hard. Though I do make about $3 a week from my zine, so I'm not complaining much). And it's difficult to sell jewelry. Even if you're good, it's hard, really hard, to actually make sales on a regular basis in the jewelry field, to break into the market on your own. But I would rather keep my beautiful works and not make any money at all, than devalue them to that level. Pricing half an hour's work at $1, or two hours' work at $5, even at wholesale prices, goes against everything I have ever read on the subject.

No handmade jewelry of that quality should ever be marked at those prices. It encourages the Walmart-pricing mindset, which should never mix with the handmade market. Just because one lady thinks charging $60 an hour spent beading a pair of earrings with inexpensive materials doesn't mean the rest of us who are happy with $10, $8 or even $6 (that's me) for an hour of meticulous work, shouldn't be paid for our time.

I was so down about that meeting that afterwards I actually started crying when my mother and I had a difficulty communicating to each other during a casual discussion of something totally silly (how the media that loves the Jonas Brothers, treats Hanson like pariahs--while using their appeal to market the aforementioned Jonas Brothers, who, for the record, I haven't much beef with).

The upside of all of this is, it's been weeks since I've felt like this, kind of down all day. I'm trying to concentrate on that aspect. My inner Pollyanna trying to stay awake.