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Stealing Bindi |
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Written by Dara Spiotto
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Monday, 11 June 2007 |
 Well, lock me up. I’m a bad girl. I gave in to temptation and kept something that wasn’t mine. I stole Bindi, and oooohhhh it felt good! Move over Winona, this was no quick nick of a dress or a lipstick. No, this was the panic driven thrill of snatching something that twinkled and glistened so much that I was hypnotically tricked into kleptomania.
Bindi arrived in March, in an unassuming Priority Mail box. I knew she was coming. See, here’s the story. Quite a while ago I got an idea to make a beaded star baby for my sister Diana. She loves purple, so of course this was a purple star, with one of my hand sculpted faces at the bottom of one of the points. It made the star look like a little person wearing a tall pointy hat. I wrote a silly poem and gave it to my sister at holiday time, and she squealed when she first saw the star, and burst into tears at the poem. Just what I had hoped for! A gift of the heart.
 Then I decided that I would make another star in my favorite color...olive green. Prrrrrrrr….. It came out wonderful and I named it Fiddlehead Fern. I got so much feed back from the general beading world that I decided it would make a great class, and began making the little faces that the stars needed. Then I had a baby. That was the end of my plans to teach this project, for now, and the beginning for my sister Deb to teach it. In one of her classes an amazing beader emerged. Judi Regina-Whitley. Judi carefully picked out the face for her future star baby. She had plenty to choose from… some faces had dimples or glasses or teeth. Some had nose rings or freckles or tongues sticking out. There were smirks and smooches and smiles galore, but in the end, she chose a face that had, you guessed it, a bindi. She was a one of a kind.
 Judi attached Bindi’s face to the center of the star, giving her a starfish appeal. Then she carefully added an assortment of beads in a pallet of aqua, turquoise and blue. She chose abalone, pearls, and glass beads among seed beads and Swarovski crystals. And after she chose a title for her star, she added sterling silver letter cubes: When You Wish. When Bindi was finished (in record time!) Judi showed her to Deb, who couldn’t wait to call and tell me all about her. Deb asked Judi if Bindi liked to travel, and Judi said yes! And the next thing I knew, Bindi was on her way to California for an adventure. It was here I decided to have a little fun with Judi. :-)
 Mind you, I don’t know Judi very well. I know she’s a very talented beader who is only tapping into the tip of her capabilities. I know that I was blessed to contribute to her Round Robin amulet bag called Moon Goddess, in which I beaded a moon goddess in peyote that I designed called Flora in purple hues, Judi’s chosen color. She’s also joined in on other Round Robins and Bead Challenges at the Beadin’ Path, and hopefully she’ll continue to do so! Anyway, I decided to give Judi a bit of a hard time. When Bindi arrived I was ready.
I chose a bunch of postcards I had collected, waiting for just an occasion such as this. I organized them from east coast to west coast and began writing on New York. It said, “Dear Mom and Dad, Don’t be mad at me!”. It explained how Bindi had decided to jump off the USPS plane when it landed in New York, and she was going to hitchhike across the good old USA. She had many experiences, such as encountering cowboys and getting a gorgeous tattoo… a Swarovski Crystal! It’s a bitchin’ Pagoda and its on her shoulder. Each day I sent Judi another card from a different state, describing all the adventures Bindi was experiencing. Once she got to California I brought her around with me to different places. This is where it got difficult.
See, this happened during rainy season in California. Do you think I could get a picture with the beaming sun overhead of Bindi lounging by the pool? No. I waited for the good weather to come, at the risk of keeping Bindi for weeks. Blazé days linked one to another and I started to get disappointed and annoyed. And this is while I was working on the Sun Doll...you can imagine the irony of beading the sun every day in the gloom and doom. I put Bindi next to the Sun Doll. Not the same as the real sun, but it gave Bindi company. They hung out together a lot. At night she would sleep in my bead case along with some other bead friends she had made, safe and snug.
That isn’t to say that Bindi had a bad California vacation! No! She did all kinds of things. She got to pick fresh lemons out of a lemon grove. It was hard for her to climb the tree, but persistence pays off! She napped in fresh lilacs and found some gorgeous cactus blooms. Bindi loved the cactus… I had to convince her not to get too close, or risk catching one of her beads on the spines. When she saw palm trees, she thought they were so weird. “We don’t have those in Maine and thank goodness, because they’d look so dumb next to our pine trees,” she said. She also said that the California poppies were like sweet little flower umbrellas.
We took her to Disneyland and she loved Cinderella’s Castle the most. If Bindi moved permanently to California, she would most want to live in Cinderella’s Castle. And when we went to Hollywood, Bindi kept a low profile. She didn’t want to accidentally get discovered by some model or talent agency. Then she’d be away from home longer and she was missing her Mom and Dad. We stayed only long enough to get this picture of Bindi with the Hollywood sign.
Then I sent Bindi home with a goodie bag of souvenirs from California. She had a wonderful time, and knows she’s welcome to come back whenever she wants. I got so used to having her around that I miss her!
Judi… any time you want to send along your bead artistry, please do! I promise I won’t keep it so long next time. :-) Smooch! |
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