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Written by Dara Spiotto
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Monday, 16 July 2007 |
 We all carry around an invisible bubble of personal space. The dimensions vary, but usually it's about our arms length to the front and sides of our bodies. We reserve that area for ourselves and feel violated if someone hovers in that space without being invited or welcomed in. Our natural reaction is to take a step away. Want to mess with someone? Well, in casual conversation, move closer to them gradually and see what they do when you finally get into their personal space. I guarantee you they’ll take a step away to instinctually re-generate their bubble without even realizing it.
Want to know how to jeopardize (or sabotage!) your personal space instantly? Wear an amazingly beautiful piece of beadwork around your neck. Then step out into public. Can you believe how people, beaders included, will walk right up to you and exclaim, “OH! That’s so gorgeous!” and then grope you and man-handle your beadwork while it's still on your body? AIGH! Sometimes your first instinct is to slap at their hands and step away. This happened when my son was a newborn and we were out in public. Babies are magnetic. They involuntarily draw people toward them by the hundreds. Then those people coo and goo at your bundle of joy, then reach out to infest your precious baby with major germ warfare. So… you jump back and hope that you don’t offend them. They mean well. But they don’t realize how much you don’t want them to touch your baby, especially their hands which go right into their mouths constantly. Afterward you’re tempted to mist your kid with Lysol afterwards.
 Beadwork can be almost as precious, don’t you think? Especially if you’ve put hundreds of hours into it and it contains beads that are rare, collectible and fragile. So what are you going to do, lock it up so no one ever sees it? Course not. But be aware. There’s some big gropers out there.
Isn’t if funny how when we attend a bead show or a major bead class that we wear our bead finery to strut around peacock-style amidst each other? I love to watch that, and I’m guilty of it myself. We pile it on and love when we get comments. But do we love the grabbing, touching and fondling? Not really. Not all attention is good. Case in point: Once I designed an amulet bag by scaling down the image of The Lion King poster into a small enough shape that I could weave and then wear. I used hex cut amber Delica’s with matte black and fringed the sides like a lion's mane. I put cats eye in the fringe and strap. It’s a shimmering beauty!! When I got to see the Lion King on the big stage, I decided to wear it, of course. Boy, I could have sold that thing a million times that night! We were sitting in our seats in middle of the row before the show started, and I noticed someone walking from close to the front of the stage towards us. She seemed to be looking at me, although I didn’t recognize her. She came down the aisle and worked her way into our row. When she reached us, she leaned down and said that she wanted to see what my necklace was, because someone had told her about it (!) and she could see it sparkling from the orchestra pit. (!!!) Sparkling from the PIT??? Oh man. I had a quick vision of the show being spectacularly played out on stage, and there’s me… twinkling and sparkling out in the audience! I could have crawled under my seat! :-) I was happy to take off the necklace to show her, and then I stuffed it into my purse until after the show was over. Not the kind of attention I had hoped to generate!
 I know that in native cultures it's not appropriate to touch someone else’s beadwork or regalia. It has special significance and is sacred to that person and their family. By touching it without permission you’re disrespecting that family. Each piece of beadwork is considered an heirloom and is treated with the most respect. Why don’t we all treat each others beadwork like that?
I’ll never forget working one afternoon at The Beadin’ Path years ago, and one of our customers, Wendy, was sitting at the work table knitting away on one of those little scalloped shaped amulet bags with size 11.0 seed beads. She set it down to go do something and another customer noticed it. The customer was explaining to her friend how the bags are made, and her friend wasn’t quite grasping it. So, the customer helped herself and sat in Wendy’s chair and began to knit away on it. When Wendy came back, there was a total stranger sitting in her seat, working on her piece! You could have knocked her over with a feather. She was mad. And I don’t blame her. She wasn’t mean to the woman, but she let her know that it wasn’t appropriate to help yourself to someone else’s project without asking permission first. Just picking it up was bad enough, but working on it went over the limit.
Remember when you were little and out shopping with Mom, and she said, “Look with your eyes, and not with your hands.” We kept our hands clasped behind our backs as we walked around in the shops so we wouldn’t be tempted. I always remembered that. Even now, while shopping I try not to touch things unless I’m really serious about buying it.
On the other hand, I know how tactile beads are, and how they lure us into temptation to touch them. That’s why beads for sale on strands are much more appealing than beads sold in a plastic bag. We like the strand better because we can SEE them better, and we can appreciate their fluidity, their drape, their weight against our skin. We can visualize much better how they’ll look when they’re strung into a finished piece. You have to admit there’s a difference between beads hanging on a rack for sale that store owners want you to touch because you’ll be that much more tempted to buy them… and beads in a finished piece around someone’s neck. I want to touch finished work so badly! Got to feel the tension in the work, see if I can figure out how it's made! Remember, I’m the one who sets off museum alarms… mmmmmm… must touch! But I always ask first when it comes to beads. They could be someone’s precious, sacred piece. They could be fragile. And it's not worth upsetting a fellow beader. But if they say yes… LEMME HOLD ‘EM! |
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Last Updated ( Tuesday, 22 January 2008 )
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