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Your Path: Home  Bead Blogs - Articles Beadditudes Hand Crafted, Hand Made, Hand Held |
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Hand Crafted, Hand Made, Hand Held |
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Written by Dara Spiotto
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Sunday, 23 December 2007 |
 Hand Crafted, Hand Made, Hand Held
I have arthritis in my fingers already. Just a few of them, actually. In the mornings when I wake up my hands are stiff and sore. I don’t know if it's normal at age 41 to have arthritis, but it's not stopping me from doing anything, so I ignore it. I think of all the beading they’ve done, and it's no wonder they’re showing signs of wear. When I look at my hands spread flat on the table I can see the telltale signs of my grandmothers. I loved their hands.
My Gram died at age 91 and my Nana at age 93. Both gone within a year of each other. These strong women did amazing things during their lifetime, and make a permanent impression  on my life. They each were home makers and took care of their families. They were both wonderful at cooking and baking and I’m proud to have inherited some of their kitchen tools. Today I use them with pride and hope some of their experienced kitchen genius will absorb into my hands as I use them.
The Hereditary Love of Beauty
I think I get my creativity from them. My love of hand made beaded objects was nurtured by all the beautiful things they made. I grew up with hand knitted sweaters and mittens, hats and scarves. Each holiday that passed by brought new ones to me, and I loved them. I still have a bright orange fringed afghan Gram made me to match my 1970 bedroom. She made me and my husband a white one for our wedding that I cherish. My Nana worked her magic in the kitchen and I blame her partially for the current size of my body. I filled up on her goodies every chance I got, and I will never have strawberry rhubarb pie like that again. In fact, my grandmothers could both make pie crust from scratch that would make your eyes roll into the back of your head with bliss.
 My Nana used to rub her hands together, with her fingers rubbing her knuckles. I don’t know if it was habit or soreness, but I remember her doing it a lot. She had small delicate hands, but her knuckles were big and cumbersome and her veins were like small ropes. Her fingers twisted a bit in different ways. She told me to be careful or else I’d have hands like that. I told her I thought her hands were beautiful and she laughed at me. I meant it. Her hands told stories. Those hands were a testament to her passions in life. If I ever saw a woman in her upper years with no knobs for knuckles and no dark spots, then I’d say she didn’t live enough. I envision the poor girl with her hands in her pockets missing out on gardening and painting and a million other things.
Going Out in a Blaze of Bead Glory
Just for the record, I plan to bead my hands into oblivion. Until I can’t pick up a size 10 needle or a size 14.0 seed bead. I don’t think there’s much that could prevent me from beading. Recently I chatted with a friend and she told me how she just taught a wire wrapping class to a person with only one hand. When the woman asked if such a class was possible, the store owner said, “Oh, I don’t know. Probably not.” and the woman said that she was capable of quite a lot and perhaps she could do it. Then my friend piped up and said she was willing to teach her the class. The woman accepted, and managed to do quite well. Well enough for her to show up the next day to stock up on wire, proudly wearing her bracelet she had made. I admire her determination to do what ever she set her mind out to do. And kudos to my friend for giving her an opportunity to learn her own way.
 Then there’s the blind beader who relies only on his hands for his bead work. Lyle Gutierez is a native southern Californian who was born with retinitus pigmentosa, and slowly over the years it caused his eventual blindness. The slowness of his diminishing eyesight gave him an opportunity to re-learn how to perceive the world, and adapt progressively. He discovered that he loved fine arts, and enjoys painting, sculpting, making pottery and beading. He loves to shop for beads, taking their weight, size, shape and texture into account. I asked him what his bead shopping experience was like. He said that it depended on the mood he’s in at the time. Usually he goes right for the walls of strands of beads, which is understandable since strands of beads are so tactile and feel so good. Oh, he also dispelled a myth that I’ve heard for years. So many times people have told me that you can tell glass from plastic by its temperature, glass being colder. “Not on a warm day.” says Lyle. He told me that a better way to tell is to tap it on your teeth. Glass makes a different sound than plastic. Stone makes a different sound than glass. He says, wood, bone and horn make dull sounds, and that horn is waxy and wood and bone are porous. Metals are interesting. He can sometimes tell different metals apart by the taste. Taste!! Hmmm… I’ve never tasted my beads before. I think I may have accidentally swallowed a seed bead or two, but not intentionally.
 Beads for Life!
Even if my hands were totally taken away (God forbid) I think I would still throw myself into beading somehow. At the least I would study beads and maybe teach classes on bead origins and history. There’s more than 30,000 years of bead ‘evolution’ that precedes us, all fascinating and interesting. I certainly wouldn’t stop BUYING beads, that’s for sure. That would be unheard of. Hmmm… maybe I can bead with my toes. I saw a woman write a check with her toes once. She threw her purse on the floor, took her checkbook out and used her toes to put it up on the counter where she could see it. Then she got her pen and wrote it out, tore out the check and paid for her stuff. I had instant respect for her and she inspired me to not whine about stupid small hindrances.
I’ve got two useful, semi-healthy hands. Now that I look at them, they look like a combination of both my Mom’s and Dad’s hands. I have his fingernails. Woe for me since even my earliest memories of my Mom’s hands I can recall her natural, beautiful nails that she’d polish herself. Now her hands suffer the wrath of her quilting history. Good for you, Mom. Even when our knuckles are sore and buckling under the strain of our needles, we’ll persevere! And leave behind a family legacy of hand crafted beautiful things for our future generations. |
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