In-Home Private Sale!

Did you miss our big Art Show last month? Or just need a few more gifts? Come visit our private, in-house Art & Gift show this weekend. It's just three artists, for two days.

Three artists:
- Esther's beadwork
- Eddy's fused glass
- Julie's fine metal & precious stone jewelry

Two days:
- Saturday, December 4 at Esther's house... 10 Del Prado St, Lake Oswego
- Sunday, December 5 at Eddy's house... 02 Canby St, Portland

Hours: 11 am - 5 pm both days

Come browse, enjoy, have a nosh and a hot drink.

You don't have to buy anything, but if you do, we will be accepting cash, checks, and credit cards.

Hope to see you!

Dear Abba...

Dear Abba,

You might already know this, but a few years after you passed away, I met a woman who re-ignited my love for beads, and I started learning how to create art with them.  Over the last 16 years, it has become a major focus of my life.  I started by making earrings, then necklaces and bracelets, and inevitably entered the world of beaded objects.  Before I knew it, I was creating picture frames, mezuzot, and even glass kippot!  I often wished you were still here, because I knew you would love them.

Eventually, I found myself making beaded covers for Yizkor candles. I was enchanted with the idea, and loved the way the candle slowly burned down, illuminating more and more of the beadwork. And I always thought of you when I designed a new one, remembering that primitive plaster-of-paris Yizkor candle holder you made at Camp Swig. It was cast in a milk carton, and carving the letters brought you such delight.

And then one day, I was looking at someone's website, and she had these very simple blue-and-white stripes representing a tallis. Suddenly I got very still, and was overwhelmed with the memory of your passionate love for stripes, and for that exact symbolism.  I knew I had to make a striped Yizkor candle cover, in your memory, and I knew I had to figure out how to include the first four words of the Kaddish.  The mathematical planning took awhile, and designing the letters took even longer, but it was a highly charged mission, and it had to be perfect.

So here is a picture of the finished product, reflected in a mirror.  I'm very proud of it, and it always reminds me of you and your passion.  It has been in my sales display for a couple of years.

But the reason I'm writing this now, Abba, is that someone bought the "Yitgadal" candle cover from me at our recent art show. It's a bittersweet feeling for me, parting with it. At the same time, I'm so happy to have found a really wonderful home for this creation, where I know it will be loved and honored and used.  The family who owns it never met you, but a little piece of your magnificent spirit now resides in their home.

Thank you for your continuing inspiration, Abba.  I love you.

A Necklace For All Seasons

My latest project started out as a simple idea... a Spiral Rope necklace with some crystals here and there.  But then, of course, it got more complex.  I was fascinated with Margie Deeb's take on the colors for Fall 2010... that necklace of hers with the graduated colors, blending gradually from Goldenrod to a deep red... I just had to do it.  This, of course, necessitated a bead order from Bello Modo, and many false starts before i got the colors right. And forget the goldenrod, we ended up with peach.

Then I decided it should be a lariat, so what should I do at the ends?  Eventually I decided that's where the crystals should go, since they didn't look good anywhere else that I tried. Okay, so far so good. But it seemed like the beautiful peach colors at the opposite end would hardly even be seen... what a waste!  But wait!  What if I make it reversible???  How in the world would I do that?  To be honest, it was simply too late to make a similar lariat-style ending at the other end, since the beading was already done.  Necessity mothered invention, and the peach-colored little "thingy" at that end was born.

So, my simple Spiral Rope became a reversible, graduating-color, crystal-laden lariat necklace.

In the fall and winter,                                                               In the spring and summer,
you can wear it like this:                                                           wear it like this:       

                                                

In other words, what we have is a Necklace For All Seasons.