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From Our Readers:
I really think your beading daily is absolutely top notch and interesting. It covers what is missing in bead magazines. Thank you so much.
Carol Coburn
6-7-08
Dear Carol,
Thank you for you wonderful comments. You have made our day! ~ Tonette and Bill
Direct Response from author Ann Turner:
Loved C Ann Turner's piece today! I'd love to see some follow up about language we can use to help reeducate people about the value of handmade things.
best,
Deborah Bier PHD
Good morning ~
Just a note to say how much I enjoyed the piece written by C Ann Turner - "What's In a Name." It was outstanding and I learned so much. Thanks to all. Sandy
Dear Sandy and Deborah,
Thank you for your kind responses. I am really pleased that you liked the piece. I’m glad to know that you learned something from the article.
I believe in sharing knowledge at every opportunity. If you ever have any questions, I’d be glad to answer them if I can.
To reply to Deborah’s comment, I have to say that I think that value is contextual. You can point out beauty and make comments about workmanship and detail, but those things have to be important to the viewer or they’re irrelevant. A person who wants the fad of the moment won’t care about quality or how a thing was crafted because it won’t be around long enough for that to matter.
Sometimes it is the why of making that holds the value. The wooden salad bowl that my grandfather carved for my grandmother is priceless to me for example; but it would bring very little on ebay. In another context, it was the process of making that was meaningful because my grandfather was engaging productively with his life after he was forced to retire.
Making something for someone whom he loved restored his sense of value to his time and effort. My grandfather taught me to value the creative process and to make things for the joy of doing. It is because of the view he shared that I understood that you don't need a practical reason to create. I learned to accept that I was an artist in any media.
I don’t think that people need to be educated or reeducated about the value of handmade objects because most often the value is in the process, not the product. You either recognize it/value it, or you don’t. You can share your views and point out what you see, but you can’t make anyone see or learn if they don’t want to. You can’t create relevance out of thin air. When an artist engages in the creative process and produces an objective outcome, only someone who values and respects the process will esteem the outcome more highly than a comparable item that was mass-produced.
For example, my great-grandmother came from a prosperous family and she had custom-made gowns from Paris when she was young. She wore them with an appreciation for what she had, and she was interested in learning about how they were made. I hear that she took the gowns apart and put them back together to learn all she could about the methods of couture construction. She taught by example that a thing worth making was worth making well: do it right or don’t bother. She wanted to design and make clothes, so she set out to understand how to make the BEST clothes! When she came to this country, my great-grandmother willingly gave up all that luxury to marry someone her family evidently didn’t entirely approve of. However, she didn’t give up her appreciation for the beauty of something well made, or her sense of style and her talent for making garments with exacting standards of workmanship. She put that superior creativity, workmanship and detail into the garments she made for her children, and she taught her daughters to sew, do decorative work and embellishment. Ironically, her young daughters only wanted store-bought clothing; which she couldn’t afford to give them. What was a wealthy consumer's appreciation for fine hand craftsmanship and quality, was seen as a stigma to her children when they wanted to be dressed like everyone else in their working class Massachusetts town. She continued to make beautiful things (like bedspreads of traditional Irish lace), into her late 80s, and she taught me to knit and crochet when I was very young.
So- in my opinion, if you want to educate people about the value of handmade objects and ornaments, demonstrate your respect for craftsmanship and set an example for others to follow.
Context is everything.
Ann
Greetings,
I get your daily news and enjoy it very much...some very thoughtful and heartfelt articles. Thank you.
I have been into shell weaving and bead weaving for almost thirty years, have taught many over the years. I am also a museum curator and work a lot with Native American antiquities and I have learned a great deal from the people of the past and their incredible talent.
I compete with my work. In 2008 I will participate in two juried
shows: Western Design Conference Exhibit and Sale in Jackson Hole, Wyoming and Cody High Style at the Buffalo Bill Historical Center in Cody, Wyoming. Both shows require an exhibit ensemble and then six ensembles for the fashion shows. It is a ton of work...about 48 pieces but it really challenges me and pushes me to do the best work. Over the years folks have suggested I design and then get someone else to do the work but that does not fly for me. I do not predesign much but allow the pieces to evolve, the process is my love of it, the result for the audience.
It has been interesting in the past few years how the questions about my work have changed and I am thinking here about your recent article regarding handwork and how few of us do it anymore....anyway, for a long time the first question people would ask when looking at my work would be how long does it take? I would answer that I have 4 to
10+ heartbeats in every bead, an amulet takes a week of evenings, etc.
Try to get them to understand the commitment needed to pull off a result. But since 9/11 the question has changed, now they look and ask...Do you do this yourself? Why?
It is like people are so unsettled they cannot even initially understand that someone could sit still that long to do anything.
So maybe we all need to find something where we can sit still and focus, listen to our heartbeats and make them count. I am very blessed to do this work. Did you know there is and old Gaelic word for bead?
It is "bede" and it means to pray.
Sincerely,
Suzanne M. M. Warner
Elk River Beadworks
6-9-08
Dear Suzanne,
First I hope you will read Ann Turner’s responses above to the previous letters from our viewers and I will be sure to forward you letter to Ann. I personally believe that decline in handwork is also from the lack of tutoring. As the beading community got more commercialized with expensive lessons and such, the younger people often got left out, if for nothing else the lack of money or let’s say the lack of desire to spend the money on beading classes. When I was working on the project in this issue I thought how nice it would be to teach this class to some young teenager or preteen. All young girls love rings and this is a very simple, beginning project to build a life long interest in Handmade. Perhaps the beaders out there could take a few minutes, and talk to a neighbor, a niece and invite them to learn how to make and appreciate their own Handmade jewelry.
By the way, I did know what Bede meant (amazing). I had a person, Chris Laning, submit an article on ancient Rosaries. She is on staff at UC Davis and is doing original research on the subject. A very interesting article on the role of beads/bedes in religious history. You can find that article in our free archives at: http://www.beadbabe.com/archives/html/bedes_byddyng__medieval_rosari.html ~ Bill
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