Yes, it is I, the continuing absentee author of this blog. I had the best intentions in the world of composing scintillating beady prose this week and now it's Wednesday and, well, zippo. Sigh.
I do have this lovely strand to show you today. This appeared in my Christmas stocking last year. The mother of a very close friend of mine (both of whom have truly exquisite taste, in my opinion) purchased these at the African Market in Manhattan a while back with the good intention of stringing them - and then never pursued the project. I, lucky person that I am, inherited the strand from her. To be brutally honest (just between you and me), I do not know much about trade beads, but, as the saying goes, I know what I like. I find the combination of colors, textures and patterns here to be very salubrious.
Naturally, it has me chomping at the bit to visit the African Market (which had not yet opened at the time I lived in New York City). Is anyone familiar with the place? I had it on my list of places to visit the last time we were in the city, but we just never made it.
If the stars align and (more to the point), I get my act together, I should have some truly cool books that I obtained from Rings & Things to show you tomorrow. Hope to see you then. Take care.
5 comments:
Not been to the African market in NYC, but your strand is very nice...a good mix, some venetians, chevrons, brass, copal amber....lots can be done with this mix.
In Tucson this year I bought a few too many strands (more like 20-30 lbs, I shipped most of them back home and held on to a few that I JUST had to carry with me??)
Anyway I've been having fun including a couple of those beads in most of my creations these days...
Batik beads, too...nice strand :) You can learn a bit more about glass, metal, and natural-material African/trade beads at our site if you want a quick intro to that world...
--Dave
If you can't get to an African market, Happy Mango Beads might do for a fill-in--they have EXQUISITE African metal/other beads, and piles of other kinds of beads from all over the world (some ultra cool recycled glass beads). Insanely INexpensive, and free shipping always (there's a $15 min. order--easy). I'm totally hooked.
Here's some more sites for African Beads; the Picard site is excellent. Do you know Ken from the HP shows? - he's sells them and is quite knowledgeable. I have a very small collection and marvel at the intricacy of the glass workmanship.
http://www.picardbeads.com/
http://www.africantradebeads.com/index.html
http://www.africadirect.com/other/about_us.php
http://www.ritaokrent.com/rita.htm
Ooh, thanks for all of the good information/links, everyone!
Rupa, your description of 0=20-30lbs of beads made me drool!
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