Category Archives: Bali

Whimsey Bird

1 June 2019

4 Comments

A touch of whimsy always makes my day.

This lampwork glass bird is one of many whimsical beads Stephanie Sersich, Topsham, Maine, creates.  Sersich today is 43 years old and introduced herself to the bead world at age 25 with a public lecture and an article in the legendary “Lapidary Journal.”   Two big influences contributing to her success are her creative Mom and a major in metalsmithing and painting.  As she says, “I learned engineering and color which led me to making my own glass beads.”

She then developed her own “Spiny Knotting” method to allow her to bind many of her colorful beads into a single bracelet or necklace.  Check them out on her website sssbeads.com.

I have often wondered why I preferred the hunt for fabulous beads like Stephanie’s instead of making them.  It has a lot to do with the fact that my youthful focus was on getting an English degree, living in Paris and Lisbon, and being a corporate HR professional.  I didn’t buy my first bead until I was 50 and living in Hong Kong, entertaining myself while my husband organized his company’s South Asian footprint.  But I loved the hunt!  From the Hong Kong Jade Market to Beijing’s outdoor flea markets, Shanghai’s treasure-filled antique shops, from small entrepreneurial silver shops in Bali, to the giant pieces of turquoise I found in Tibet, and the amazing beads on small Indonesian islands of Sumba, Komodo, and Flores.  For two years, I never thought of making my own beads.  Just acquiring them.

And I can safely say that is true today, 25 years later.  I was determined, however, to put my own creative stamp on each necklace.  To balance color and texture, to be bold, chunky and fearless, but above all to never stop searching for the odd, eccentric, remarkable bead.  And to do that, I expanded my search to fulfill the true definition of a bead:  something with a hole in it which can be strung.

Stephanie’s bird and fiber dangle is 3.5″ and the pink Czech glass bead necklace is 24″.  Featured in the necklace are molded glass pre-war German semi-circle beads plus glass flowers at the end of the necklace and in the earrings.  $139.

 

Drawer 34: Cinnabar

22 August 2017

5 Comments

“Illusionist”

My Chinese Apothecary Chest:   in 1994, it arrived via container to California from Hong Kong, where I discovered beading during my husband’s ex-pat assignment.   Serves as the repository for my beads.  Handcrafted.  It has 52 Drawers, mostly sorted by color.

2017 Challenge: Create a Necklace a Week, using only the Beads from one Drawer at a time. Voila!  52 Necklaces!

Week 34/Drawer 34: August 23, 2017: “Illusionist”

Cinnabar is an intriguing name. Sometimes I call it “Chinese Red”, especially if I am referring to furniture or antique wood items.  It is a terrific color for bead jewelry since it seems to flatter all skin tones.  I buy cinnabar whenever I see it.  The more typical beads are carved, but my favorites are these large smooth and very light beads from Drawer 34.

Cinnabar has been used in China since the Song Dynasty (960-1279 AD) when its name evolved from “red cinnamon”. Cinnabar is found in every mineral deposit that contains mercury.  The Chinese avoided the toxic effects of mercury by coating it with lacquer, thereby creating their famous lacquerware.  Today the toxic pigment is replaced with a resin-based polymer.  All the famous Renaissance painters  loved their scarlet pigment called vermillion made possible by mercury; today’s artists use the polymer version in their oils or acrylics.

In this necklace, I separated the cinnabar beads with some Kris rings I found in Bali.  Needless to say, they have an interesting history also:  they are one of three components in the dagger found in Bali (also Thailand and a few other places); between the wood or silver hilt and the iconic wavy blade sits the Kris ring, historically red rubies, but glass and brass in my version.

The oversize brass hook-and-eye clasp suits the large cinnabar beads which are 1” in diameter…but let me emphasize they are very light in weight. 20” long. Small cinnabar earrings included (or wear your own gold earrings).  $95.

Drawer 33: Teal Blue

16 August 2017

5 Comments

“Yin and Yang”

My Chinese Apothecary Chest:   in 1994, it arrived via container to California from Hong Kong, where I discovered beading during my husband’s ex-pat assignment.   Serves as the repository for my beads.  Handcrafted.  It has 52 Drawers, mostly sorted by color.

2017 Challenge: Create a Necklace a Week, using only the Beads from one Drawer at a time. Voila!  52 Necklaces!

Week 33/Drawer 33: August 16, 2017: “Yin and Yang”

I’m really going out on a limb this week as I attempt to make a case that my necklace embodies the principle of Yin and Yang. I will state it was an after-the-fact discovery as I stared at my finished necklace while searching for a title from my collection of pithy phrases.

Yin and Yang is a fundamental, ancient Chinese philosophy which states all things exist as inseparable and contradictory opposites (young-old, dark-light, etc.). These opposites attract and complement each other, and as the icon’s small dots  illustrate, each side has an element of the other…which is my necklace!

 

What I didn’t know until I researched it was Yin is feminine, black, provides spirit, is the winter solstice, orange, a tiger and many other attributes. Yang is masculine, white, provides form, is the summer solstice, blue, a dragon, and more.  I think I did marry the opposites by placing one after another, allowing them to attract and complement each other.

The necklace features two melon beads—marked by a distinctive ridged surface which gives the look of a melon. The larger ones are antique dyed onyx melon beads carved in Bali and its ridges reflect the roughed-up onyx au naturel.  The smaller beads are Chinese silver—they add lots of nickel which accounts for the dark silver color—with blue enamel applied to the ridges.  One example of yin and yang is the blue teal of the dyed onyx becomes the blue teal of the Chinese ridge.

I used small sterling silver spacers plus sterling silver wire to attach the centerpiece bead plus a hand-crafted sterling clasp.

The necklace is 20” long and the center dangle falls 1.75”. Wear your silver earrings with it; large or small will look good.  It is $99.

P.S.: I bought the onyx beads in Bali during our 1993-4 Southeast Asia sojourn.  Don and I returned to Bali about five years later.  It is idyllic and beautiful.  I will declare it to be my favorite Southeast Asia destination.  If you are curious, Venice is my favorite Western destination!