French bead weaving: anyone remember it or even heard of it? I had never known such a thing existed until I came upon several instruction booklets. Where? I have no idea. Why did it appeal to me? That’s an even greater mystery. Perhaps it was because I was trapped inside a small one-bedroom apartment tending to a newborn while her father slaved away so we could eat. No doubt I was bored and desperate. What better solution than to adopt one of the most painful and laborious ways to create home decor that no one knows what to do with? I lost you after French bead weaving, didn’t I? You take slender strands of malleable wire, string yards of minuscule glass beads onto them, and then twist them into the shapes of floral petals and foliage. Each rose requires dozens of beaded petals. Strands of greenery demand woven wires mid stalk to keep the long beaded rows close and tight. Picture a cloth loom, then shrink it to palm size and imagine back and forth weaving with wire that would rather puncture your fingers than cooperate. Set up your supplies after everyone has gone to bed like rational human beings and then string beads to your heart’s delight, or until daylight and breakfast serving time, whichever comes first. Try to not drip blood from your damaged digits into the pancake batter. Eventually you will have assembled a floral display of notable size, a lovely substitute for silk flower arrangements, only made of shiny glass components embedded into florists’ clay. The whole concoction is glued to vases intended for orchid shows at Japanese hotels. You proudly place the debut piece in your own living room and proceed to gift each successive output to unwilling friends and family. What happens next? You grow tired of bending and cutting wires in the night. You also run out of bandaids for your fingertips. So you pack up any leftover supplies in a tidy plastic carrying case, shove it into a slot in the linen cabinet, and proceed to dust your surviving French beaded object d’art every so often. Given enough months, the dust wins and you lose. Sparkle Plenty has turned into Dirty Harry. Do you shove it under the kitchen faucet to wash away the grunge? Don’t bother. Why? The wire rusts. You’d end up with clean beads disguised by rusted metal. The whole thing’s a disaster. You can’t even salvage the pretty vase because the clay is now fused to ceramic. There’s nothing to do but toss it into the dumpster when no one is looking. You don’t need to advise your gift recipients about your salvaging efforts. They’ve long ago tossed your creations into their own dumpsters, at night, without telling you, so as to not hurt your feelings. One would think that would be the end of beading, wouldn’t one? One would be wrong. Earrings come next. You’re living in the era of Big Hair. That requires Big Earrings, better yet Big Long Earrings. Once again, instruction books await your inspection at craft stores and tiny little glass beads are beckoning from the linen closet. All you need are bead needles, beading thread, plastic divided bead storages systems, jewelry findings, needle-nosed jewelry pliers … and more beads. A friend made the mistake of taking me with her to a national wholesale gift show. That’s where buyers go in March to purchase Christmas decorations for sale in October. For some reason, jewelry and jewelry supplies were included among the aprons and Santas. Not only did I get to hold dozens of strands of precious and semi-precious beads in my hands, which rotted my brain forever, I was mesmerized by a display of a particular American Indian tribe’s traditionally woven earrings. This was before smart phones were invented so I had to rely upon memory to recreate the designs, which is why my output looked different from theirs. Nonetheless, home I went, determined to master the art of American Indian woven bead work. It took some time. I set up my factory on a TV tray and perched at the edge of the couch, next to the only floor lamp in town. I would begin practice sessions as soon as dinner had been handed out to recipients in various rooms and the detritus had been swept into the trash can or dishwasher. Eventually everyone toddled off to sleep, leaving me to join them as soon as I finished one more row. The difference between weaving beads and blankets is that with yarn you get to say “Just let me finish this row.” With beads it’s a different mantra. “It’s late.” “I know. I’m almost done.” “You’re going to be exhausted in the morning.” “I’ll be right there.” “I’m turning out the lights.” “I know. Just one more bead.” Somewhere between 2 and 3 in the morning your eyeballs have turned to mush and you can’t see if you’re holding a bead or lint, so you pack up your utensils, turn off the only floor lamp in town, and stagger off to bed. He was right. You wake up exhausted. However, if you persist, if you persevere, if you never surrender to failure after multiple abysmal failures you will, in six months or so, go to bed victorious. There will be one flawless imitation of a tribal original waiting to be duplicated the next night into a wearable, salable pair of earrings with a circular or diagonal American Indian shield supporting long dangles of silver bugle beads. Six months. One earring. The cost of art is time. Two co-workers and best friends joined me in my madness. Together we wired, wove, threaded, and shaped stacks of jewelry, enough to fill tables of displays at local art shows. We sold some, gave away some, and maybe kept the rest. My make-believe Indian earrings were actually carried in an upscale lady’s clothing store in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where they should know better. There was something distinctive about them. It had to to with the color combinations. No one had ever seen anything quite like the palette I used. How did I ever come up with these mixtures, I was asked? “What prompted you to mix puce with aqua?” “What puce?” “This, right here.” “That’s puce? I thought it was grey.” “I beg your pardon. What did you say?” “Never mind. Puce. Yes. It seemed right at the time. Thank you for your purchase.” You see, when it’s 3 am and the only light is vaguely shining on the ceiling instead of on your handwork, it’s easy to mistake a teensy reddish brown bead for a grey one. Especially if you are, as I am, somewhat color blind. Puce and aqua. Huh. I thought I was beading grey and green. Even more surprising was the fact that these women were willing to shell out a few shekels for my outre tonal choices. That was fine by me. I wore my faux artifacts until the day I had to remove them at the airport security check because the silver bugle beads set off the metal detector. Then I decided my work here was done. The tiny beads and findings went to one of the cohorts. The semi-precious bigger beads went to the sister-in-law who created art necklaces. I kept the pliers. Now I no longer whisper into the night air “One more bead.” Instead, I’m talking to myself as I dump my latest granny Afghan into my work bag. The tools are larger and easier on the fingers. Sometimes I have to rip out entire blankets and start over because even I can see that whatever color combination I thought I was using is too ugly to ever leave the house. I’ve segued from “One more bead” to “One more row” and that’s where I intend to stay for the duration.