Walking into Bathing Beauties bead shop, on the Higgins Avenue “Hip Strip,” is like walking into an eye candy confectionary.
Scads and scads of beads of all ilk.
In Bathing Beauties, I made a beeline straight for the Swarovski crystals, and all other beads faded to black.
They were stunning.
I knew that this must be what people like Jennifer Lopez, Elizabeth Taylor and other bejeweled celebrities, feel like when they are selecting 30-plus carats of fiery rock.
All of a sudden, I was Raymond Babbit from “Rain Man” commenting on the obvious.
“They’re very sparkly,” I heard myself say aloud.
“Yeah. Very sparkly.”
Brilliant-cut Swarovskis of extravagent hues, in all sizes, nestled in clamshells and antique china ring boxes - lavish pirate-chest booty in miniature.
Each display vessel at Bathing Beauties is nearly as much a part of the drama as the beads themselves.
The containers are the painstakingly co-stars for the 7,000-plus beads Max Gilliam has discovered in all manner of places.
The prisms of light and fire in the crystals brought back memories of a time in 1993 when beading was my solace - something I did to pass the time when my father was ill.
I stumbled upon my first bead shop in northwest Portland. The strands and cups of beads in that shop were as powerful a visual draw then, as they are now.
I had forgotten how utterly beautiful beads can be until the other day.
According to the glasscandy.com Web site, people have been making beads and practicing beading for about 38,000 years.
But the early ’90s seemed the first modern age in which stigmas about the craft being “just for hippies” fell away, and allowed a mainstream audience to embrace it.
After an hour of ogling beads that day in Portland, I was hooked.
I purchased supplies and became a permanent fixture in the store - beading for hours upon hours, attaching brilliant crystals onto stands that eventually created hip, iconic rosaries.
I have done my best thinking while beading. Back then, it helped me to forget why I had had to abruptly leave New York to come home again.
Beading is akin to driving a highway for miles, then realizing you can’t recall the scenery you just passed. Zoning out with beads in hand can be as rewarding as cradling a finished product.
There’s also something just plain gratifying about well-worn, clumsy hands being able to precisely work with such tiny artifacts.
Gilliam took me on a lengthy tour of his bead shop.
Each dish on tiered shelves contained a different type of bead - bone, semiprecious stone, crystal, pearl, metal or wood.
This, Gillaim said, is the art collection of his life.
He’s collected beads for 30 years, from places all over the world: Africa, Europe, Japan.
Unlike me, crystal doesn’t do that much for Gilliam. He carries crystal beads mainly for people who like uniformity and the precision of facets.
They are popular, he said, but not as personally fascinating to him as the other beads he sees as small art masterpieces.
Gilliam says he prefers to specialize in unusual cuts of semi-precious stones.
“I have so many stones that people have never heard of,” he says. “But you don’t have to know their names - when you see them, they knock you down.”
Rocks with exotic names like rhodocrisite, chrysoprase, carnelian, and picture jasper - stones with layers and striations like prehistoric landscapes - are laid out like sculptures in a museum.
Usual suspects such as malachite, lapis lazuli and amethyst accompany them.
I pick up a bead that looks like a Murano vase from Italy.
Like the faceted Swiss crystals I adore, I can appreciate the art that went into this single vase-like bead.
Gilliam tells me that it is Chinese, not Italian.
“These are one-twentieth of the price in Italy,” says Gilliam. “If it was from Italy, no one could afford it.”
Countries like China and India, he says, are producing lamp-work beads - one-of-a-kind glass beads they make on Bunsen burners.
Globalization is creating a lot more diversity in the bead marketplace, according to Gilliam.
“They’re putting out more interesting things all the time,” he says.
He tells me also that it is slowly eroding the eight-century-old glassmaking industry on Murano Island near Venice in Italy.
In that moment, I?realize that mixing politics and art in a single conversation takes the stuffing out of enchantment.
It was the same when he told me that African trading beads aren’t made in Africa at all - hardly any beads are made there, Gilliam says.
“They are made in places like Germany or the Netherlands and brought to Africa to trade,” he says.
Learning a bead’s history seemed a double-edged sword.
These were fascinating facts, but knowing too much can prove a fatal blow to allure.
I made a quick exit before the Swarovski sparkle could be tackled to the ground.
|
 |
 |
Add your comment now! Write your comment in the form below.
(Email address is for verification only. If you'd like to email a story, look for the link above)