How did it begin?

I’ve recently been asking myself where my obsession with tiny glass beads began.  The best I can remember my first encounter with seed beads was at Cherokee, North Carolina in the 1960s.  We lived near the Smoky Mountains and often travelled there in the summer to picnic, but this time we went a little farther to see the Cherokee Reservation and the town.

What impressed me were the “Indians” in full southwestern-style head dresses and the handsome people there.  I’m a very white person and have always been attracted to dark people.  Then my grandparents took me into a little souvenir shop.  Everything was wonderful to a kid.  All kinds of trinkets and plastic doodads, head dresses, feathers, fake arrowheads–then there were the beaded belts.

The colors were vibrant and the designs intricate.  The textures were amazing.  I had to have one.  A leather belt with a loom-work seed bead strip down the center.  It must have cost quite a bit.  I remember, barely, how they tried to talk me out of that item.  I insisted.  We bought it.  (Yeah, now that I’m a grandmother I’m that easy too).  I made it home with it in my hand, but I don’t think I ever got to wear it.  Mama put it away to “keep it.”   She let me look at and feel it from time to time.  I can still picture it.   I can’t remember what happened to it, but I’m sure that belt started my love affair with beads.