I’ve recently been asking myself where my obsession with tiny glass beads began. Â The best I can remember my first encounter with seed beads was at Cherokee, North Carolina in the 1960s. Â 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. Â I’m a very white person and have always been attracted to dark people. Â Then my grandparents took me into a little souvenir shop. Â Everything was wonderful to a kid. Â 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.
