Art Bead Scene Blog: About the Art Bead Scene

Art Bead Scene Blog: About the Art Bead Scene

I Beg Your Pardon...

I had to yank the shopping cart hard to untangle. Succeeding, my eyes met a fellow sitting on a near by bench at the entrance of the super market. I smiled.

"Maam"

A couple of steps later I hear again - "Maam... "
I turned my head.

"I AM HUNGRY."

How old is he? Fourteen or fifteen, may be. This young Afro-American boy, his face all bundled up in a black parka hood, is announcing - "I am hungry!" - As if I am his mom or auntie or a close neighbor.

I am startled. Yet I pause.

"May be when I get back". I answered. The boy nodded his head "Okay".

Believe me, I am quite good at ignoring these "spare a change?", "will work for food" kinda messages.

I used to see a woman sitting on a low wall of a church with all her possessions in a shopping cart. She wore decent clothes. Every Friday after grocery, on my way back home I would to see her - for quite a few months.

Some times I thought of stopping and talking to her. If I bought her a sandwich or give a box of crackers would she mind? - I thought. But I never did.

I grew up in Calcutta. I have seen all kinds of begging strategies.

Once, a lady - quite properly dressed, came to our house and asked to see the lady of the house. She told my mom her story so convincingly that we were mesmerized. Her husband had died recently from a stroke. Her only wage earning son, had a car accident and is in the hospital. She is new to this strange city and had no option other than going door to door for help. She wiped her glasses with the end of her shawl.

Ma gave her a robust donation.

We smirked and ridiculed Ma for how gullible she was and how easily she could be fooled.

"Well, then I pay for her superb acting"- She replied.

When all these beggar women, with a skeleton child on their hips cluster around our car, as we are stuck in the Park Street traffic jam - they stretch their palms for "a Paisa" (coin), I can easily roll the window up and direct the driver to remember to stop at the "Flury's" - the best baking shop in Calcutta

But today something happened. It was almost 3:40 pm and I have not had lunch either. My stomach was growling. The words echoed louder and louder in my head - " Maam..I am hungry, I am hungry."

As I was snaking through the aisles picking up stuff from my list, I was also unconsciously thinking of this boy.

Finally, I picked up a bagguette and a small cup of cream cheese and asked the cashier girl to bag it separately and stick a plastic spoon too.

I came out. The sliding door closed silently.

He was no where.

This is the first time I was refused by a beggar.

A Wish from A Genie

I came across an interesting term- RAS- acronym of - Reticular Activation System.

What I understood is- it is the part of the brain that acts like a strainer.

Suppose you are in a busy air port or train station and there are all kind of noise and cacophony. But you can manage to snooze. All on a sudden you hear- "Ms. Dita Basu - you have a call in the white courtesy telephone"

WHAT? Your antanaes are up. You are not sleepy any more.

So, my brain could let pass all that is not so important but just capture and hold onto what is important.

Experts say that this knowledge is applicable to any goal setting strategy. Athletes in Olympics use it, successful speakers and performers use it. They can visualize their success and train their brain to note it as a very important thing.

If you can manage this part of your brain, or rather you can understand the full power of this tool that you already have - you do have unlimited wealth and potential.

Oh My! That's why they probably say - you have unlimited potential, you just don't know about it.

So here, decide what is the one and only one thing that you can give your heart and soul and desire most? Can you dream it?

Oh No! I am in trouble. The Genie has come . "Quick Dita- Think of just one wish. One and just one thing ."

Traffic in my blog? Nah.

Clicks in my affiliate marketing? - Nah nah.

Just one wish - it must be more valuable than that.

"I want to give all that I know- Give me that wish"

The Genie smiled and turned his head. "It is all up to you. Remember RAS?"



He leaves.

I am left alone. I grab my bead box and create a necklace piece.

Knitted garnet teardrops in silver wire.

Oldest Jewellery Design

I was thinking of the oldest jewelery design on earth, as I was finishing up my latest jewelry project. It revealed some extra ordinary fascinating facts.

The oldest jewelry design goes back as far as some forty to forty five thousand years ago. If we consider that the first human dates back about six to seven million years,evidence of the first jewelry designs happened some forty to forty-five thousand years ago.

Scientists believe this time frame correlates with when humans could use language or appreciate symbolism. Jewelry was worn to show some kind of symbolism just like it is used to day - to show power, status or some thing like that.

Shell beads were found in ancient Turkey , ostrich egg shell beads in Kenya, they all had deliberate holes for designing jewelery. They all are contemporary, though far apart in geographical sense, they show the same time period - about 45,000 years old.

Recent findings shake this theory. Three beads were found that were over 100,000 years old. Shell bead found in Blombos cave, on the southern tip of South Africa are75,000 years old.

These beads all have deliberate holes, and definitely do carry symbolic message- says Prof Henshilwood of the University of Bergen, Norway (Ref: BBC News: "Oldest Jewellery" - June 22, 2006 )

This dramatically pushes back the dates for the first clear proof of using symbolism by human being. That is what sets human apart from animals.

Then, even before we could talk(which is around 45 to 50 thousand years ago) were we making jewelry designs? Why not? It is very possible that the urge to make beautiful things came even before we learned to talk.

Like art, jewelry design opens the window of the human soul just to point to the mystery of beauty!

You Are Invited

I feel that this blog spot is my home in the web -land. Here, even though we ( you and I ) may not be able to shake hands literally, or even see each other ever in person, yet we get to know each other; know each others' passions and struggles.

Here, I may not be able to offer you a cup of tea or my favorite sherry cake, but can offer you the recipe.

This holiday season was really nice for me, (thanks for all the holiday wishes!) especially I got to see my little ZZ and her cute family. Of all the fun things that had happened to me , I'll mention one today.

It was making the wreath.

This year I did not get to buy a wreath for our door. After the Christmas tree was brought in, my daughter announced that we had quite a bit of greenery from the cut out branches of the bottom of the tree.

It was drizzling outside, besides the pine greenery had such heavenly smell we just wanted to fiddle with them inside.

I remembered the wisteria branch from last spring. Its supple, malleable nature let me bend it and twist it until I made a full circle of that lanky branch and then tossed it somewhere in the shed. Yes, it was still there!

Let that be our base for the wreath. Then with my ample jewelry practice wires we attached the pine leaves and branches. There were hollies and berries from our side yard that the birds had planted and we carelessly never attended them. Those adorned the green branches with red kisses.

It was the best wreath. And the best part was everything was from our home and natural.

Here, now I open my door. Please come in. Have a little chat. Say something, so that I'll know that you came and left your foot prints.
And please visit again. HAPPY NEW YEAR.

"You Alone Are You"- Shakespeare

It's interesting how sometimes things happen as if there is a pattern that is invisible.

Here, we are all busy to make others happy. We are cleaning the house for guests, thinking of the wishes of our dear ones and working so hard to be the Santa Claus. In the kitchen we are baking, cooking and constantly cleaning and wiping. Days pass by swiftly, afternoons succumb to nights quicker than ever before. The thought of going for the walk vanishes as we struggle crossing out the jobs from our to do list.

My friend says,- " But I had no time with my kids. Before I could sit and tell how my days are it was time for them to leave. They are more interested in their friends. Do you get into such feelings sometimes?"

"Oh yeh, of course. And then I am the one who has to drag me out from that hole - no body knows me better than I do." - I say.

I overlook the wrinkles and silver streaks on my temple and love the face I see in the mirror, because -"To love oneself is the beginning of a life long romance"- Oscar Wilde.

All these quotations one by one are dropping on my lap for the past few days.

This morning I was reading this book - "Life Lessons for Women". It is one of those Chicken Soup series book.

I want to share one story(from the book- not mine, mind you), but I'll tell it in short and in my language.

"I was looking for those free days, the days when my dear husband and I would be retired, the kids have their own lives, and we are free. We'll do lots of traveling, and do all the things we wanted to do .

But life happened differently. A chunk of our savings was drained out for taking care of our dear aged parents in their last days. My husband lost his job and sank into great depression after the 9/11 .He became a total stranger to me .

Our only daughter's marriage did not last too long. Now, she came to live with us with a baby while student teaching in the day time and working as a waitress at night. She was trying to get her teaching credential.

There was no one to care for the baby. We calculated that it will be cheaper for me to quit my job as an assistant special education staff than putting the child in a day care.

I lost my job of eleven years with all the pension and other things, yet it was the right thing to do I felt.

There were times when I felt down and depressed.

One such day while I took Allison, my grand daughter for a walk I remembered how my dad used to take me on his nature hikes. How I helped him plant in the garden- how he connected me with nature and the fact that I love nature.

I was almost unaware of this fact, it seemed. Now every day as Allison and I go out for our walks we discover new things. How the leaves turned yellow, orange, crimson-red and burnt - cinnamon in crisp autumn days until one day all the leaves were gone.

Then we found tiny bird nests tucked in those bare trees. Looking closely we discovered how hard the birds try, some times sowing leaves with thorns to make a nest, sometimes lining them with mud. Still some fail, and there are broken eggshells.

Yet, they try and start the mornings with chants. Still they show their glee with tweets and chirps.

One day I saw a huge v -shape on the sky made by the snow geese. One goose for some strange reason deviated from the group and got lost. In a while I saw the whole flock turned around looked for the stray missing member and picked her up. Then they went flying again. How amazing."

It brought tears in my eyes. This simple wisdom of the birds gives me a profound sense of the meaning of a family and a strange sense of self .

I hope I can help my friends who are feeling a bit depressed during this stressful time of the year.

May the spirit of the season perk you up.

The Knitted Galaxy

There is so much to share. I spent almost a month in D.C. with my new friend little ZZ. She is about nine months old. She gave me a big welcome at the airport as soon as she saw me. She had been waiting in the baggage claim area with her dad.

She gave me a big toothless smile waving her all four arms and legs like a little joey from her dad's kangaroo pouch.

We went to see many things in D.C. in these three weeks which will be unfolded here one by one and I want to tell you how it affected me in my creative process.

One day we went to visit the NASA museum where ZZ's mom works as a post doc in the field of Astronomy. I was amazed at the stories and huge pictures/models of the galaxies. Many things were explained to me, but those mathematical, analytical info went over my head. I was dumbfound at the magical beauty and vastness of the whole thing. It kind of transcended me spiritually.

My inside wanted to create something as an ode to the Supreme Creator. That night I had strange dreams.

When the morning sun beams peeked in, in that wee hour, while every one was still sleeping I created my first piece of knitted jewelry.

I made it for little ZZ. A tiny bracelet- only 2 1/2 inches long. But it gave me some ideas, practice, gauge and dimension sense that I could count on, and the next few days I was creating knitted jewelry like crazy. Here I show two- (at the right of this page.)

Check my etsy store as I am going to upload each day.

FREE SHIPPING for this week until December 2.

If you do not want to go through etsy, or live close by where I do not need to ship you, I can pass the saving so that you don't have to pay sale tax. I'll pay for your tax. My way of saying THANK YOU for the THANKS GIVING occasion.

I also have a craft show this month :

Saturday, December 5, 9 am - 2:30 pm
in a church-19001 San Ramon Valley Blvd. San Ramon CA.
I'll be happy to see you there.