My
bead beginnings
My first memories of beading began with my mother, Neva
Brimhall. She’s the creative sort and was always making
all sorts of things with her hands. There was nothing she
couldn’t make. She was always very interested in jewelry
and could put together earrings, necklaces, broaches and
rings. She would teach the ladies at church how to make
them. When I was a teenager I remember her bedroom tie rack
heavily weighted with what I thought was hundreds of beaded
necklaces and old Native American jewelry pieces. Sometimes
she would make me necklaces which I today still have parts
and pieces of. She loved jewelry. It must have rubbed off
on me. When I was seventeen I started stringing necklaces
out of abalone and seashells that washed up on the beaches
in my home town of Ventura, California. I thought seashells
were about the most beautiful creations God had ever made.
Later I adorned myself in organic creations of dried yellow
June corn, strung with dried berries and small red spikey
chili peppers. In college my girlfriends and I would gather
juniper berries under the fragrant green scrubby trees of
Utah. We would string necklaces with them and enjoy imagining
how the Native American Indians made their own “ghost
bead” necklaces. I wore earrings made of porcupine
quills and was obsessed with Native American turquoise and
silver. I sometimes wore my girlfriend Millie’s traditional
beaded buckskin dress and I was completely impressed with
the colorful beadwork. Many years ago I took a trip deep
into Mexico and was touched by an old Huichol Indian woman
who would have done anything to sell me some of her hand
crafted clay bead necklaces. She was trying to support her
children with her bead sales. I still treasure these simple
beads in my collection.
Bead
Fever
In my late 30’s my mother took my sisters and me to
her favorite bead store in Arizona. At that point we all
kind of went “nuts” with beads. My husband Rich
encouraged me and participated in the bead collecting and
before we knew it Rich, myself and my sister Karen Gordon,
(who also got bead fever – see Bead Bonkers), had
spent hundreds of dollars on beads of every kind. Karen,
my daughters Georgia, Hye Soo and I would stay up late at
night stringing up our latest creations. We had a lot of
fun. Sometimes my older sister Cindi Henrie and my mother
would join us. Even my brother and father joined in on the
fun once or twice! We would stay up all night teaching out
of town visitors how to craft polymer clay fimo beads. We
would take our bead entourage with us on extended family
camping trips and bead with my daughters and nieces. I’ll
never forget when I tried to slide my bead boxes down the
steep brown slick rock that drops down into the Upper-lower
Calf Creek wilderness off Boulder Highway in Southern Utah.
I was emphatic with Rich that he not let them slip off the
cliff!! We had a giant bead-fest with the whole extended
family under a giant red rock overhang that rests in the
cliffs a few yards upstream of Upper-lower Calf Creek’s
waterfall drop off. Everyone made themselves rainbow colored
white heart bracelets and necklaces. Before we left we mischievously
scattered some red and yellow-orange glass white hearts
in the sand hoping the beads would catch the eye of other
adventurers who would later visit the overhang and swim
in the water potholes. I know for a fact that up to ten
years later others have indeed spotted these tiny glass
flecks of color glimmering in the fine red sand.
African
Trade Beads
In those days I spent quite a bit of time selling my beaded
jewelry in shops and boutiques to support my bead buying.
The old African trade beads especially interested me and
they were Rich’s favorites. My sister Cindi introduced
us to Cloyd Sorenson of Utah; he’s a world renowned
trade bead expert and owns an extensive collection of beads
and artifacts that have been published in the famous July
1971 issue of Arizona Highways. Rich, my sisters and I have
visited with Cloyd on several occasions and he has shown
us some of his private bead collection and Native American
artifacts. He told us stories of his younger day adventures
in the Southwest and shared many interesting facts and histories
about our own old trade beads we had collected.
Bead
Fever Strikes Again
After a few years my “bead fever” took somewhat
of a rest. There doesn’t seem to be enough time in
one life for everything all at once so the beads took the
backseat. I was busy raising my two girls, being Rich’s
wife, and co-running a business. I eventually went back
to school and became a therapeutic licensed massage therapist.
For several years I’ve pursued and am pursuing my
interests in bodywork and body/mind related therapies…
the healing arts. But!!... my bead passion has resurrected
itself. In 2005 Rich purchased several strands of old trade
beads and his enthusiasm for the old beads caught fire with
me again. Thanks to my sister Karen’s
tutoring, graphic design talent, and a million hours spent,
Rich and I now have a website and an eBay store. So we welcome
you to Dixon’s Trade Bead on the web. Feel free to
check the Trade Bead Encyclopedia
& History on our
website and browse our e-bay
store and auctions. Bead trading and selling is something
that we love to do! We look forward to bringing you unique
beads and grouping of “the
old and the new” in trade beads. We
have chosen them carefully and we’ll be bringing you
these beads from all around the world.
Happy
Beading!!!!!! ~Susan and Rich Dixon |
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