Report from the Trenches: Week Three

My third week of work on my "Battle of the Beadsmith" piece is over; and I'm going to to do my best to give you a report without giving away any top-secret information. I can't release any photos, or give you any specifics of the design until the battle has actually begun and my photos are turned loose to joust in their first round. But, until then, here are a few of my thoughts and musings from the third week:

This next week will see the half-way point come and go; time flies. Of course, there is nothing quite as cliche as that particular statement, but the older I get, the faster it flies.

This week has left me thinking about time, and about the threads that join us. Early in the week, I finished the components that will make up this piece - the friends, if you will - and I began to weave them together into a tightly-knit circle. As I was doing that, the news came that one of my friends will be leaving the circle sooner than expected; his cancer has returned aggressively, and there is nothing more that can be done.

There is no way to hold him here physically, but the work he has done, and the friends he has made, will keep him alive in spirit for a good while longer. He has added so much beauty to the world; I am thankful that I had the chance to know him; and this week, I did what I could to reinforce the stitches of our friendship.

It's a precarious existence, a fragile balance. In beadweaving, as in life, threads break; they can unravel so quickly, and beads will suddenly begin to fall off. Sometimes, they are found again; sometimes they are not. Sometimes they are woven back more firmly and stay; sometimes the thread continues to break at the exact same point and the whole thing must be re-thought.

I've never worked this way before; I'm beading my life into this piece. 

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