Sunday, May 07, 2006
BOTTLES TO BEADS
While it doesn't look like much initially, these man is one of the world's most famous bead maker - so famous that he is known world wide, but I didn't get his name to write here. But on our way back from the boat ride, we stopped at his bead factory - it was way off the route, down a hillside, nestled in several trees, but the road (or lack there of) was quite a challenge for our bus driver - particularly because of the recent rain. Here he is showing us some of his combinations of mixtures - and yes, one of the main components is crushed bottles - crushed fine enough to make the mixture just like sand.
This mixtue is crushed glass and some silicone and he fills the container by hand - shaping the different color of sand simply by holding the glass at an angle and then pouring the material in - it comes up almost perfectly symmetrical and this particular item will cook down into a bead about an inch and a half or two inches round with the indicated pattern throughout it. If bought separately it would cost about a dollar so so.
In this picture you can see three items of interest - first the fellow on the left is working with hot beads just out of the fire you can see in the background. They place the white ceramic containers you see into the fire with paddles (left hand side of pictures are the pots waiting to go into the fire) that look like big long pizza paddles. Once they are melted and hot, the fellow uses tools to shape them into round beads and to put the hole in the middle. Not exactly my idea of perfect work when the temperature is already 35 degrees.
This fellow is polishing the beads - you can get an idea of their size and color - but the polishing process is very simple - some water with sand in it and a lot of moving beads back and forth - back and forth - and it polishes them very nicely. I guess beads are of universal interest. There was a lady visiting this fellow from Australia - who had been teaching there - is now travelling around kind of coordinating and acting as liason between beadmakers - this fellow appartently will be teaching at the University of Wisconsin next year - His entire layout was only about an acre or so - and his little shop where he sells beads and necklaces was about 12 by 12 feet - and no, Sister Nielson looked and looked, but didn't buy and buy!
