Frances inspired me to join her in stringing beadcurtain strands (since the temps were still hovering in the 0 degF range—I'm willing to work glass in the winter, but I do like it to be at least 20 or so; otherwise, all that cold air blasting through the studio is really hard on the plants. Not to mention me.

So while the wizard fixed the installation on her laptop, we strung beadcurtain. She did blue and I wanted to string up the little amber-purple boro ornament, and so decided on a mixed green and amber strand.

Bead curtain strand. Live area approx 5’; leader 14–18”. Strung 10jan2015, of a variety of beads made in the last decade or so.

The ornament has kind of an interesting story. My dear best friend Page—perhaps because her parents’ health is become frailer—has spent a good deal of 2014 getting her life in particularly good order. It is especial importance that her possessions be properly distributed, and like my folks, who gave the bulk of their possessions away to their children when they downsized from a 3000sf house to a little condo 2500 miles away rather than having us fight over them after they passed, Page has started finding homes with people who have spouses and particularly children who will be there to dispose of the stuff should the same-age recipient have the poor taste to suddenly drop dead before making proper arrangements.

This means she's given many of the gifts I've given her, back to me. As they were amongst my best work, suitable for a best friend, I was rather more pleased than disappointed, though of course, now it's on me to figure out what to do with all this stuff. Such is the case with this little amber purple ornament. It probably has the best development of this color in a blown ornament that I've ever achieved^[1] and because it has this shared history, I finally hit upon putting it into the new bead curtain, where I could enjoy its color and nostalgic implications easily.

Unlike the last strand featured, this one is more than a little bit of a hotch-potch: I hadn't anticipated stringing it. So I finally gave up trying for something cohesive and just threw a bit everything in—a small dichro focal, some antique roman-glass style curliques, ancient dotties, miscellaneous practice beads from the prior year (including one shard bead with a soda-lime shard version of amber-purple), etc.

I'm happy to report, now that it's installed, that it blended in with the rest quite amicably, despite its rather jarring transitions. That is one of the great things about bead curtains, they're very forgiving.

dichro, focals substituted for ‘dichrofocal’ 13nov17.

Unless otherwise noted, text, image and objects depicted therein copyright 1996--present sylvus tarn.