(I have to admit, it was something of a revelation in college when I discovered that ‘peach’, specifically what is typically considered ‘caucasian’ or ‘northern european’ skin tones, is basically orange.)

Most white people I know hate wearing orange, think little of the color, and would be horrified to discover that they're not and never were white, but orange. A high tint, to be sure, but orange nevertheless. (Tints, for those of you who care to use the terms in color-theoristically correct ways, are pure hues mixed with white; shades are hues mixed with black. Color, strictly speaking, is not just the hue [or chroma], but intensity [brightness] and value [lightness/whiteness:darkness/blackness] as well.) Given the some of the connotations we attach to black and white, maybe it would be a good thing if we were all orange and brown (and yellow and red) instead.

But I digress. (Too long since I've included a rant in these pages, I guess.) When making these necklaces, I gleefully used beads my friend didn't like (catheads especially) in the bottom dangles, as well as more translucent and opaque beads. Thus my pieces, including this one, have a somewhat murkier color scheme and greater texture than my partner's sparkling pieces.

Photographed 29Jul2000.

However, I doubt anyone who didn't know our work well could differentiate, and that's as it should be: we strung these sitting side by side, together. This piece appears to be almost entirely glass beads. It would've been strung from the dangles up, and the seed bead portion and area by the clasp was actually done by someone else. Photographed with a DC260 (hence the fuzzyness). Private collection.

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