Bead weaver: Clash of creativity and color redefine art

Maggie Gordon’s entire home — indoors and out — is her working bead studio, and millions of tiny beads like it here.

Indoors there are watercolor-palette dishes of beads being used in current design work and about 120 drawers in bead cabinets with ice cube-tray compartments filled with every size, shape and color of bead.

In the front courtyard is a table where Gordon likes to do her beading. The top is a thick slab of what was once an old mill wheel. The entire surface is pitted, rutted and rough and Gordon says it’s perfect for catching dropped or runaway beads.

Though dictionaries define a bead as “a small, usually round piece of glass, wood, stone etc. pierced and intended to be strung with others like it on a thread or wire,” Gordon’s works bring new meaning to the word.

Starting an artistic career in pottery and ceramics, it was while living in St. Paul, Minn., that she was asked to teach Native American children attending an urban school how to bead.

“The elders felt the children needed to learn to bead, to keep the tradition... since I was a teacher I was asked to teach them.”

This was Gordon’s genesis into what has become her life’s joy.

She went on to manage a bead store, started doing juried art shows and said the teachers were excited for her when she started to sell her beaded work.

More than using purchased beads in her creative work, Gordon incorporates what she calls “found objects” into her necklaces, pendants, earrings and varied pieces. They include pieces of snake vertebrae, vintage plastic, mini tiles and mini corncobs.

“I have chosen one technique, the peyote stitch, and I exploit this stitch’s endless possibilities for creating texture and incorporating beads of all sizes.

“I carefully choose contrasting and complementary elements that play off each individual bead as well as the overall piece,” she says.

Gordon enjoys the slowness of beading.

“I weave each individual bead by hand into its place. I find a sense of calm in focusing on the slow, rhythmic nature of the work,” she said.

Sets of three earrings?

As part of her artistic nature, she loves to try something new, novel, unique or just plain creative and experimented with making sets of three earrings.

Do they sell well? “Oh, yes! They’re my bread and butter,” she says.

“First I made two earrings that were different. Then a woman at a show asked for three because she tended to lose an earring.”

When women at shows started asking, “Why three earrings?” Gordon turned the questions into a unique contest.

“The teacher in me asked the customers ... Instead of me telling them why, I challenged them to tell me why. After collecting over 40 entries, I submitted the entries to two judges — the first woman to receive a Ph.D. from Harvard Business School and her daughter, who has a Ph.D. in continental philosophy.”

The winner of the “Why three earrings?” contest was a man from St. Paul whose response was, “So you have it in the unlikely event someone lends you an ear.”

Other creative entries were put into whimsical categories:

Most Empowering: The freedom to lose one.

Most Obvious: For your third ear.

Most Prophetic: And the two shall become three.

Most American: Because more is always better.

Most Practical: In case you lose one or if you don’t like how they match.

Most Intriguing: Menopause

Most Amusing to Artist’s Daughter: Because the artist is confused.

Most Far Out: Because as you get older, your lose your hearing and we now evolve to have three ears, one to save for later

One set of Gordon’s trio includes beads of furnace glass, Bali silver, antique German glass, Indonesian glass, pearl and crystals.

Heavily focused on beading, her creativity is part of everything she does including cooking and gardening.

“My house reflects who I am,” she says. “This is what I love.”

Contact Green Valley freelance reporter Ellen Sussman at ellen2414@cox.net.

IF YOU GO

Maggie Gordon will take part in the Tubac Center of the Arts Open Studio Tour in April.

When: April 3-4, 10-11

Where: 305 W. Circulo del Paladin, Green Valley. Casa Paloma I, West side of La Canada, north of Esperanza

Information: 520-270-8902 or www.margaretgordon.net