PHOTOGRAPHY: Meredith Jordan
WEBSITE: www.wildwomanbeads.com
creativity & joy
“
The creative journey, at least
in my life, has run a wild and
wonderful race.”
My birthday and my daughter’s both usher in the new year,
early in January, and in 2005, I was desperate for a way to make
both events more joyful. I was in one of those down lows that
follow the loss of an important relationship, big changes in a
work I wholeheartedly loved, and an especially bleak winter
season.
I rooted around for ideas that might bring some color, enthusiasm and fun back into my life, and, at the same time, be
something we could enjoy doing together. Operating purely
on impulse, I signed us up for an earrings-making class with
my present day beady guru, Allysun Nishimura, and sat back
to wait for the day I’d finally get some joy back into the game.
I had no idea that destiny had called, or that I had answered.
By profession, I’m a mental health counselor. For more than
thirty-five years, I’ve counseled people of all ages who have a
chronic or life-altering illness, and need support to figure out
creativebeadchat.com
how to organize their lives around what is all-too-often their
new reality. Children with cancer, adults who are HIV-positive,
have just received a diagnosis that will turn their lives upside
down, everyday men and women with issues of addiction,
families with concerns that need immediate attention.
And I love this work. It’s immensely satisfying to look out at a
sea of good people making positive changes for themselves
and the ones they love.
But it isn’t always fun, and I often came home brain drained at
the end of the day. What my children saw, and learned from,
was a mom who had a full, rewarding life, but who had forgotten to sing, dance and play. It was time to remedy that.
I don’t remember much about that first class with Alli except
that, for the hours we combed through beads and played with
possibilities, everything fell away but the joy of creating. For
my daughter, it was a pleasant way to spend a Saturday morn-