Vintage Page 2

1.5 x 1.25" 

With tea-stain tooth decay..

I watch the X Files, and my dentist lives three houses down.  Oh, the possibilities!  He comes over sometimes to check out the beads I've made, so one day I built this alien tooth and slid it in with the rest. And when he found it, he wanted it, but I was still remembering the time the nitrous ran out... so I made him wait... and wait... and wait... and the next time I went in, he doubled the gas.  There's more designs in this series - wait till you see Fangs For The Mammaries' and 'A Bridge Too Far', and 'Tooth Or Consequences', and 'Stephen King's Tooth Fairy' -  THAT one's a real piece of work!

Different lengths:   mostly 1.5 to 2.5" long,  by maybe 1" wide.

I didn't invent lizards coiled around a core bead, they've been done by some pretty  impressive glass beadmakers before me.   BUT... none of em have gone for the goofy look!  These lizards have the trademark bulgy blue eyes, great big cheerful white grins (they go to the same orthodontist as the dragons), and cute little squishy toes. It doesn't show well in the picture, but they all have two arms and two legs wrapped around the base bead (see the lizard on the cactus below to check out the suction cups). The lizards come in different prices ranges, starting at $85.  The Deluxe Luxury Costlier Models are fancier - they might incorporate silver foil or dichroic glass or have lots of extra body parts like wings, or might be wrapped around intricately patterned base beads (note:  the Perp on the Left is a deluxe because of size... the base bead just kept growing and growing, and it's a BIG BEAD...)

2 x 2"

Every year the Society of Glass Beadmakers has a Lollapalooza of a convention. In 1999 it was in Scottsdale Arizona, and the associated exhibits and the All Member Show all had desert themes.  So of course our beads had to fit in somehow, and after totally messing up about twenty cows skulls (they just don't look right with big bulgy blue eyes), I came up with the TwistyLiz's on a Cactus.  It's a nice flat bead, and looks nifty when given the pendant treatment.  And the little turquoise bumps all over the cactus feel good (well, maybe not to the lizard, if you get my point?)   I carried one around in my pocket like a worry bead for awhile.  No thorns, but there was some residual lizard poop.

3.5 x 1.5"

I grew up on a Marine base in North Carolina with only three TV channels and not much sci-fi, so I lived for The Outer Limits on Saturday night. And one year the local channel cancelled The Outer Limits to televise a Debutante Ball in Atlanta.  I have never been so seriously pissed in my life.  I was 12 and had been doing a lot of fashion-design drawings, and from that day every design was an Atlanta Debutante with a pig face.  Apologies to the Debs, but don't they make cute beads?  Of course I finally had to change the name because the Debutante Lobby lodged a vigorous protest at my first Tucson show (really! a spiffy blonde babe wearing a leather jacket with a rhinestone map of Texas on the back took Major Exception to the bead name... ).  Anyway, the heads & bodies are separate, with rhinestone necklaces, and the dresses come in lots of colors and patterns.  It takes a long time to paint a dress on a pig body in hot glass, but it's worth it!  And they all have little pink curly tails in the back.

3 x 1.5"

So one day cows on the Islands discovered Hula (they herd it thru the grapevine), and this is the result.  Maui Cowie is wearing a tasteful and stylish seashell bra (size 73DDDDDD), a flower headdress, matching lei, and a pretty darn nifty grass skirt made of thin stringers of green filigrana glass. There are several layers in the skirt, and every strand is separate, so you can see down thru to the cow below. Due to this semi-nudity, and because during the hula the strands part to reveal the Utterly Naked Udder, the Beefcake Advisory Board has rated this bead PG-13.  Could be worse....  holding a bagel, she'd be Aloha Oy, and in fishnet stockings, Easy Lei...

$112 each

1.75 x 2"

2 x 2.25"

I listen to a lot of country radio, and for the last four years, every time that song came on I'd leap up, grab a piece of paper, and do a drawing of a seal on a suitcase.   So this week I finally organized all the scattered notes/drawings/bead ideas, listed em on the computer, and came up with a grand total of 483 really rancid puns, all of which will someday become amazingly bizarre beads.  And mixed in with the mess I found nine (count em, nine!) drawings of seals on suitcases... at  least I'm consistent!  So I finally made the darned thing, and it turned out cute...  the suitcase has clasps, handle, and wheels, and the Seal is balancing on his tummy on top, with an arched tail.    Then I made another one, stuck it on a decorated Easter egg, and voila! Easter Seals!.  This one lays sideways, so you see one fin and most of his back - on the other side, his other fin is on the top, and his potbelly with bellybutton is down toward the bottom. It's a nice effect.   He's balanced on a bright lumpy decorated egg (I was practicing tie-dye effects with this one, also make them with stripes, dots, raked designs - but don't expect Faberge eggs till I learn how to electroplate silver on glass).          Note from 2004 - probably could now!

2.25 x 1.5"

WARNING... there's a Politically Incorrect joke below - blame my father, it's his!  When Jim Kervin wrote his book about me (see the BOOKS page and get one - it's cool!) he changed the name of this bead because he didn't want to crank the folks in the Bible Belt.   Here's the real story:  my father did 30 years in the Marine Corps, and when I was little he'd tell me the story of how, when he served in the Philippines during the war, he'd climb to the top of Mt. Mindanao, the home of the Kee Rice Bird.  He said it would fly down, lay a big square egg, scream Kee Rice! and fly away.   I was twelve before I figured out the rancid pun...  I made the first one for his birthday, and he said it was pretty close!

So it was getting close to February, the season when everybody's thoughts turn to little fat naked guys with wings, and I realized that my design portfolio was seriously Little-Fat-Naked-Guys-With-Wings deficient. So I whipped out four of these, three with... how shall I say this? Dickage? Three Dot Masculinity Thingies?  Anatomically Correct Details?  They certainly give the design a Focal Point!  The three that were Packing sold INSTANTLY at my next show, and the one without is still sitting here in the drawer (anyone want to give it a home? Anyone? Anyone?)  Just goes to show what the Mature Sophisticated Bead Show Shopper really wants.   Personally, I'd rather get chocolate...

1 x 1.25"

I occasionally teach this bead in my intermediate sculptural classes, and the students do pretty darned well with it!  It's in the style of antique Japanese ojime beads, with ivory glass.  This one isn't tea-stained yet...  but when it is, there'll be brown in the creases, and it'll look like old ivory.  Check out the Goblin heads and Gollums  on the 'Current Stuff' pages to see the effect - it's pretty cool!  

Dots & Spirals $2 

Note: you need to know that doing repetitive production work like this drives me nuts, so I always make em while listening to Unabridged Audio Books... mostly soul-sucking-demons-from-Hell stuff (ya know - King, Koontz, Preston & Child?)   Mostly this ambience doesn't attach to the beads, although the orange and black ones move around in the drawers on Halloween.  Just sayin.