There were the childhood influences of course, one of which I actually wrote into my first novel, Fighting for Eden.
Jessie looked over the sewn patterns of red, blue, yellow and white beads, and easily caught it. Long ago, when Nora had first begun beading, she had explained that in every Yakama beadwork, no matter how beautiful and complex, there was always one bead deliberately set askew, destroying the purity of the piece because, Nora had pointed out, only Creator could make something perfect.
And there were the Asian influences, too. How could a jewelry designer not be inspired when surrounded by so many stones and precious metals as one seemingly trips over in Asia?
Nevertheless, the true start was when she began beading her first works and taking them down to the night markets of Taipei. The night markets of Asia are (in)famous for their noise, their heat, their vibrancy and their shadows.
It used to freak me out when she would do that every Friday night: sitting there on the sidewalk in the middle of a night market, flanked by other locals hawking their wares, happily selling her jewelry
Needless to say, she blithely ignored my concerns.
For a while, anyway. And, looking back now, I can easily see that her night market adventures were one of the first compromises ever made in our courtship. Should have known it would involve an artistic decision.
The point was this: I was freaked out that the police would routinely shake down sidewalk sellers, terrified that she would be deported.
So, she finally agreed to 1) carry her jewelry in a suitcase, 2) make friends with the locals on either side of her so she'd have advance warning and 3) when word came down the line that the police were moving in for a shakedown, to close up her suitcase and blend into the crowd.
I breathed more easily after that. And Manya? She got valuable experience designing and selling her first works of jewelry design.
Yet, there is more to this story.
Having known Manya for well over twenty years, I suppose it was inevitable that I would come to influence how she sees her art, just as she has assuredly influenced mine.
I remember her early works being rather chunky. Clunky. And, I might as well admit it (she does), there was little consistency in the theme of each piece.
Indeed, it's probably not too much to compare them to a garage sale. Higgledy-piggledy collections of glass, stone, trade beads, metals and other whatnot, strung out at various lengths of wire, chain or thread.
In fact, a couple of Thanksgivings ago, her Mom wore what both our mortified eyes immediately recognized as one of those early pieces. In vain did we plead with her to put it away.
(Nothing doing. Now realizing a sort of perverse maternal pride in wearing what her accomplished daughter is embarrassed to admit as one of her own creations, her Mom flaunted it quite happily throughout the rest of that very long day.)
Needless to say, Manya's works don't look like that at all, anymore. These days, they are sleek, elegant, delicate, harmonious in theme and design, showcasing often surprising, sometimes breathtaking combinations of colors in gemstones and metals.
What changed? Whence chunky to elegance?
Manya tells me it is my influence upon her. That I got her to notice the elegance of a line. Even if the line is a simple one, properly handled, one sees a purity there.
She was a bit scared of committing to such a simple line. At least, at first.
However, gradually, she began to see that the elegance of the line, no matter how simple, becomes the frame. The frame around which the entire beauty of a piece is constructed.
Nice thought, that.
PS. (Fighting for Eden is available on Kindle, also in softcover from Lulu.)
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