Paul Akmajian Art

My husband's painting website.

Tango Club of Albuquerque

I maintain the club's website and try to keep up with everything Argentine Tango in NM (pre-COVID-19).

Photo: Karen (Paul & Laura)

Julianna Kirwin

Julianna's artwork

Image: El Santuario de San Lorenzo (Bernalillo), Giclee print (detail).
Copyright © 2002-2020 | Julianna Kirwin

Poems by Cirrelda Snider-Bryan & Karen were featured in the March 2005 issue of Santa Fe Poetry Broadside, an E-zine featuring regional poetry & art, edited by NM poets Miriam Bobkoff & Miriam Sagan. Cirrelda's handmade tile Etsy shop

Image: In the face of the uplift, pen/watercolor (detail).
Copyright © 2004-2020 | Cirrelda Snider-Bryan

There is something fascinating about beads, about imagining the stories they may tell. The oldest known bead dates from around 100,000 BCE. Beads are a part of our human cultural heritage — as adornment, social class indicators, a form of currancy, or an aid to meditation or prayer.

Among the beads I'm most drawn to are those that were made to be used in the mid-century costume jewelry industry. I'm not nostalgic for the late-1950s and early/mid-1960s, but they were the days of my childhood. Perhaps something of what implied glamour in the eyes of my mother and her contemporaries imprinted on me.

Trying to find the history of mid-century glass beads is an ongoing inquiry. Who were these craftsmen/women who created the charming, sometimes elegant, sometimes quirky beads in a post-war world? I've read that Cherry Brand beads were the piecework of individual Japanese rice farmers who created lampwork beads in the evenings when their field work was done...

Bead glossary | earthmothercrafts.com

Costume Jewelry | sammydvintage.com

Cherry Brand (vintage Japanese glass beads) |
bumbershootdesigns.com
island-cove.com

Crystals/Semi-precious gemstones | crystaldictionary.com

Czech bead types | purebeads.com

Givre | purebeads.com

Jewelry blog indexed by designer/wearer | nasvete.com

Lucite | collectorsweekly.com

Necklace lengths | jewelrywise.com

Niobium | jewelryshoppingguide.com

Pietersite | firemountaingems.com

Seed beads | letsbead.com

Semi-precious gemstone beads | letsbead.com

Trade beads | thesecondsister.com

Turquoise | durangosilver.com | southwestdiscovered.com

Turquoise cabochons with backing | durangosilver.com

"Turritella" agate | geology.com

Venetian/Murana glass beads | venetianbeadshop.com