Artwork beading - African style

Hi peeps

Today I said goodbye to my home of the past four years and I am currently homeless until the middle of next week when I drive down to Cape Town. It has taken several days to pack up my modest one bed flat, but I am flattened by how much stuff I have accumulated there. Here is a picture of the packing process and by process I mean chaos!

One afternoon this week I took a pause from packing to go and get some lunch at the local Woolworths. As I was driving up the beaded statues of a local artisan caught my eye.  Now you see these things everywhere in SA and I have I have to admit they have never appealed to me, but these pieces of beaded art were just calling out my name!  This is why you should never go shopping on an empty stomach! Anyway I bought firstly a little rabbit statue.

For me it represents my Masters which I have just finished as rabbits figured highly in the work I was doing. These pictures which I snapped off quickly when I got home dont do it justice. But it was the Kudu artwork that really spoke to me.

Isnt it cool? I had to put it up the moment I got home even though Im actually taking all my pictures down.

In the above picture you also get to see the horrible custard yellow colour of my walls. If I never see a yellow wall again it will be too soon!

I am very impressed with the skill and workmanship of these pieces. And while bright colours are not usually my style I think this will make a great focal piece (once I have somewhere to hang it)! I cant wait to get it to Cape Town even although as the flat is fully furnished all my other pictures are staying. I just want to bring a bit of Jozi flavour to the Cape with me to brighten up those rainy winter days!

I am making the journey next week. I will let you know how it does.

Cheers.

Micro Brewery Tour

Hi Peeps

I have put off posting until I could report success on the home front - that I had found a place to stay in Cape Town - which I finally have. It has taken 3 weeks of hard searching but I have finally managed it! I will be moving to Muizenberg, which those of you familiar with Cape Town will quickly tell me is rather far from UCT, but its near the beach for dog walking purposes. And lets face it if you are going to move to the sea then do it properly! The place is fully furnished which solves a lot of my packing and shipping problems too.

Muizenberg beach
Image source: capetownmagazine.com

It has been a long and difficult week trying to find a new home, as time is running out so I have not been in the most amicable of moods. In fact I have been downright grumpy the last two days! but this morning I finally had the pick up I needed!

At the Palaeontological Society of South Africa (PSSA) conference last September I presented a talk on the origin of and archaeological evidence for beers and wine. This presentation,which won me the "Order of the Boot" Prize was presented in a tongue-in-cheek style. So funny was this talk that Ian McKay the education and outreach head here at the ESI has asked me to present the talk again as part of National Science Week celebrations at the end of July, which will be held at Wits. We have decided to run with this theme and Ian contacted the head of the Wits micro brewery to see if they wanted to get involved. Thus the head brewer Anthony and I will be doing back to back talks on beer and a beer tasting will be run during the week. So first thing this morning saw Anthony giving Ian and I a tour of the wits micro brewery, which was damn cool. As were the discussions about the Science week activities. Anthony is even keen on attempting a 'ancient ale'  himself! So cool things coming up...

See the Wits micro brewery facebook page

I haven't beaded this week, been spending my evenings packing but I can feel the longing to bead stirring in my breast, so I think I will do some this evening.
Keep well, hope you are all having warmer weather than us
Love Jet

Dinosaur hunting

Hi guys

I recently spent the week in the Southern Drakensberg on a field trip. This field trip had two purposes to excavate a new dinosaur fossil while my friend Kelsey and I collected plants for her research. I though I would share a little insight into the science side of my life with my readers.

We were staying near Elliot in beautiful mountainous territory. Its the dry season so the veld was brown but still majestic.

Kelsey and I spent four days driving and walking around the farms collecting plants on which she is going to undertake genetic analyses.

Kelsey collecting plants from a road cutting

Kelsey with some of her plants 

Getting to all her localities involved some rough roads and even climbing to the top of Naude's Neck, the highest pass in South Africa. Kelsey (who is America) kept calling it "Nowdi's" Neck which is now the name I have got stuck in my head!

View from the top of Naude's Neck, the highest pass in South Africa

While we girls were having an adventure in the mountains Jonah and the boys were getting dirty excavating. Below is how the fossil looked like when we got there. On the right of the picture the white dinosaur's femur can be seen.

The site before excavations

Once a fossil site is identified we go in with hammers and chisels and brushes and slowly excavate - we dont want to damage any of the remains below the surface.

Palaeontologists at work

In cases where the rock matrix in which the fossil has been preserved is extremely hard a rock saw is used to help break the mass up. However we try to avoid using this applicance too close to the remains as there is always a danger of cutting through a fossil.

Jonah welding the rock saw, surrounded by a plume of dust - cool picture if I do say so myself!

And below is the site at the end of the excavations. I know it doesnt seem like much progress, but thats palaeontology, slow and steady wins the race. In this case the matrix is very tough. Next time Jonah will take more assistants and heavier equipment and he will get much more out.

After four days of excavating

The local road crew generously donated some of their time and helped by using their 'backhoe' as the americans kept calling it to remove some of the large boulders covering the area over where the front end of the dinosaur is buried, making it safer for us to excavate next time. At the same time they suggested using the machine to pull topsoil and small rocks over the site of protect it.
So our total progress for the excavation was nill! But plans are afoot to return in the spring to finish the job.

All round it was a fun trip, I hope to do many more like it.

Take care of yourselves
Love jet

PS! While I was in the field my supervisor contacted to let me know that my examiners have gotten back to me with their corrections.
The corrections are all minimal, mostly just spelling error and small things like that, which is good. One examiner even recommended a distinction!
I am going down to Cape Town on Friday for a week to try and find somewhere to stay and I was hoping I would be able to register there at the same time. But in order to register I first need to submit the final document of my masters.
So I have been frantically busy trying to get all my corrections done and everything ready in time. Its a neck and neck race to the finish, at this point as there are letters and signatures I need from other people and it depends on how long they take.
I will let you know if I make it! and I will let you know how Cape Town goes.
Cheers

Bushman Beading

Hi all

I had a wonderful experience on Monday that I wanted to share with you. One of the researchers in our department, who I have mentioned in a previous post has been working with groups of San Bushmen for many years. Every year she travels to their rural villages in the northern-most part of Botswana and Namibia to undertake experiments. Many of these experiments entail testing hominid butchery patterns produced by stone tools on animal remains. The Bushmen butcher the carcasses and take the meat and Lucinda then studies the cut mark patterns on the bones. During these periods Lucinda stays in the village with them and experiences their very traditional way of life.

 Recently as part of a new and very exciting project Lucinda brought some of the village elders on their first ever trip to Johannesburg where they have been investigating some of the many cultural artifacts housed in the Museum Africa in Newtown. They had brought some of their own bead work with them to sell. As they live in such rural environments selling their handmade crafts is a major source of income for them.

Twisted necklace of Ostrich egg-shell beads, choker length.  The number of beads that appears to have gone into this surprisingly solid necklace is amazing!

Closeup of necklace showing the detail of all those beautiful beads

Their stuff was amazing! Intricately beaded headbands and handbags made out of both glass beads in bright colours and ostrich egg-shell beads. Although none of us could fit the headbands on, they were so tiny! And the things made out of Ostrich egg-shell beads were spectacular! I bought 2 necklaces. I just wanted to show you the intricacy of the work and the wonderful patterns you can get from Ostrich egg-shell beads. It was particularly exciting as I started a new project using these beads myself last week. And which is almost finished!

The other necklace showing white and brown (dyed) egg-shell beads with glass beads

Details of the back of the necklace and the clasp

Closeup of the strands with their mixed beads

It was a wonderful experience to meet them and seeing their beads has given me some excellent inspiration! Seriously I havnt been able to concentrate on work all week! I especially want to play around and try to work out how they make the necklaces.
If you would like to know more about how these beads are made or where one can buy jewellery like this follow this Link

PS I had a picture of the Bushmen themselves to show you but no matter what I do it keeps uploading upside down! Sigh.

Bead Shopping

Hi everyone

This is my sea ripples necklace. A friend saw me wearing it and asked if would make her a necklace with a similar strap without the pendent.

My absolutely humblest apologies for my long absence from blogging - I would like to give you a highly creative and excellent excuse but I don't have one except that I have been continuously busy!
During February and particularly March submitting my thesis subsumed all my time including my beading time. There was a while there were working and sleeping as literally all I was doing! BUT I have been busy since, unfortunately all the projects are taking some time. I was doing to show you a nice ring I made using a pattern from an old Bead and Button magazine. I wanted to show the first and second attempts and assess my mistakes but for the life of me I cannot find the first attempt anywhere! If you ever see my flat you will understand why! So that will have to wait.

This is what I made for her. Gradiating blue agates with black bicone crystals between and some decorated silver spacers. Im wearing it now infact!

Anyway I want to tell you about a bead shopping trip I did yesterday. So there I was innocently (and responsibly) working in my office (we will pretend I wasn't surfing the internet!) when some friends knocked on my door.
"We are going to the bead shop" they announce
"Do I want to come?" like this really needs asking!
So I hop in the car and off we go to Melville. I dont think I have ever been bead shopping with anyone other than my mother and it was a lot of fun. I found some gorgeous "Ethiopian" copper and brass beads with a very interesting design.I'll take a picture for you some day. I had to argue a lot with myself over buying these as I simply dont have any money this month but I have learnt not to let these things go by because you will not find them again! Im still smarting over some other Ethiopian beads I missed out on! Anyway I dont need to eat lunch for this week do I? My friends had great fun with the huge selection of Chinese seed beads and I think we must have gone back to the till three times before we were all finished! Its really funny how we argue with ourselves and get inspired while shopping for beads. Now thats what I call retail therapy!

Submitted!

Hi Everyone
So sorry that I have been MIA for such a long time. Today was the deadline for submission of my dissertation and the last few weeks I have been frantically busy finishing. Imagine the hair-standing-on-end, white-around-the-eyes look that goes with that feeling!
But it is finally over! The document is submitted and today the holiday commences!
I would like to say I have something to show you, but it got to the stage where all my beading time was consumed by work so there really isnt much. I will however try and resolve this in the next few weeks.

Love Jet

Weekend Calamity!

Hi peeps

Well I hope you had a better weekend than I did!
Firstly the Valentines market in the village was a bit of a fiasco! We took the gazebo along to cover our table with. This is not one of the modern gazebos that opens up like a concertina, this is the old fashioned kinds with poles and corner pieces. After 10min of staring at the mass of poles and metal bits, my mother and I realised that we simply had no idea how to put this thing up! Fortunately for us two lovely gentlemen proved that chivalry is not dead and decided to help. 20 min later when I finished setting up the table and I look around and our two white knights have put the gazebo up. Except that one leg is now bigger than the other! Ok clearly something is wrong, so all four of us changed some poles around, now the gazebo had 4 legs of the same size. Only now the gazebo cover doesnt fit. Now gazebo covers do not shrink in the wash, so this thing still wasnt up right. But clearly the novelty of this task had worn off, as our knight simply tied our gazebo to the neighbouring one and disappeared. I think the funniest moment in this saga was when one of these men complemented me on my Afrikaans (this was rather patronising, as most Afrikaaners think English speakers cannot speak Afrikaans). I was a good girl and did not respond my pointing out that the last time someone put this gazebo up it had been an Englishman and had taken him all of 10 min!
The market was going great there was lots of people up to about 6.30. Then a couple raindrops started falling and the sky looked like there was going to be one hell of a storm. So exhibitors started packing up and customers stormed out. By 7pm the rain was gone, as were the customers and most of the exhibitors! So the market was officially over and guess how many sales we made, Zero! I was pretty disappointed and ticked off!
My father and brother appeared just after we finished loading all the gear back into the car. Typical men. So while they were busy mucking about I proceeded to pack all the market gear into my own car, dispelling my fathers belief that it would not fit! Image a smug smile on my face. So the next day I took my car to the Walkerville market and continued to have a bad day, this market was extremely quiet, even worse than the last one! Sigh, R300 in market fees and not a damn cent to show for it! I have been adviced about some other markets to try, but unless I am doing something wrong, markets just dont seem to be the right avenue for my jewellery.
Oh yes on Sunday I spent the whole day cleaning my cottage as the place looked like homeless people had been living in it. And this morning I gave a lecture to some of the new students in the department. So I am now seriously contemplating a nap!
Sorry I dont have any pictures from the valentines market, I was going to take later in the evening but the rain arrived first.
This was the first time I took my dog and he was an absolute angel, I am so impressed by his behaviour!
Well the week has to pick up from this point! Have a good time wherever you are.
Love Jet