Bye, Bye, Best Bead Show...

Today was my last day at the Best Bead Show. Tomorrow I am headed to the Tucson Bead Show at the Double Tree Reid Park. Make sure to drop by if you can. I was really sad leaving everyone. The Best Show is one of my favorites. I look forward to it every year. It is filled with some of the most amazing and creative people I know.

When Aveesh was in town in Asheville, I was fortunate enough to meet his friend Vic. Vic is the boyfriend of Judy, the owner of Natural Touch. Natural Touch makes and sells really lovely resin components. Over the past few days, I've had the wonderful opportunity to get to know Judy and her wonderful work. She really is a doll and Vic is a lucky man to have her!

Another of the new friends that I've had the opportunity to get to know is Joyce Rooks.  Joyce is incredibly talented and supremely intelligent and loaded with wonderful stories. Did I mention that I covet her beads? She's great!

One of the main reasons that I love the Best Bead Show is that I get to see Candice Wakumoto! Seeing her and her husband Paul and fellow Hawaiian Aletha Donovan is such a pleasure! They are really stunning individuals. Candice is a very talented artisan who makes some delicious-looking PMC. Above is an example of one of her new skull encrusted pendants. Isn't is amazing?

Above is a shot of her new snail pendants. I'm going to start saving my pennies for one of these. What I really appreciate about Candice's work is that she's not afraid of size. I think a lot of artisans who work in PMC are worried about the expense of big PMC pieces. And it's true, working big costs more, but the end results are just killer! They are opulent and decadent and really a nice new direction.

I will miss them and all my other friends at the show. I feel so horrible, because I didn't get to spend nearly as much time as I would have liked visiting with everyone and catching up. The Best Bead show in many ways is pretty aptly titled.