SKULL ROSARIES

Skull rosaries date from the Middle Ages and maybe even before, and were used as a meditation on the mortality of man and the need to live a moral life. Quite fascinating. I've made this single decade rosary with a bronze Caravaca cross, a big chunk of turquoise and 10 large wooden skull beads. It is very tactile, large and easy to hold. I have this and a few other skull rosaries on my Etsy site, use the link on the right if you are interested. Below it is a picture of a four decade rosary with small skulls for the Ave beads and large skulls for the Pater beads. This one has a gorgeous bronze crucifix hand cast from an original Latin American antique. I haven't made many skull rosaries but they are some of my favorites.
A single skull can be found on many 19th century rosaries, usually those that belonged to a priest or nun. Called a Momento Mori, again the purpose was to remind of the mortality of man and the necessity to lead a life filled with goodness.
Of course, today skulls are popular among several groups, more as a gruesome image though. I love the Dia de los Muertos celebrations where skulls and skeletons abound. Not gruesome but rather a kind of reminder that underneath it all, this is what we are. I'll always have several skull rosaries and necklaces in my Etsy store, thesacredbead2.

So Why Do I Make Rosaries?

I have collected antique beads and spiritual art from cultures around the world for decades and a natural progression of these interests brought me to the collection of rosaries. My collection includes hundreds of antique and vintage rosaries and crucifixes. After spending years collecting them I tried making one. I liked it, of course it was a rather crude first attempt, but I knew how to improve what I was doing and kept at it until I was completely satisfied with the rosaries I was making.
I find that the whole process of picking an artistic crucifix and center of either bronze or sterling, deciding on the beads, then stringing the rosary is a very relaxing and calming experience, like a meditation of appreciation of the materials and future use, making the most beautiful rosary possible filled with love and peace. Check the links at the right to find my rosaries, antique and vintage rosaries on The Sacred Bead and my handmade rosaries on The Sacred Bead 2 on Etsy.

A WINTERTIME BURST OF COLOR!

This is my latest assemblage art. I was so tired of looking at white, snow, houses, sky, all monotone white. So I dug around in my pile of potential art stuff and found an old tin and wood toy violin and transformed it into a bright piece of art. I call this my Anti- Trompe L'Oeil piece. Instead of a painting made to resemble real life objects, I took some real life junk, jazzed it up and made it resemble a painting! Wildly bent copper wire for strings and bow, can't play this one! I've added a strand of wire wrapped beads to the upper left to balance it a little since I took the pictures.

MY NEW PHILOSOPHY

I have come to some basic conclusions about living healthy and reducing lethal stress. It came to me while walking that we as a species have strayed so far from a normal human life that we are completely out of touch with what it means to be human. So here is the path I believe I must follow in order to regain my life. Humans are meant to do these things- eat real food, sleep well, walk every day in nature absorbing the sights, smells, sounds and textures of nature, create a huge variety of things and communicate with each other with love and caring.

MY ESCAPE

This will be my place to tell the story of how I escaped from teaching and my crazy idea to find life again through art. Just a tiny bit of background first. I knew my job was literally killing me, if you didn't already know this, teaching is one of the most stressful jobs there is, but add being a high school special education teacher to that and wow, no amount of yoga, eating right etc could save me. Since NCLB, special education has become solely focused on test taking, every decision made by the district centered around raising the test scores of the students with special needs, yes they have to take the tests right along with everyone else with only a very few exceptions. No one talked about what was best for the students any more and this was so in conflict with what I knew was right for my students that it was deeply effecting me. I had to get out before it was too late. A trip to the emergency room with astronomically high blood pressure and loss of vision was the wake up call, I was done, nothing was worth my life and health, not money, not getting to retirement age, nothing. Eleven years ago I almost died, heart failure, kidney failure, eyeball failure, not good... all brought on by major stress. I recovered but never came back 100%, the time wasn't right for quitting teaching, my kids were still young, I needed my job so I kept at it for 11 more years until it became unbearable and I was headed back to everything-inside-of-me-failure again. Last fall I took some of my accumulated sick leave, walked 6-8 miles a day, meditated, put myself on a strict diet and supplement regimen and tired to learn to relax, still working on that one. Then I realized as long as I was still tied to my teaching job, even though I wasn't there, I had a burden of negativity that was still overwhelming me. I did the most drastic thing I have done in my life, I resigned.
So, right now I am in the process of completely changing my life, I have big decisions to make but one of them has already been made, I will never set foot in a school again.
I'm starting a business online called "The Sacred Bead" with gorgeous antique, vintage and my own designer rosaries. I just created an Etsy store with my own handmade heirloom rosaries, necklaces and will be adding beads and some art too, called "thesacredbead2" so check it out. Links to them are on the sidebar. And I am creating art! First photo is a detail of a small experimental painting with texture created using joint compound. Last photo is one of my rosaries that can be found on Etsy and my website The Sacred Bead. I made this one with a beautiful bronze Caravaca Crucifix, hand carved olive wood and incredibly beautiful Kingman turquoise.