So this is
Bernice (the oldest of the Womack/ADKOF women – dare I say “matriarch”?) and I
thought it was time you heard from me and where I get my inspiration. I began making jewelry a number of years ago
when I came across a box of my grandmother’s costume jewelry.
Grandma was a flapper in the 1920s and still
had quite the “flair” when I was growing up.
She loved jewelry and pretty clothes and dressing up to go to parties. I
like to think I inherited this from
her! It was so much fun for me to go
through that box of old jewelry and see what pieces she had chosen over the
years – some were very specific colors to go with certain outfits and others
could be worn with anything. I could
tell that some of them were her favorites because they were well-worn on the
edges and the glass pearls were translucent from the outer color having worn
completely off. Many of her favorites
were the very ones I would have
chosen. I took these pieces and restrung
and restored them so that I could wear and enjoy them.
That was my first foray into the wonderful
world of beads and crystals and findings! I fell in love! Then I inherited my Mother’s jewelry box that
she had inherited from her mother.
Another stash of jewelry!
My
mother didn’t wear a lot of jewelry, but Nanny loved to wear fine costume
jewelry and I remember my Granddaddy telling me how much he loved to buy
jewelry for her. So I began making
jewelry that had special meaning for me, using pieces from my mother as well as
both grandmothers. It gave me a sense of
self, a feeling of having a little bit of them with me, a passing of the
“flair” from one generation to another. I think this will be my next project:
