KRAFTERS DIVISION

Featured Member

July 25, 2010
by Loraine Stayer

Laurie Porter
Wisconsin
Craft: Beading
Contact: freespirit1@tds.net
Website: www.KraftersKorner.org

There's something magical about creating fabric from glass beads. For Laurie Porter, who has been blind all her life, discovering this craft opened a new path to creativity. A friend she met in 1985 through a local self-help organization, while she was working on needlepoint, showed her a purse made out of beads. It was a small beaded pouch, fabric made of beads rather than beads sewn onto fabric, about seven inches around and ten inches tall, with a closure also made of beads. The pouch took thirty hours to make, according to her friend, who gave her the purse to study.

Porter's beadwork resembles Native American work. Her first pattern was of bead netting, called "Right angle weave." She makes amulet pouches, necklaces with charms woven into the beadwork, bracelets and earrings. She also does bead loom work: hatbands and large collar type necklaces.

Beaded bags were most popular in the 1920s and 1930s. People prefer to see them on display, but rarely to wear them, so the amulet purses are considered works of art. Because they take approximately 20 hours of labor, they cost about $300. The raw silk lining used in bags from the early twentieth century tends to deteriorate. Beaders at that time did not have beading thread, so they used cotton or upholstery thread. Over time, thread breaks down. Porter recommends Japanese seed beads, which have larger holes. The original glass beads were manufactured in Germany.

Porter is currently working on a lariat necklace. This consists of a spiral rope of sixteen to eighteen inches. Beads are woven into a spiral pattern, and finished with a clasp.

When Porter first began working with beads, she could still see colors. The beads are quite small. The smallest beads she works with are size 11. This means that eleven of the beads in a line are equal to one inch--size 12 and up are even smaller. By 2001, Porter had lost the rest of her vision. In order to distinguish the colors of her beads, she requires sighted help. She orders beads of specific colors, places them in a storage box, and puts a Braille label on the box. Mostly, she works with black glass beads that reflect a rainbow of colors. In order to avoid clashing, she will put opaque beads next to the black glass.

To work with glass beads, Porter found she had to be organized. Patterns have a key for the colors. She sometimes pays kids to sort beads for her; if a different bead gets into the wrong box, she might have to tear out a lot of beadwork. Fortunately, this can be done without losing the whole project, but because beading is so time consuming, it can be heartbreaking to unravel.

Porter credits reading Braille with giving her fingers the sensitivity she needs to work with tiny glass beads. Beading needles must be small enough to go through the tiny hole in the beads, sometimes more than once. Big Eye needles are needles consisting of two wires soldered together that can be separated in the middle to pull thread through are also useful for this art. Certain techniques that assist a blind beader have proven useful for Porter such as putting slightly larger beads at the end of a row enables her to keep her place and when she resumes work, the larger bead can then be removed. She has also developed a feel for her place in a pattern, something that comes with experience.

Beading patterns are largely designed for the sighted, and diagrams often substitute for text, making it confusing to follow a pattern. Tutorials often confound the blind beader. Porter has written to the author of the tutorials suggesting they make the text complete for blind and sighted alike. She has written some of the tutorials herself. The friend who interested her in beading does three dimensional earring patterns, and suggested Porter write a book on the subject to be put on the web, or made into a class so that it can be taught.

For those interested in seeing or purchasing Porter's beadwork, the best place to find it is at the farmer's markets in Wisconsin where she also markets jams and preserves that she makes with her husband. The jams and preserves serve as Porter's main source of income, but she considers her beadwork also to be a considerable asset.

Porter teaches beading through the NFB Krafter's Division. She does not currently have a website, but is planning to start a blog in the near future. Those interested in learning more may contact her via email: freespirit1@tds.net or visit the NFB Krafter's Division website: www.KraftersKorner.org.