Odd mix huh? Not really. They both died young and of their own grief. Vincent Van Gogh used to be on the back of an old jacket. When the damage of wear became apparent, I removed it. Bead portraiture came to me one day, in 1996 while admiring the fine variegated strokes comprising Vincent's paintings. I thought "Hell, I can do that with beads." I had the fifteen-year background in sewing, five-year background in sketching and a young appliqué beading history of two years, so I just combined the three: bead art. My art philosophy: If you keep doing the same thing over and over again you may master that craft but after that, you won't learn anything new. You have to keep challenging yourself, hence the creative evolution.

Eight years have passed and it shows. Vincent and Kurt were my first two subjects. That shows too. I still remember buying all of my beads at the 1-2-3 Dollar store on Water, and at the Arcade right across the Street - both now closed. Yellow was the easiest flesh tone to get. Just check out the portraits. Luckily, however, Vincent had a lot of yellow on his palette. So it worked. Ummm… sort of.