FIRING OUR CERAMIC BEADS

Whenever I read a post about someone starting the craft or business of ceramic bead making, I wonder if they know what they are getting into.  I certainly didn't ! It's been about 4 years now, and the things I have learned could fill a book. So many failures and troubles. The learning curve is steep ! Still it's those days when I open the kiln to a perfect firing , well almost perfect is more common :) Those days keep me going.

I wrote a blog for Beads of Clay  about how we manage here in Africa without all the fancy tools and specialty equipment available in the USA. andsome of the special challenges we face here. http://www.blog.beadsofclay.org/2012/06/in-africa-we-make-plan.html check it out.

SOME NEW WORK

Things are a little slow getting into production right now because some of my artisans took farm jobs while I was in the USA.  Our winter is coming soon, so hopefully they will be back and eager to work once the fields are harvested. In the mean time I am training some new gals.

GIFTS FOR THE FIRST LADY

The artisans of Work Of Our Hands are quite excited. On Saturday they will present gifts of the work of their hands to the first lady of Namibia. There is quite a cleaning frenzy going on in all parts of our community center and ceramic studio.

SMILE BOX

This free picture collage personalized with Smilebox

KIND OF A NIFTY WAY TO COMPOSE PHOTO DISPLAYS

NEW POTTERY STUDIO AND YOUTH CENTER

OUR YOUTH CENTER AND POTTERY STUDIO WERE FINISHED WHILE WE WERE IN THE USA ! WHEN WE GET BACK AND MOVE IN, WE WILL HAVE A REAL STUDIO FOR THE FIRST TIME SINCE WE WERE  WRONGLY EVICTED FROM THE PREVIOUS PLACE. NO MORE GARAGE, KITCHEN TABLE, AND SIDE PORCH AT MY HOUSE. A STUDIO AND  I GET MY HOUSE BACK :)

BEADS, BEADS, BEADS!

FOR OVER A WEEK I HAVE BEEN SORTING,COUNTING, PACKING, STRINGING, BEADS, BEADS, BEADS! DENVER BEAD SHOW HERE WE COME !

TYPICAL DAY in our African "HOME"

We sometimes get comments that our home is large for "just two people". HUH? Lon and I live in the main house with our Namibian grown up daughter , then two people live in the flat.  We often have visitors in the guest room, and then there are the daytime people, as seen in the photo. I took the pictures all on one day, around 9 am. Somedays it doesn't seem large enough :)

FINALLY BACK IN BUSINESS

THANK YOU soccer team !!!! for moving the kiln !!!! That baby weights over 600 lb !  After a lot of time and frustration I had to give up the idea of hooking the kiln up in my garage. Now it's new home is our shipping container turned into a shop. After 10 months or more of waiting, the ladies can resume work. Africa really teaches patience.

ceramic bead work shop (hopefully)

lAfrican
I hope this will work out as a short term place for the ladies to work. Now if I can just get back there myself :)

Home sweet home-or so we thought !

We had a humble home for our ceramic bead project, but it was ours; or so we thought ! However one man's greed equals 7 marginalized women out of work and the end of our project! At least for now.
The weird thing is, that I'm more upset and stressed out than the women who will now be going without. They actually were comforting me on the last day of work as I stood crying my eyes out.
" Don't worry Meme, God will take care of us. He will find us a new place to make the beads".