Bead mania

If Tomas Smith can’t find what he’s looking for on U.S. soil, rummaging through the attics of German, Indian or a number of other international households often yields the vintage items he seeks.

Smith, along with his brother, buys and sells atypical and typical beads alike at road shows and at two retail stores in their hometown of Tucson, Ariz. He was one of the more than 20 vendors on hand to sell their art and jewelry supplies at the recent three-day Bead Stampede held at the Kootenai County Fairgrounds in Coeur d’Alene.

In addition to the bead vendors, the stampede drew a mixed-bag audience of artisans, hobbyists and perusing shoppers.

“It has a broad appeal for lots of people,” said Lisa Hobson, the Bead Stampede’s promoter and a show vendor. “We’ve got people who come here from all over the country.”

The festival, which has been held in Coeur d’Alene for 13 years, is just one of the eight Bead Stampedes Hobson promotes in cities in Idaho, Washington and Montana. A beading enthusiast, Hobson said she has seen the popularity of beading swell following a “bead boom” a decade ago, which attracted new artisans including quilters, jewelers and other creative minds to the craft.

“It crosses a huge age range,” she said, adding that beads come in many styles and can be used for a number of artistic purposes. “I always say bone, stone, metal, clay or acrylic; beads can be pretty much anything you can put a hole in.”

The shows bring together a mishmash of passionate, recreational and everywhere-in-between bead buyers and suppliers. The shows have even become social hotspots for groups of cross-country travelers, where they can meet and share stories about the hobby, or just pass the time, Hobson said.

For most of the show’s attendees, it’s an opportunity for the creative to gather supplies to make their own works of art.

Kathy Smith traveled to Spokane to see one of her five daughters and was delighted to learn that the stampede was being held at the same time. Among the purchases she made at the stampede was $40 in different bead sets, which, she said, “can turn into probably three times that amount.”

Smith, adorned in several of her own bead necklace and bracelet creations, makes jewelry for her family and to sell to others at her home in Utah.

“But mainly,” she said, “I do it for stress relief.”

For the bead vendors, the mostly spring and summertime shows are the final stage following months of meticulous crafting or planning.

The less-eventful winter months are spent amassing the distributor’s bead collections, which are often mixtures of imported pieces, in preparation for the busy bead season. Then, RVs become their home away from home as the distributors shuttle from show to show spending months at a time on the road. Hobson said that she spends 20 weekends a year traveling to bead festivals throughout the northwest.

Tucson-native Tomas Smith used to attend more than 35 shows a year in his early bead-distributing years, which resulted in much longer road trips than the three-month-long journey he is on now.

He was introduced to the world of beading when his brother made a visit to Germany in 1993 to find bead suppliers. One random encounter led to another and their network of bead traders began to grow. By 1995 Smith had left his job in the corporate banking world to become a full-time bead vendor with his brother – a job that has allowed the two to travel the world in search of the relatively small, yet lucrative items.

“There’s nothing like it in the world; being your own boss,” Tomas Smith said. “When you’re working with someone else you always have someone to answer to. Then, all of a sudden you cut the umbilical cord and, whether you sink or swim, it’s your deal.”

The relics the Smith brothers find hidden or tucked away in the homes abroad, such as a gold-plated German bead that’s more than 50 years old, go on to become their most expensive beads for sale at the shows, where a small set of beads can fetch between $40 to $50.

Among some of the other more distinct and expensive pieces available at the stampede were lampwork beads, which are soft glass pieces that are melted and molded in one sitting by the artist and can take several hours to create. The lampwork creations can be formed into just about any shape the designer, or customer, can envision.

A thumb-sized, black and brown glass Rottweiler was perched on Peggy Rose’s table at the stampede. It was just one of many custom creations Rose had on display. It was modeled after her own canine companion. She has been creating the glassworks for seven years in a small studio next to her home.

“I’ve always loved beads, even as a little kid,” Rose said. “These shows are great because of the variety you can get. You can come here and look at the latest and greatest in beads.”