Fannabead

My name is Anna Feher, the founder of the Hungarian Bead Society. I have started my beadworks in 1978. I graduated as an art teacher, but I was only teaching bead making. I have started to collect traditional bead works in the 80's, especially in the Transdanubian Sarkoz, I was learning from the masters of bead making. Later on I started to explore the beadworks of Transylvania. This area belongs to Romania, but the people are still keeping the Hungarian traditions and customs. I have also studied the collected beadworks of the Hungarian museums.

1993 - First Prize of "Folk Jewelleries" with my Sarkoz beads, and a scented collar made of clove.

I was teaching bead making for 15 years in the summer camp of "Teka" folk music band.

In this camp I made a friend, Robin Atkins, who is a goldsmith from Seattle, USA. She became a fan of the Hungarian traditions, she learned folk dances, folk music, and bead making. After returning to the USA, she founded her Bead Studio called "Beads Indeed". I appreciate her help very much, she sent me lots of information, books, and we even organized photo shooting sessions together in Transylvania and Jablonecz (Czech Republic). I held courses from 1993 till 2003 in my Bead Studio, and we also organized exhibitions with different artists. I made various applications for beadworks, organized programs and held presentations. I invited many lecturers to widen our knowledge about beads. I did presentations in France, Japan, and in the USA (1990 and 1995, Bead Conference), where I presented my traditional and contemporary jewelleries. 13 years ago, I was invited to England by the GBBS.

In 2004, the Hungarian Bead Society organized the First Hungarian Bead Conference, which was repeated in 2005. I have done a lot to keep the tradition of beads alive, and I will continue the research and the bead making. If someone starts creating beadworks, no matter where they are, they can do it throughout their whole lives, it never goes out of style and it makes people happy!

The knowledge of my students is improving. The future is in good hands, because the teachers are professionals and there are more and more lovers of bead works.

I think it is important that the youth uses the original sources as a base and transform them if it is needed, according to their own style.

Anna Feher

BEADS ARE MY LIFE

30 years ago I saw a jewellery made from beads and I was amazed. Since that moment I` m looking for the inspiring world of beads.
Whereever I am, I always find something interesting.
The style of my jewelleries are chosen according to the material.
My creativity and creative thinking combine all my knowledge about the world jewellery.

Virtual Bead museum

From around thousands type of beads I list some of the most interesting ones:
smoothed glass beads from smashed bottles
Chinese inner painted
Bead in bead piece
Paper beads
crops and seeds turn into beads
carved gemstone beads
ball formed from horse-hair
Chevron beads, the king of the beads
Millefiori beads
beads made of herbs and spicies

and I could continue?

Folk jewellery has been made from tiny glass beads for over one hundred year. From the list above you can see the variaty of the material used for producing beads. Small beads represent different value, that means for instance the number of variety that you can produce from a handful of beads. We can find different colours and stiches in different regions. The number of variatons are endless.
There are similar solutions because the material indicates its usage.
The dense- woven and loose-woven grids, nets, fabrics come from all over the world
There were places where they wore them on their clothes and also there were places where they wore them instead of wearing clothes.

I have had two determining personalities in my life, who supported and reassured me on the road of my passion, in the field of beadweaving.

The first was Laszlo Palinkas, with whom we started our Life together, our family, collecting, and taking photographs.
We visited aunt Eva Berekai, Zsuzsika Nagy Zoltanne, Schmidt Karolyne in Sarkoz a few times. Thanks to them I got to know the beads of the wealthy costumes of the region. We took photos of Hungarian and Romanian beaded costumes in Transylvania. We bought my nicest and oldest pieces at that time. We bought a lot of nice works from aunty Kati Buba, and also we bought pieces for use and not for sale.
They used mainly fine red, white, and green beads. With these colours, they expressed their Hungarian nationality and they didn`t regret the time spent on the rich ornamentation.

The second was Robin Atkins, who was an admirer of the Hungarian folk dance, and n the Teka camp in Nagykallo, she came and sat among my students to weave beads. There we became, as she said, ?Beadsisters?. She was a jeweler, but she fell in love with beads. After she arrived home, she opened her bead studio in Seattle, called ?Beads Indeed?. We went to Transylvania to collect beads; we went for a ?bead tour? together to the Czech Republic. In her letters she provided me with information and good examples, so that I opened a bead studio in Budapest. I sold beads, held lectures, organized exhibitions. Meanwhile, with her help, I could participate in the 1990 and 1995 Bead Conferences in Washington, D.C.
I was in Hokkaido, Japan twice, where I held weaving workshops. These journeys are among my most treasured memories.
I had the opportunity to meet excellent experts such as Alice Scherer, Valerie Hector, Stefany Tomalin, Virginia Blakelock, Robert K. Liu, Carole Berry, Joyce Scott, and Lori Talcott. I attended Ramona Solberg`s and Peter Francis` lectures about jewelleries, and Art Seymour`s about chevron beads. Also I could buy ????from Brian Kerkvliet.
I fondly keep a picture of a coffee break, where I was among the participants of the 1990 conference.

Washington D.C.1995.

Valerie Hector, Natacha Volters, Anna Feher, Lois Sherr Dubin, Robin Atkins,

Stephany Tomalin,Kathy, Margret Carey, Alice Sherer

Newsletter of the Beadsociety of Great Britain 2010.