Metro Pulse/Cover/The Arts Issue

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Down from the Second Balcony
The Bijou revisits its past and invests in its future

The Long Forgotten Squeal
Fall used to be time for hog killin'

Brittain's jewelry—as well as the works of dozens of other fine craftspeople—can be found at these local fall festivals:

Southern Highlands Craft Guild craft fair
When
Oct. 17-20; 10 a.m.-6 p.m.
Where
Asheville, N.C., Civic Center; $6. Call 828-298-7928 for more info.

Foothills Craft Guild Fall Festival
When
Nov. 8-10; 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Friday and Saturday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Sunday.
Where
Jacob's Building, Chilhowee Park; $5. Call 560-0984 for more info.

Teresa Brittain transforms her bead hobby into a vocation

by Adrienne Martini

There's a fire in this Oak Ridge basement. A bright orange liquid-like jet of flame spouts mere centimeters from Teresa Brittain fingertips. She, however, seems unconcerned about the potentially perilous predicament her body parts are in. In fact, Brittain and her tabletop fire appear to be dancing with each other.

The walls of her small cellar room are lined with a veritable United Nations of glass, with raw materials from Czechoslovakia, Italy, and the Pacific Northwest hanging on generic pegboard. Near her left hand is a stack of thin welding rods, which look like industrial grade sparklers; on her right are three slender columns of glass, as well as a pair of sturdy, long-snouted tweezers. And in between is Brittain, who gracefully moves each of these items in and out of the flame, adding blobs of molten glass to the welding rod with misleading ease. Like an Englishwoman drinking a cup of tea, Brittain's pinkies point out.

During a span of 30 minutes, Brittain will produce 4 marble-sized glass beads. Her eyes, which are hidden behind quasi-stylish, aviator-style safety glasses, almost never leave the fire in front of her, yet she effervescently answers questions and effortlessly maneuvers around a photographer. This is a dance for which she knows the steps by heart. But that doesn't mean she hasn't been burned.

"I didn't burn myself the first three or four years I made beads," she says. "I was so terrified that I would burn myself that I was super-careful. Then, after I'd been doing it for years, I thought 'this is a piece of cake, I know what I'm doing. I'm not going to get burned.' And that's when I started burning myself. I've had a couple of really good ones."

It's then that you notice a barely-healed wound on the side of her left wrist. Lampworked glass bead-making, while not as space consuming as larger scale glass work, is still not without its risks. As is becoming an independent craftsperson, something that Brittain had never envisioned when she took her first class seven years ago.

"I had gone to Knoxville Glass company to get some glass to replace a broken window pane and I saw a sign that said Learn to Make Glass Beads," she says. "And I thought that would be cool because I'd bought glass beads—I'd go to Beads 'n' Feathers and buy beads and make jewelry. It was a weekend class and I thought this would be my little treat for myself.

"I went home [from the class] with a torch and safety glasses and a bunch of glass and told my husband I was going to be a glass bead maker and he's like 'yeah, right.' At the time, I was working full-time, plus we had a small child, plus we were renovating our house.

"But then it worked out really well. I took the class in November of 1995 and by April of '96 the company that I was working for closed and I became a full-time glass bead maker. I thought 'I'll just see what happens. I'll see if I can do this.'

"The first couple of years I sold a few things—not a lot. But I've been doing this full-time for five years and it's a real job now. Sometimes, a little too much of a job," she adds, with a laugh.

Brittain spends about 35 hours a week in her basement creating beads and building jewelry from them. For most of us, autumn signals the beginning of football and soup season. For Brittain, fall is her busiest season and she almost doubles her hours in order to beef up her inventory for galleries and craft fairs—she goes to eight each year, but most of them take place in months that end in "er." Locally, her jewelry can be admired and/or purchased at Hanson Gallery and at both the Foothills Craft Guild and at Asheville's Southern Highland Craft Guild shows. Also, Brittain teaches weekend lampworked glass bead-making classes at Oak Ridge's Life's a Peach and a week-long course at Western North Carolina's John C. Campbell folk school. In case you feel the call of lampworked glass, a beginner's investment for entry-level gear is about $200.

Brittain brings more than her skill with glass and fire to her business. In addition to knowing the nuts and bolts, or, in this case, jump rings and lobster clasps, of the craft itself, Brittain also has a background in retail.

"I was the VP of store development for Arrow Shirt Company for their outlet division. So I was really fortunate because I knew about retail to some extent and I knew about business. The only thing that was really hard starting out was where to sell my beads and how to get people to buy my work. A lot of shops and galleries simply won't buy your work unless you are a member of the Southern Highland Craft Guild. They want some sort of credentials."

Once Brittain had been juried in to the SHCG, she suddenly had more people contacting her about selling her work and her business flourished. But success can have its own set of challenges.

"You're always worried about whether it'll be a good show this weekend or, like this fall, I've been really busy and saying that I can't take � any more orders for galleries," she says. "But then they call and place and order and you hate to say no because you think 'this might be the last order I'll ever get.' I tend to over-schedule myself because I hate to say no.

"The biggest problem for me—and I think it's everybody's stumbling block—is pricing. What's a good price? You've got a certain amount in materials but so much of it is the time it takes you to make the item. I make beads really quickly now: beads that I can make now in 5 minutes would have taken 20 minutes a few years ago. You think to yourself that it didn't take me as long to make it, so maybe it should be cheaper. But, at the same time, it really took me four years to learn to make that bead. I think it's a real juggling act for everybody."

Despite any difficulties that self-employment may produce, Brittain is content with her work. Indeed, you can almost feel the joy radiating from her as she plays with glass.

"This is the most enjoyable thing that I have ever, ever done," she says. "One of the great things about beadmaking is that it's fairly immediate gratification. I mean, I sit here and make a bead and a few minutes later, here it is. I used to quilt—and quilting just takes forever. This is quick gratification. And I'm just fascinated by what I can do.

"I think when I finally knew that this is what I'm supposed to do is when I realized..." Brittain trails off, moving a finished bead to the kiln that glows behind her. "When I quilted I used other people's patterns. I just didn't really have ideas just coming to me. But I started making beads and all of sudden I would find myself in the middle of the night hunting for a piece of paper to write down ideas. I think beads all the time, even driving down the road.

"I've had a total of 13 days of classes, spread out over the years. So much of it is just coming down here and firing up the torch and saying 'gee, I wonder what would happen if?'

"It's so much like my two-year-old. When he's outside playing you can just tell he's thinking 'I wonder what would happen if I do this.' And it's the same thing with me—I love experimenting. And I love coming up with new things."

According to Brittain, to work with molten glass and an intense flame all you need is good coordination, good eyesight and steady hands. "And," she adds with a wry smile, "you can't be afraid of fire."