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FEATURE STORY

	Summer and Sunflowers 1997, polymer clay mosaic, by Toops. Inspired by 18th-century Italian micro mosaics, Toops started thinking of ways she could adapt a similar style to polymer clay. She calls the work “tedious, but still fun.”
Dan Adams and Cynthia Toops combine glass and polymer clay, along with a love for ethnic jewelry in their vivid creations. by Mark Lurie

Most of the beads the couple makes are designed to be part of a whole piece. Sampler necklace of lampworked glass, polymer clay, and 19th century Czech glass Looking at a necklace from the husband-and-wife team behind CD Beads, you find yourself drawn into a world of rich detail. Probing deeper, your eye locks onto a single bead. Perhaps it's one of Dan Adams' lampworked glass creations, horned and dotted to a mesmerizing near perfection. Or maybe it's a polymer-clay figurative design from Cynthia Toops, made from hundreds of tiny mosaic chips which, like a painter's brush strokes, leave it shaded and rippled with subtle depth. With each bead a work of art unto itself, it comes as a surprise to learn just how driven they are to create jewelry rather than individual pieces. “Most of the beads we make start out as pieces for necklaces,” says Toops, who does all the stringing and a large portion of the design work. “Once in a while we'll do an order for someone who just wants beads, but very rarely.” Wearability is a driving concern for the Seattle couple, who have spent nearly a decade creating jewelry for a gallery clientele. For lovers of tradition, they'll fashion elegant necklaces of graduated beads or a series of identical-sized rounds. For those who have more freewheeling or tribal tastes - or who just can't make up their minds - they'll throw in a bit of everything in their “sampler” necklaces, which mix a wide assortment of the styles they do. Both Adams and Toops use the word “ethnic” to describe their work, which displays a wide range of cross-cultural influences, from antiquity to more recent times. It's a passion they've cultivated through long-standing interests in art, history, and cultural anthropology. Indeed, they were avid collectors before turning to beads as a vocation. “I don't think we really started out intending on having a career making beads,” muses Adams. “We really started out looking at old beads, wanting them, and buying them. And a lot of times we were not able to find a bead we wanted, so we'd just make it, either in polymer clay or glass. We were inspired by the old stuff and made things based on that.” Eyepiece necklace, by Toops, of polymer clay. DISCOVERING POLYMER. It was Toops who first became interested in beads, prompted largely by Lois Dubin's illustrated History of Beads. In 1986, she visited her native Hong Kong, where her sisters were making their own jewelry using polymer clay. Toops, who had a degree in print making, fell in love with the new medium. “Print making just wasn't working out,” she explains. “And then when I got excited about beads, I just never turned back.” On her return to the United States, she met Adams, who soon joined her in kneading and working the clay into designs that mimicked designs found in antique glass - particularly Roman beads, whose figurative patterns she would “onlay” to the core bead. After taking a glass workshop, they determined that Adams would switch to glass while Toops continued on in polymer clay. Not knowing other polymer artists, Toops worked largely in isolation the first few years, experimenting with the material as she went along. Unlike many of her counterparts, she didn't learn about the technique of rolling canes to make multi-layered images until much later. Instead, she started out treating each bead as a painter's canvas. “I use [polymer clay] like I use paint, so if I needed a certain color I would mix just a little bit of it and then press it really thin, kind of like an oil painter, dabbing my colors onto the clay,” she says. Half-Lei necklace, by Toops and Adams, of polymer clay and lampworked glass. “I hate kneading and conditioning clay, so I do work where I don't need a lot of clay,” she continues, noting that the cane work she eventually did tended to be straightforward abstract and geometric patterns. Yet she longed for a technique that would allow her to do figurative forms while not requiring a lot of thick clay. She soon found herself inspired by 18th-Century Italian micro mosaics, as well as the elaborate work of Mexico's Huichol Indians, who embed seed beads in hot wax (see “Written in Beads,” October, 1996). She started thinking of ways she could adapt a similar style to polymer clay. It took six months of thinking about the process, working out the steps in her head, before she attempted her first mosaic in 1992. “With the mosaics, I can just make small bits of clay, and I developed techniques that work for me,” says Toops, who adds that her techniques are “all very simple, very low-tech.” She starts off by making her mosaic chips or “threads,” sticking to one color (in many shades) at a time. She then rolls hundreds of these tiny threads, which average less than two millimeters long and 1/3 millimeter thick. Next, she bakes them in a convection oven for 20 to 30 minutes at approximately 270°F. “The important thing is to have an oven thermometer. If you underbake the clay, it's okay, because you can always rebake it. The thing is not to burn it, because it's plastic and it's toxic,” she warns. Barnacles II, two necklaces of lampworked glass and polymer clay. Adams cuts down the shine of his glass, allowing him to blend his beads gracefully with Toops'. “Over time, the two materials look more similar, not less. We have necklaces we've done for people on which, many years later, the beads are amazingly similar.” Afterward, she uses a pin to scratch a design into the core of soft unbaked clay. Then, with a pair of tweezers, she sets each thread in position and tamps it down. With each bead containing 600 to 1,000 threads per square inch, it's a time-consuming process, which only someone passionate about her work to the point of obsession could love. While she may spend an hour or two doing the drawing, putting the threads into place can take up to 50 hours, not counting the time it takes to actually make the threads. The result, though, is work of undeniable richness and texture. “Because all the little bits are slightly different colors, it makes it more interesting for me,” she says. “My skies, for instance, aren't solid blue, but filled with subtle shades. It's tedious, but still fun.” Although she doesn't limit herself to figurative work, some of her more striking creations have come from loose copies, inspired by what she comes across in books and magazines, or while visiting museums. One neckpiece, made from a series of flat mosaic beads, was inspired by a visit to Harvard University's Peabody Museum, where she and Adams saw the famous display of blown-glass botanical specimens made by the 19th-century Germans Leopold and Rudolf Blaschka. “We were sketching like crazy. Then one day I decided to make a necklace with some of these images. I kind of reinterpreted a lot of the scientific pieces, using details from the sketches I did,” Toops recalls, adding that the piece allowed her to vicariously satisfy her gardening urge. “Neither of us has done any gardening in years. We have so many weeds in our yard, so it's kind of my opportunity to do some kind of plant stuff,” she says with a laugh. LAYERS & SHADES. If Toops' first love is figurative design, Adams' work is decidedly abstract - more about shape, color, and texture than anything else. Many of his beads are enameled or acid etched in order to give them an ancient feel, as if they had weathered thousands of years underground. He's probably best known for his horned-eye Warring States beads - so named for an oft-interpreted style which first appeared in China during the pre-dynastic period, more than 2,000 years ago. “The dot is such a simple technique in glass, and they used different sizes and different patterns to make this incredibly patterned bead. And it's that use of the really simple design element and making it very elaborate that is so wonderful,” he says. For Adams, the key to making these beads is to spend the majority of time getting a perfectly round core to which to add the design elements. While the principle of layering the dots upon each other is fairly straightforward, though, doing it well is another matter entirely. Toops' Not Your Garden Variety necklace, shown in detail (above) and complete (below), was inspired by a display of blown-glass botanical specimens at Harvard University's Peabody Museum. Toops adds that the piece allowed her to vicariously satisfy her gardening urge. “It's a lot of practice. If I decide to do some other bead style for a few weeks, the first one I make when I get back on the torch is not as good. They say that musicians have to always be practicing to be at the top of their game, and I think it's the same in glass. Every day you do it and you keep this level of skill. Then you go away for a month and come back to it, you still remember how to ride the bicycle, but [you need to work back up to that level of mastery.]” Not content merely to recreate his prototypes, Adams has taken his Warring States beads in several different directions. Whereas the originals were made from opaque glass, he uses transparent cores in different shades, acid etching them to emit a soft glow. With more opaque cores, he will often use enamel to leave them with a marbled veneer. He is thus able to cut down on the shine of his material, a factor which also allows him to blend his beads gracefully with Toops' creations. Even given the transparency of glass, that there are times when you'd have to look pretty hard to distinguish one medium from the other. “Over time, the polymer clay will absorb a certain amount of body oil from the person handling it, and with the etched glass the same thing occurs, so actually over time, the two materials look more similar, not less. We have necklaces we've done for people on which, many years later, the beads are amazingly similar,” he says. WEIGHING ADVANTAGES. As it turns out, there are quite a number of virtues to combining glass and polymer clay. For one thing, the lightness of polymer clay serves to offset the heavier glass beads, which makes for a more comfortable necklace. There's also the added satisfaction of making a statement - of blending two materials which some purists might consider irreconcilable. “When we started in 1986, polymer clay was not very popular,” Toops recalls. “We would do the local bead bazaar and people would say, 'Oh, this is really nice, but if only you had done it in glass.' Their attitude was, 'Oh, my kids play with polymer clay.' People wouldn't even look at it if it was Fimo.” Adams agrees. “There's a kind of snob appeal about glass. It's a difficult material to work with, and there's this essence of mystery of how glass is done. You see fire! I think people look at it that way.” But for Toops, who has taken polymer clay in bold new directions by using it in a series of rings, pins, and elasticized bracelets, the real advantage to combining glass and clay is color. “It's really easy to match clay with any color of glass, because you can mix [clay] like you're mixing color paint. You can get whatever color you want with it,” she says. That color match doesn't come easy - it requires good communication between sympathetic partners - but the payoff is worth the effort. “If Dan and I are doing a combination piece, then we really have to talk about the color. If we decide we're going to do a blue necklace, well, what kind of blue are we talking about? Once that's been determined, we each do some beads, and then after a couple of days, we put our beads together and see how it's going. We talk a lot as we're each doing our piece. Some of our pieces are very asymmetrical, with lots of different shapes and techniques, but we tie it together with the color.” Aside from their mixed-media approach and emphasis on finished jewelry, Adams and Toops are unusual for bead makers in another way. They do very few bead shows, preferring to concentrate on the gallery market. It's a market which has been growing in recent years, and as a result, they've found themselves struggling to keep up with the demand. They admit to being slow workers - understandable since Toops, who works 14-hour days, seven days per week on her beads, will sometimes spend most of a week working on a single mosaic. And then there's Adams, who holds down a full-time job as a hospital technician and so is only able to join her in the studio at night and on weekends. It's something he chooses to do, partly since the job provides them with benefits such as medical coverage and a steady paycheck. On the other hand, he notes, he's usually the one trying to catch up with Toops, rather than vice versa. “We have quite a few deadlines we're working on simultaneously, so it can be difficult, juggling all the different pieces that need to get done,” he says, acknowledging that their work schedules have severely cut in to their social life. “I don't think we've seen a film this year. We pretty much go out for dinner and talk about beads.” Cynthia Toops and Dan Adams One social outlet they cherish is the monthly gatherings of their book club, formed by members of their local bead society. It's here, among their fellow bead lovers, that they get to discuss what they've been reading, look at other peoples' collections, and occasionally indulge their long-standing passion for buying old beads. “We're very fortunate to have people here who are so knowledgeable and with great collections - some of them have been collecting for 30 or 40 years. So we get to see a lot of this ancient jewelry that's maybe 2,000 years old, and you can feel that you're part of this line of bead makers. And it kind of makes you feel humble when you see these gorgeous pieces that were done so many years ago with so little technology available,” Toops says. That access to historic beads allows Adams and Toops not only to find new influences, but to gain perspective on the value of beads and place themselves in the time stream of bead makers. “I love the old organic beads, as well as the old glass beads,” Adams says. “But I also like the history behind them. They've been passed down from generation to generation, and people have worn them, and if they break them they repair them, they don't just throw them away, because they're so precious. Somehow, they'll reattach it or make it a piece again. It's this preciousness of the material, and the fact that so many hands have used it that gives a bead so much character and meaning for us. “Something we love about our work is that we make pieces that people will hopefully wear a lot, and thus give our beads that added character. It's amazing to think, 'Gosh, maybe somebody will have the bead you make today a thousand years from now.'” Dan Adams and Cynthia Toops may be contacted by calling (206) 325-4035 or sending e-mail to cdbeads@earthlink.net.

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