Rosemary Kurtz 

I’m
Rosemary Kurtz, and I have been a bead-flower artist since the late
1960’s.

My Development as a Beader



I started beading when I was 13, in the late 1960’s.

I have an older sister and a younger brother. At that time, we all
wanted to get jobs and make our own money. Not only were we too
young, but since we were at the tail end of the “baby boom,” all the
older kids already had all the jobs in our area. So, Mom looked into
a lot of the arts and crafts that were popular at the time: macramé,
papier-tôle, bead flowers, stained glass, crochet, etc. She bought
some books and taught herself the basics of all these crafts (she
was already accomplished at several needle arts). She then showed us
her handiwork, and told us all to pick one or two crafts we’d like
to learn.

Mom
taught us each what she had just learned about our “chosen art
forms.” We learned and practiced, and started making up some
inventory. When the warm weather came, we entered art and craft
shows around Long Island under the name of “Kurtz Family
Crafts.” Mom had us each contribute some of our sales money into a
central fund, which was used for entry fees and supplies. This is
how the three of us made our spending money until we all were in
college. It was great family time, and it sparked the creativity in
all of us.

Wreaths / Tape

There are many Internet groups on all kinds of crafts, and bead
flowers are no exception. I am a member of two groups, one of which
has more than 1,300 members worldwide. In response to the 9/11
disaster, one of our members suggested that, since one of the
original uses for bead flowers was in funeral wreaths, it would be
appropriate for our group to make memorial bead-flower wreaths for
each of the crash sites. She suggested this to the group, and there
was an overwhelming response.

Among those responses were several from new beaders. These new
members had just heard of bead flower making and had joined the
group, but didn’t yet know any of the techniques. They were afraid
they wouldn’t be able to participate in the wreath project.  One of
them asked if there were any instructional videotapes available to
help beginners. So, the following weekend, I made a tape outlining
the basic techniques, so that even the newest flower beader could
contribute at least a small flower and a few green leaves to the
project. I have since made a more detailed set of DVDs that bring
the student through materials to assembly to potting through
advanced French techniques.

In
order to centralize the work for each of the wreaths, volunteers
from the group came forward to handle the actual receiving and
assembly of flowers and leaves for each wreath. These volunteers
generously gave of their time and resources to obtain wooden forms
and materials, and in one case, a beautiful brass stand to hold the
finished product. Hundreds of handmade, long-stemmed flowers and
leaves were made and sent in from group members around the world,
and were assembled into the breathtaking wreaths. These wreaths are
now in the Pentagon, the Liberty Museum in Philadelphia, and the
third was temporarily placed in the Wheaton Museum of American Glass
in Morganville, New Jersey. This wreath has now been accepted for
display in a future memorial near Ground Zero and has been moved to
New York for holding until the memorial is erected. For security
reasons, the Pentagon wreath is not available for public viewing,
but it may be possible to get an appointment to view the wreath and
other 9/11 memorabilia. All these memorabilia are in a large, glass
wall-mounted case in a new hallway in the Pentagon. This hallway
leads to a chapel commemorating those who died on 9/11. Pictures of
these wreaths and a professionally-written brochure about the
project are available on my website at



www.rosemarykurtz.com.

Swarovski Project

Several
years ago, when the Swarovski Crystal company was first making their
line of crystal beads, they commissioned me and my beading friends
to design and create the first Swarovski crystal bead flowers. The
purpose was to showcase their beads.

Since bead flowers are made with very tiny beads, the Swarovski
company supplied each of the artists with packages of their smallest
beads, which are 3mm and 4mm beads. Each package held ten gross of
the beads, or 1,440 total. The artists had no say in what color or
size of beads we would get; we just had to work with whatever we
got. The beads came from Austria wrapped European-style: not in a
plastic bag with a label stuck on, but in a neatly folded square of
glossy printed and waxed paper. The packaging alone was so
elegant. When I opened my first package, the beads looked like a
handful of gems. Since these beads are considerably larger than our
regular seed beads, the challenge was to adapt or write new
patterns, without having the resulting flowers look “chunky.” As we
developed the flowers, most of us found that the medium to large
flowers would take up to 2,000 beads; for example, my large orchid
takes 1,950 beads without any greenery. After a little breaking-in
period with the new larger beads, we produced a group of flowers
that delighted us and the Swarovski company as well.

This collection of flowers toured the world, and is now back at the
main offices of the Swarovski Company. It was a very exciting
project, and we felt privileged to be a part of it. Many of the
patterns from that original project have now been collected into
their own book by Dalene Kelly, which is available from Amazon.

Shows

I currently hold fifteen blue ribbons for local, national and
international competitions, including the Cincinnati Flower
Show. Some of my work appears in 2004’s edition of “500 Beaded
Objects” from Lark Books. 

I have exhibited my work in libraries and art shows around Long
Island. One of my large pieces was selected to be in the World Book
of Beads VII show in November 2004 at the Museum of Arts and Design
in Manhattan. (left).

The BeadBugle is pleased to announce that Rosemary Kurtz will become
a regular contributor to BeadBugle.Com and you will see her first
article in the November’s first issue.

(Editor: Several of Rosemary’s earlier pieces were listed under her
previous name of Rosemary Topol)