Memories from College...

On today's Thursday-From the Vault, I am showing what remains of my collegiate side-business. In those days I was a telephone surveyor, not in the engineering surveying sense-in the I-called-you-at-dinnertime-and-asked-you-questions sense. My shpeal for one particular survey went..."Hi this is Jamie Brown*. I'm calling from Telenation. We're a national consumer research company and today we're doing a survey about soft drinks or soda pop..." Generally people would hang up about halfway through the last sentence. *Interesting tidbit-Jamie Brown was the alias I used on the phones, and I had to register it with the management there. It was a name that I made up on my first turn on the phones. I found out during my time there that we actually employed a Jamie Green and a Jamie Black.

Anywho, I used the money from my job to pay my rent. Pretty much every penny went towrd rent or books, with little to none left to eat/buy cigarettes. Seriously, I lived on a $0.25 granola bar, a $0.49 32-oz soda,and approximately 4 cigarettes a day for a while. I suplimented my income by swapping hemp necklaces and/or beaded people for $5 or a pack of Camel Lights ($2.23 at the time). I loved my life :)

I know you're getting bored with my reminiscing by now, so onto the beadwork!



These are all I have left of my beaded people. L-R are Lisa Simpson, Guy in stripes, Tuxedo man, and guy with globe on his shirt. Back in the day I had also made Knight, Bride, Blue Dreadlock Girl, Army Girl, and a couple Tie-Dye girls/guys. These were suck instant gratification, and if I was feeling relly crafty, I would make my friends.




This is David Bowie. He was the most complicated beaded thing I made in the first several years of my beading existance. There used to be a "column" in Beadwork called Bead Boy, and the challenge in one issue was "Bead an Alien". Ziggy Stardust seemed to fit the bill. I was (and am still) mildly obsessed with David Bowie. My screen name (Marsspyder) comes from the Spiders From Mars, and Spyder Jewels is a derivative of that. Beaded Bowie's face doesn't look like real Bowie, but I'm still incredibly proud of him. Also, you, blog-world, are the first people to ever see him, apart from my husband, who saw me taking the pictures of him.



This is the Ziggy outfit that BeadBowie's was modeled after. There is a better photo in the album's liner notes, but I don't have it with me, and can't find it online. I think I did a fair job? What do you think?