Tuareg collectibles in Portland USA

I have always been in love with ethnic art, especially fabric and sculpture. I don't really know why but shapes, forms and strong colors have been important to me ever since ever. I guess my older sister, an architect, always pointed out this or that interesting shape or piece of design, even just walking down a street in Berlin where I grew up. In a way she taught me a lot about SEEING and noticing. She also gave me private art lessons with one of her own professors after she found me sitting in the park drawing trees, big old gnarly things, as I remember. I liked it. So later on it was easy for me to pick up a piece of art here or there that appealed to me on our travels. By "our" I mean my then husband and I, sometimes with and sometimes without our 3 kids travelled a lot. When I first entered his Chicago apt I found that we had 'his and her' identical furniture and it combined very well when we got married. Our art appreciation was similar too. The only difference in his home was a wall of fierce African masks and scultptures, most of which I came to love as well. We ended up travelling a lot to see and learn about as well as sometimes buy fabulous African and other ethnic art in Paris, London, Belgium and America. In those art galleries, museums as well as West African Markets there was antique beaded jewelry. Now and then my husband would buy me a beautiful strand so that I ended up with a bunch of wonderful trading beads. I started designing necklaces combining those old glass beads with silver and ethnic metal components for my own use and later for friends. Not only my friends but even people in the street would stop me to admire the jewelry I made and wore with comments such as "where did you get that necklace?" So I kept right on going with the jewelry designing. I also did then and still do now love making necklaces, bracelets and earrings from my large collection of ingredients. The world becomes as small as the circle of light the lamps csts onto the table while I play with my beads and the accompanying music is soothing.