Tien Chiu

  • Home
  • About Tien
    • Honors, Awards, and Publications
  • Online Teaching
  • Gallery
  • Essays
  • Travels
  • Book
  • Blog
  • Dye samples
You are here: Home / All blog posts / My inheritance
Previous post: Testing embellishments
Next post: Fire and water: phoenixes and sea turtles

December 28, 2015 by Tien Chiu

My inheritance

I sorted through my mother’s craft stash earlier this week, identifying what I wanted to take and what was best left to my brother. I wound up deciding to take about 50 pounds of beads – mostly seed beads, but also some larger Murano and faux-Murano glass beads. I also chose a few of her beautiful pieces to remember her by:

beaded necklaces my mom made
beaded necklaces my mom made

She loved making beaded beads – the pendants in the necklaces above are actually constructed from smaller beads! These are intricate pieces that can take hours if not days to make.

Here’s a close-up:

beaded necklaces close-up
beaded necklaces close-up

She also made Christmas ornaments with her beads, usually at her annual Christmas ornament making party. Here’s a bad photo of the one I’m taking home to remember her by. (It’s much more beautiful in person!)

Christmas ornament made by my mom
Christmas ornament made by my mom

She had over 200 of these beautiful, hand-made ornaments on her Christmas tree, which was the best I’ve ever seen:

My mother's Christmas tree
My mother’s Christmas tree

Here’s a close-up of one small branch:

one branch of my mom's Christmas tree
one branch of my mom’s Christmas tree

Since Mike and I really don’t have space for a Christmas tree, and rarely have people over, my brother and his wife Tara will be taking the tree, and will continue hosting the annual ornament-making party. I’m just taking one ornament to remember her by.

The curious thing about my mother is that she did not think of herself as an artist – she thought of herself as a scientist, someone who loved solving puzzles. For her, the fun in making beaded beads was in figuring out how to construct them. Once she had a design down, she would do several of the same design just to see what happened in different variations – color, material, composition. Once she felt she had mastered the design, she moved on to the next puzzle.

Nonetheless, I think she was selling herself short. Her color and compositional sense were superb, and she made some of the most beautiful beaded jewelry that I’ve seen. She may have thought of herself as a scientist, but she was also an artist – and that dual approach, a love of both science and art, is the greatest inheritance she left me.

my mother with my brother, Mike, and me

Share this post!

  • Tweet
  • More
  • Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window) Reddit
  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window) Email
  • Share on Tumblr
  • Click to print (Opens in new window) Print

Filed Under: All blog posts, musings

Previous post: Testing embellishments
Next post: Fire and water: phoenixes and sea turtles

Comments

  1. Diane says

    December 28, 2015 at 5:13 pm

    Beautiful beaded objets d’art, beautiful story, and clearly she passed on a love of beauty to her daughter!

  2. lauraannfryLaura says

    December 28, 2015 at 5:14 pm

    Indeed. A truly tremendous gift that lives on in you. Hugs.

  3. Helen Hart says

    December 29, 2015 at 10:12 am

    Oh Tien, these ornaments are truly the most beautiful I have ever seen. She had the genes from her family and passed them on to you. God Bless.

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Archives

Tags

aids lifecycle outfits autumn splendor book cashmere coat cats celtic braid coat color study cross dyeing design design class devore doubleweave doubleweave shawls drawing dye samples dye study group gradient colors house infinite warp jacquard loom katazome knitted blanks kodachrome jacket ma's memorial mohair coat network drafted jacket/shawl project network drafting painted warp phoenix rising phoenix rising dress phoenix rising kimono phoenix rising reloaded pre-weavolution project sea turtles taquete tie-dye tied weaves tomatoes velvet weaving drafts web design website redesign wedding wedding dress woven shibori

Categories

  • Africa
  • aids lifecycle
  • All blog posts
  • All travel posts
  • Asia
  • Bangkok
  • Belize
  • Cambodia
  • Central America
  • Chai Ya (Wat Suon Mok)
  • Chiang Mai
  • Chiang Rai (Akha)
  • China
  • chocolate
  • computer stuff
  • creating craft
  • Creative works
  • cycling
  • Delhi
  • Dharamsala
  • drawing
  • dyeing
  • Fiber Arts
  • finished
  • food
  • garden
  • Ghana
  • Guatemala
  • Hanoi
  • Ho Chi Minh City
  • Hoi An
  • India
  • Khao Lak
  • Knitting
  • knitting
  • Ko Chang
  • Laos
  • Luang Namtha
  • Luang Prabang
  • markleeville death ride
  • meditations on craft
  • mental illness
  • musings
  • Phnom Penh
  • powerlifting
  • Rewalsar (Tso Pema)
  • sewing
  • Siem Reap (Angkor Wat)
  • Southeast Asia
  • surface design
  • textiles
  • Thailand
  • travel
  • Vangvieng
  • Vientiane
  • Vietnam
  • Warp & Weave
  • weaving
  • Weaving
  • weavolution
  • writing

© Copyright 2025 Tien Chiu · All Rights Reserved ·

 

Loading Comments...