It's Day 29 of March Meet The Maker and the theme is: In Action.

Whilst I do have some videos on geometric beading available to purchase (you can see the triangles one here and the pentagon one here or see previews of each one here and here respectively).

I thought I'd post this recent photo of me teaching a beading class at the wonderful City Beads (one perk of being so behind on March Meet The Maker is that I can post pictures from the future like this!).

I love the level of concentration on all of our faces and the fact I'm surrounded by, including the photographer, people I love and I'm blessed that's what I do for a living.

Today in New York was filled with emotion.

It began with a trip to the 9/11 Memorial Museum to which words cannot do justice. From the architecture of the building to the non-partisan information it was an education and an awe-inspiring visit.

From there I went onto the Cooper Hewitt museum to see their Beauty exhibition.

The exhibit was truly wonderful and it was such a pleasure to see beadwork shown as art. Too often beadwork is side-lined but here it was celebrated with the work of The Haas Brothers and their Afreaks collaboration with The Haas Sisters (AKA Monkey Biz). You can read more about the collaboration here and also check out the video at the Beauty exhibition link above.

After my mind was blown at the exhibition I headed to the shop and was even more excited to see prints of the hand-drawn beading diagrams which had been on show in the exhibition available for purchase... so of course I bought them. How could I not?

As a beadwork designer I spend my life with beads, teaching beading & drawing beading diagrams and to see beadwork and diagrams on show as artwork brought a tear to my eye.

For too long other jewellery designers have sneered at beads and beadwork as just assembling bought materials (when's the last time you saw a painter grind their own pigments or a goldsmith smelt their own gold...) and museums have not seen their value (I'm talking about you jewellery gallery curator at the V& A Museum who told me 'no-one's interested in beads')

So it was nice to see what has been the subject and theme of my life's work for the past 15 years not swept aside but actually elevated- long may it continue!