How a practice is born
Burnt fingers
When I was 15 and then again at 16, I found myself in Yuendumu, a Walpiri community 365km north west of Mparrtwe / Alice Springs in the Northern Territory. We were welcomed by (now deceased) elder Darby Jampijinpa Ross, and on a day that I will never forget, travelled together to a desert well where he assigned us Walpiri skin names, names that designated relationships with people and place. Those visits were deeply life giving for me. I discovered that not everyone lived the way my people lived, and this other way of life that I witnessed made so much more sense to me than my own. It felt like coming home. When we left Yuendumu I took with me a jar of ininti, seeds of the bats wing coral tree (erythrina vespertilio). I sat in the red sand by a fire and burned holes in them as I had been shown with a piece of bull wire, until my legs were numb and my fingers burnt.
Sweetness in the air
Many years later, when my eldest son was one I had a crisis of identity and vocation. I knew there was something I ought to be doing but I didn't know what it was. I became curious about the work of a kinesiologist, Stan Ivanov, that my husband was seeing and so I went to ask what it was he did. He would not say, but instead offered to work on me to find my truth. That day I drove home with the word shaman in my head and the air smelled sweet with its sound. This experience was deeply challenging to me because my extended network of friends and family were and are largely christian. I was distressed by it but also unable to let it rest. I contacted a psychologist and shaman in the UK to ask for guidance and she directed me to make a strand of 99 beads. And so I made my first wooden beads from the blackwood tree (acacia melanoxylon) on our property, and paired them with my last remaining ininti in a strand of approximately 101 beads.
Luxurious blooms
In the second year of the COVID-19 pandemic, during a period of lockdown and remote schooling, I stumbled across an article about making rose-petal beads. I was so enamoured of the idea, that I decided to make some myself. Roses were not in bloom in Ballarat at the time, so I made that first batch out of camellias with help from this video by Astar's Place. I knew from the outset that making flower petal beads was deeply connected to the practice of saying the rosary, but it wasn't until I discovered the book The Way of the Rose by Clark Strand and Perdita Finn that I was able to link that back to my years of shamanic training and my upbringing in Quaker and christian communities. According to Strand and Finn, the rosary transcends religion and is a tool for regeneration, renewal and reconnection with the earth. This was the missing piece to my bead making practice and the start of my public engagement around beads and bead making. I began running bead making workshops looking for ways to engage the community around the craft of making beads.
Celebrating place
In March-April 2023, I had my first solo exhibition of beads at the Unicorn Lane gallery in Ballarat. Beads and biodiversity showcased specific native and introduced species that grow in the Ballarat area including elder (sambucus nigra), hazel pomaderris (pomaderris aspera), oak (quercus robur), Yarra gum (eucalyptus yarraensis), ironbark (eucalyptus sideroxylon), the rosary tree (melia azedarach), cotoneaster (cotoneaster glaucophylus) and others, with stories about the species and its significance in human culture and the environment.
Craft Lab 24
In May 2024 I will be participating as a demonstrating practitioner in Craft Lab 24 hosted by the City of Ballarat. By chance, luck or predetermination, I find myself living in an UNESCO Creative City for Crafts. The City of Ballarat is a truely wonderful place for a crafstperson to live because craftwork is deeply valued here and Craft Lab is just one example of that, along with the Centre for Rare Arts and Forgotten Trades. I invite you to visit me and 15 other incredible artisans at the Mining Exchange on Lydiard St on the weekends of the 18th and 19th and 25th and 26th of May. I'll also be hosting a Flower Petal Bead Making workshop at the Rare Trades Centre during the week, which you can book in to here: https://www.raretradescentre.com.au/events/artisan-insights-shalome-lateef/
All roads lead to Rome
In 2025 my goal is to travel to Rome and visit the workshop of Mondo Cattolico to learn their process of making flower petal beads using dried flowers and clay. Please contact me if you can help me to make this dream real!