The dazzling lampwork beads by Gea Hines, artist bead maker, look like pure color caught in glass. By fire.
Lampwork bead making is an ancient art. There is something magical in the idea of taking solid glass, firing it to a liquid, malleable state, and transforming it into an artistic object.
Gea Hines started her adventure in bead making in a rather mundane way. A stay-at-home mom, she was looking for something she could do at home to occupy her time and supplement the family income. Jewelry was her first choice, then she realized that instead of buying ready made beads she could create her own. Her first bead was just a blob of glass, a far cry from what she had imagined. Gea did not give up; she practiced and practiced until she developed solid skills. She continued learning about glass and its properties. She experimented with tools and eventually set up a workshop in her basement/den where she can work in comfort while watching over the activities of her growing children.
Gea, born and raised in Netherlands, does not come from an artistic family. She found she enjoyed art classes in high school. Somewhat against the advice of her parents she attended a fashion design school in Amsterdam. Then, occasional painting or drawing excepted, her artistic interests took a rest; she has not seriously exercised her creative powers until she picked up bead making.
Now she enjoys the fulfillment which comes from working with colors (blue is her favorite) and shapes. The art is precise and the artist must stay focused, playing with a torch is a dangerous employment after all. Gea's concentration is greatly helped by the fact that she also happens to be a yoga teacher.
Think Long Island First is very happy to carry her beads, bracelets, and earrings. Her hand made beads match Pandora bracelets. Gea has her own website under her company name Dinky Beads, she shows her work at fairs and craft shows. She will be present at the Long Island Bead Festival on April 10th, at Marriott Islandia.
Be prepared to be enchanted when you walk into "the highest room of the tallest tower" of the Cold Spring Harbor Library, actually the library has only one two-story tower, but what a tower it is!
You enter the brightly lit room; it is circular, arranged like a child size amphitheater with the floor and three steps / seats softened with a carpet; its ceiling is white, the walls are covered by a colorful, evolving scene, gently broken by the rhythm of windows overlooking the harbor area. The simple geometry is so charming, the size so comfortable that you immediately feel captivated.
See the muralist Lilith Jones add new elements to the July landscape scene. The voice recording is not the best, but if you can hear well enough, you will find Lilith's comments invaluable.
The room, in an impressive, new library building, designed by Beatty, Harvey & Associates, was designated as a story time room. The library director, Helen M. Crosson, wanted a mural in there. She commissioned the muralist, Lilith Jones of Huntington, who, with a long list of nature depicting murals in her portfolio, was a perfect choice.
The library, built on the state land, included a nature center. It was befitting that the mural should include the types of ecosystems surrounding the library. Tons of research went into identifying the topography, soil, moisture level, native plants and animals to be rendered in the mural. When it is completed it will present images of 250 species of local plants and animals.
Photo by Ewa Rumprecht
The mural is arranged to depict the scenes beyond the walls at the changing seasons: woodland with May bloomers, then an imaginary backyard scene with a humid June forest on the left changing into a drier, sandy hill with early July plants; freshwater pond with a mid summer picnic scene follows and extends into another, late August, panel with collected samples. The mural dips in the last panel to include underwater plants and animals, the friendly-looking seal, known to visit the area in October, steals the scene.
When children enter the room, they start exploring the room by running along the round wall. This is exactly the effect the creators have envisioned, the mural is made to be touched. Lilith used durable and safe paints and will coat the walls with a protective layer after the mural is completed to ensure it stays that way for a long time.
Maybe it would not be so bad being a princess locked up in this enchanted tower (perhaps with an access to the stacks and computers). If one were to kiss a frog to turn it into a prince, Lilith would probably know the right specie :).
Lilith's knowledge, talent and charisma are so great, that it's a miracle she is able to paint at all. Children come every few minutes, a lot of them know her from her art classes (she very seriously and with full conviction calls them artists). Adults drop in and chat with her. There is a constant string of admirers, myself included. I have been there five times within the last week or so.
Photo by Ewa Rumprecht
Lilith created murals in various other public and civic places - at the Harborfields Library in Greenlawn, at the Friends Academy in Locust Valley, at the Nature Conservancy in Cold Spring Harbor, or in the kids section of the Book Review in Huntington. She has also painted private rooms in houses of the nature loving folks - it could be an atrium, sun porch, kid's room. Some clients when moving asked Lilith to paint again at the new location. In a few instances she even painted an equivalent of a mural on canvas so that it can be easily relocated. She will recommends images for a particular location to better accommodate the architecture and the size of a room, type of wall, or light in the room changing at different times of day.
Lilith was raised in Locust Valley. Since her childhood she was interested in drawing and in nature. She applied to an art school, transferred to Stony Brook to study biology. The anatomy drawing class brought her back to art. She had studied painting with Stephen Rettegi, Hungarian-American oil painter, for about a year and a half. She immersed herself in the world of great art by reviewing one art book after another in search for interesting ways of the artistic expression. Now she herself teaches painting in the Huntington School of Fine Arts in the high school portfolio program.
Lilith has a deep appreciation for nature, she spent a lot of time around it throughout her life. She not only lived with it but also followed her interest with a diligent study and continuous consultations with naturalists. She was known to erase an object from a mural when it was found out of its environment, for instance, a May flower which was depicted blooming in late August.
She found nature based murals to be a perfect medium for her where she can combine both her passions - art and nature. The collaborative effort involved in creating a mural appeals to her, as well.
Photo by
Ewa Rumprecht
She paints her murals in two different styles, with form depicted by patches of color, like the mural in Cold Spring Harbor Library, or with a form outlined in purple, black or brown, the latter producing lighter images. The selection of technique will depend on the theme, the feeling of the space, and, obviously, the budget.
Themes might be, as she calls them, whimsical and present imaginary figures, usually animals doing imaginary things, like elephants, mice and monkeys reading books in the Harborfields Library murals. Themes might be based on nature and then will be presented true to originals, like the mural at the Cold Spring Harbor Library.
All murals share the same challenges - a proportion of space or perspective and focus at different vantage points. Lilith solves the problems with a pragmatic approach which leaves the viewer not overpowered by the size or location of the murals but charmed by their welcoming and harmonious presence.
If you visit your library every other day, and many patrons do, you already know what a great place it is! Not only can you find traditional printed materials, local archives, and multimedia, but also access numerous databases, learn a language, or reserve a free pass for a family trip to a museum. Yoga, crocheting, bridge, finger painting - whatever is your thing, you are sure to find similarly minded neighbors of yours who sign up for classes every day.
Check out your library's website to see the wealth of resources at your disposal. It is your tax money at work and it is a pleasure to see how well it serves you!
Some libraries provide a web tool allowing you to calculate how much you save by using the resources, this calculator is from the Locust Valley Library website. I have done my math and, though I was a very modest library user in recent months and chose to err on the conservative side, my savings came up to over $800 per year! Not bad at all. Think of a family of four!
Photo by Ewa Rumprecht
Let us look at one library in particular, the Harborfields Library. It serves villages of Greenlawn and Centerport, which at the time of 2000 US Census had combined population of 18,732 between Greenlawn at 13,286 and Centerport at 5,446. The library was started in 1970'ies in a converted school house now substantially expanded to accommodate the growing needs with grace and comfort.
Carol Albano, Director
Ryan Athanas, Assistant Director
Photo by Ewa Rumprecht
Carol Albano, Director, and Ryan Athanas, Assistant Director, are the very professional, energetic, and cheerful duo at the helm of the Harborfields Library. With 80 staff members, 28 of them full time, they manage to run such a great library, a community center really, that even real estate agents mention it to the prospective buyers in the area! The library also happens to have a great location, just at the center of Greenlawn, within an easy walking distance from the high school, the post office, the train station, and shops.
The library has a good fortune to attract readers of all age groups, including the one statistically most resistant to printed word. Many a parent may have a problem getting junior to do anything brainy, let alone visit a library. The Harborfields Library has thriving young adult programs. The library provides an Xbox and computers, the usual draw, but it must the genius loci that keeps young people coming back.
14,476 registered card holders visited the library 415,782 times and perused 315,156 books and other materials in 2009, that's roughly 22 transactions per year per reader, 1 every two weeks or so. This does not include the 1,049 programs attended by 27,975 participants in that year. Since most of the programs are run by the in-house staff, the librarians are quite busy there.
The Harborfields Library is able to provide all these services thanks to a generous support of the community; the library budget was never voted down in its 40-year existence. The library is also blessed with a very active and progressive thinking group of supporters - Friends of the Harborfields Public Library who are behind various projects making a visit to the library such a rewarding experience.
