Since opening Creative Beadworks a year and a half ago, the two women have built an appreciative clientele and a coterie of new friends among customers and local bead artists who sell their wares at the shop. We don't try to stock what everyone else has. Click on any of the smaller images to see the larger image and caption. Gerda credits the long winters for making beads especially appealing. The colors we need, we don't have that in the winter.
People have to have that type of thing to survive.
She describes the shop's patrons as having interesting backgrounds that somehow evolve into an interest in beads. There are artists out there without mediums until they discover beads and then can apply their artistry. Gerda, a Fairbanksan since 1960, and Kathleen since the early '80s, share a close friendship and find managing the shop together, Tuesdays through Saturday, an added bonus. The women began selling trade beads at local bazaars in the mid '80s. Their passion for beads was further inspired in the early '90s when they met June Sczepan who became their teacher and eventual family member, marrying Gerda's son, Mike.