| Original Message: Hendrik |
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My name is Hendrik and I'm 57. I'm Flemish and I live in Belgium, close to the German and Dutch border. I became interested in beads through african art and the trade beads. I started a little shop in a local nearby town because I wanted to be surrounded by this stuff as much as possible, still continuing my dayly job as a construction worker. In that shop I sold mainly african art and slowly moved over to ethnic jewelry and beads from all the sources I could find. One day I sold a Pende Mask to an American working for Nike in Belgium. She became my wife a few years later and that same mask is hanging on my livingroom wall now.
All these years I tried to find information about the items I sold and collected and so I went to a bead identification workshop in London given by Peter Francis, shortly before he died. Last year to the Bead Conference in Istanbul and lots of books in between.
I collect whatever interesting material I can find, but almost always at a bargain. So I spent lots of time on fleamarkets, less then I would like to do since I became self emploid a couple of years ago. Once back home I look for all the available information. The beauty of the beads, their history and meaning, meeting and discussing with the people involved in beads make it a passion that's gonna last for long I hope.
Hendrik The picture is me waiting for customers at a Paris market and they did show up! All rights reserved by Bead Collector Network and its users |
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