A skill to help women shine
For some former welfare recipients, making glass beads is an unusual way to earn a living.
Rosita Walsh has one ritual: making herself laugh at least once each day.
But about 10 years ago, she found that daily routine harder and harder to follow. She was making minimum wage collecting admissions tickets at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden and she found herself sinking deeper and deeper into an unhappy marriage. There didn't seem to be much joy in her life.
But her happiness returned when Ms. Walsh learned how to make ornate glass beads.
"I knew I needed to make a change and that I needed to get out of my marriage, but I couldn't see an avenue out," she says. "When the beads came along, I finally saw it."
In 1997, Walsh became part of a new scholarship program at the UrbanGlass studio and workshop in Brooklyn, which teaches low-income women and those on welfare how to make glass beads as a way to earn extra money.
Traditionally, steady, minimum-wage jobs have been considered the main option for these women. But the Bead Project targets those who cannot hold such positions, because they are single parents, dealing with addictions, or simply not programmed to work in shifts.
Seven years after Walsh completed the course, she makes earrings and other accessories from glass and sells them through her small business, My Heart Beads for You. She has also become an instructor and mentor for other women and children at risk.
Her personal life has changed, too. After obtaining a divorce, Walsh was able to purchase a condominium in New Jersey. After many years, she feels at peace about her life.
UrbanGlass started the Bead Project to help women in need get on the right financial track. Glass-bead art was something women could pursue at home and sell on the side. In the best possible scenario, the income from such activity could catapult women into the role of entrepreneur.
But since the project's inception six years ago, its founder, Annette Rose-Shapiro, has also seen a number of her graduates take more control of their lives. Some have overcome alcohol and drug addictions and depression, freed themselves from abuse, and gotten off welfare.
"For many of the women, to see themselves as an artist, or even as an entrepreneur, has given them the self-confidence to change other facets of their lives," says Ms. Rose-Shapiro, "more so than punching a time clock in a 9-to-5 job could."
Like any art, beadmaking is not the most economically viable path out of poverty, and many graduates of the program require a steadier income to support themselves and their families. But experts say that providing a safe environment for women to express themselves, even if for a short period of time, can provide the push they need to move forward, whether professionally, socially, or both.
"Learning a creative skill is really learning a life skill," says Gerard Puccio, director of the International Center for Studies in Creativity at Buffalo State College. "And creativity as a life skill is a wonderful coping measure."
The Bead Project grew out of Rose-Shapiro's own professional struggles. After 13 years as a corporate art director, she was fired from her job and reduced to collecting unemployment checks. "I was flat broke," she says.
Artistic all her life, she attended a glassmaking workshop at UrbanGlass one weekend. The glass blowing fascinated her, but beadmaking seemed more feasible. It could be done at a kitchen table - with a small torch, protective glasses, glass rods, and mandrels (metal rods onto which the glass drips) - and learned in a relatively short time. She discovered that she had a natural talent and began selling her work throughout New York City.
"If I can do this, it's doable for other women as well," Rose-Shapiro said to herself. Today she is the managing editor and publisher of GLASS Quarterly, the UrbanGlass magazine.
Page: 1 | 2 
