Open Tuesday - Saturday from 10 am through 3 pm
Sharon Hessoun
As a Special Education teacher, creativity was an important part of Sharon Hessoun's job. Finding a variety of ways to teach her students with intellectual impairments the basic skills they needed was a daily task. Over the years, she has done many kinds of creative endeavors (sewing, knitting, embroidery, crewel, cross-stitch, to name a few). In the early 1990s, she took a 2 hour class in making a strung necklace, bracelet and earrings. Thus began her love affair with beads.
For several years, she used beads to create one of a kind strung necklaces and bracelets, earrings, pins with wire shapes hung with beads. Requests from co-workers who wanted her to make similar items for them launched a business. She began selling her work at small craft shows in 1994. The internet exposed her to knitting with wire and beady friends encouraged her to learn off-loom beadweaving techniques. That changed the focus of her work to lead her to today. Sharon published her book, Wire Knitting…On a Spool, in 2000. Over the next several years, she taught the basic technique and the techniques that she created to many students at the large national bead shows. Thousands of books and spools later, she still teaches at times but definitely does a lot of wire knitting!
Off-loom beadweaving and bead embroidery came along later. Sharon thought she wouldn’t enjoy working with those tiny beads! Boy, was she wrong. She loves the seemingly infinite ways to combine their colors and shapes to create designs. She particularly likes geometric shapes and the use of stone cabochons surrounded by beaded bezels and designs. Her other love is SPARKLE! She's had a love of Swarovski crystals since she first encountered them! Sharon uses them often in her designs!
When people look at her jewelry, she hopes that they can imagine how good it will make them feel to wear it. The colors they are attracted to are usually the colors that they have an emotional reaction to and that they like to wear.
Currently, Sharon's work is available at Leaping Lizard Gallery and the Southern Arizona Artist Guild (SAAG) Gallery at La Encantada, as well as the Freebird Shop in Catalina and Viola Jo’s in Tubac. She also has customers that like to come shop in her home studio since she has a lot of inventory that is not at any of these outlets. Sharon can’t seem to stop creating! Commissions are also welcome to create a special piece!
