One year, my parents tried to change this situation: they bought us Perler beads. You might remember these tiny, hollowed-out cylinders. You would arrange these rubbery grains of colored plastic on a pegboard to make all sorts of patterns that, nowadays, look like pixels on an flat-screen TV. At first, my parent had a success on their hands. Instead of hours of us idiotically bickering, we spent many happy, often quiet hours creating our masterpieces. But then ... well, I now realize that our activities soon drove my parents crazy. The longer we contentedly played, the more these little bits of plastic would magically migrate all over the house. Until, one day, just before school started, all of our beads mysteriously disappeared. My mom said something about Perler pieces needing a vacation.
Years later, I decided to share my creative adventure with my young children as they whined about having nothing to do. At the same time, Sam's Club had a large set of the beads on sale. ("Large", in Sam's Club terms, means barrel-sized.) My innocent memories coupled with my adult wallet made my purchasing decision easy enough. So, for the first few days, all was fine as my peaceful children exercised their imagination. Then, slowly and maddeningly, those plastic pellets turned me into my parents.
It started as I began finding multicolored pieces randomly throughout the house. Then, I would find these tiny bubbles in every possible nook (and some impossible nooks) - in the car, in the dog's dish, in my shoes, in the wash machine. Thanks to the heat from the dryer, a few melted their way into my work shirts. And don't make me explain how they wound up in the toilet. Of course, after a few weeks, these toys of creativity also took a vacation - to the Salvation Army store.
That was years ago. I had assumed that the Perler beads went the way of Garbage Pail Kids and tamagotchi pets. But no. Yesterday, as I set up my sister's art site on etsy.com, I discovered the artwork of Steve Moore, who uses Perler beads to create amazing photo-like pictures of celebrities. For example, take a look at these:
Great work, don't you think? I'm wonder whose portrait Mr. Moore will create next? With the resurging interest in the Rocky Movie series, I wonder if Mr. Moore plans a picture of Rocky Balboa? The only way such a portrait could be more incredible is for Steve to include Tiger Eye Beads for that "eye of the Tiger" realism.
Nah! I don't that likeness will ever happen. The last thing we need is someone else to complain about Sylvester Stallone's beady little eyes.
1 comment:
O my God some of the pearl pictures are amazing!
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