Bead-It-Forward

WASILLA — Jeanette Shanigan sews tiny beads onto a small square canvas, much like she does most days.

She eventually forms an open rose and places it next to similar squares to form a quilted bed of roses. Bright and sparkly red, gold, pink and yellow roses, all beaded onto thin layers of cloth, stretch across her kitchen table, waiting to be assembled into one final project.

Shanigan, a Wasilla resident, is making a rose quilt in memory of her mother, who lost a 15-year battle with breast cancer in 1985. A professional bead artist, Shanigan decided one way she could give back to those with breast cancer is to incorporate her beadwork into an awareness opportunity.

In early 2004, Shanigan started “Bead-It-Forward,” a project that began with her social group, The Mat-Su Bead Society. Bead-It-Forward rocketed onto the Internet through the Yahoo! group Shanigan formed, Beady Shenanigans.

Last year, Shanigan hand-sewed 12 quilts each constructed of 30 2-by-2-inch squares of beaded creations donated from around the world. Each square carried a butterfly theme donated from more than 220 bead artists from 34 states and six countries, each with his or her own interpretation of the colorful insect.

“As you go through cancer, you cocoon yourself in the idea that things will be back to normal,” Shanigan said. “But inevitably it doesn’t, and so you burst forth like the butterfly as the body changes in acceptance.”

Each quilt takes 15 hours for Shanigan to piece together with help from the Bristol Bay and Portland Bead societies, which help with mounting and framing the final quilts.

One of the butterflies came from a woman who had beat breast cancer herself. Her square consisted of a woman’s torso with two butterflies covering the breast areas, depicting her mastectomy.

Last June, Shanigan hopped on a plane and took her quilts to the Bead and Button show in Milwaukee, Wis., where each quilt was auctioned at the largest bead social in the United States, raising $5,600 for breast cancer awareness and the University of Wisconsin Breast Cancer Research Center.

During her first year of making quilts to benefit breast cancer research in 2004, Shanigan and members of the Mat-Su Bead Society raised $500, she said. The next year, more than 34 people from her Yahoo! group raised more than $1,000.

“I thought, ‘What would happen if I go international with this through the Internet?’” Shanigan said. “So I began posting ruthlessly online and got some more attention for the project.”

Shanigan and her friends were sought out and eventually featured in Bead Button Magazine, the Newsweek of the beading world, and Shanigan began receiving worldwide notice for her devotion to bringing breast cancer awareness to the forefront.

“When my mother passed away, I looked for ways to remember her,” Shanigan said. “Beads are my passion, so I took this passion and applied it to help find a cure for breast cancer. This year, I said, ‘Let’s try it again,’ and so I came up with the rose theme. The rose is a flower that often is associated with loved ones and death. It’s a flower with a lot of meaning, that is beautiful, but can sting as well.”

Members of the Mat-Su Bead Society gathered Monday at Shanigan’s home in Wasilla to enjoy next year’s 41 rose submissions already contributed from other beaders. Six local members also brought beaded pieces for another one of Shanigan’s breast cancer awareness projects — a 2.5-gallon aquarium full of underwater beaded creations, ranging from beaded sea turtles and purple coral reefs, to colorful rocks and sea anemone. So far, 16 pieces have been submitted for the aquarium, with more on the way.

“I’m told eventually I’ll need a two-story aquarium for this project,” Shanigan said.

The aquarium will be sold at the Milwaukee Bead and Button Show along with the rose quilts in June 2008. The due date for next year’s quilts is April 2008, with Shanigan expecting hundreds, if not thousands, more rose squares to be sent to her by then.

“Procrastination is alive and well in the bead community,” Shanigan said.

On her Web site, Beady Shenanigans (Shanigansbeadshenanigans.com), Shanigan highlights Bead-It-Forward and how local bead artists can become involved in the quilt project, make artistic donations and learn new beading techniques.

As a fan of beading, Jen Jones, also of Wasilla, met Shanigan on her Yahoo! group last year and has been actively making beaded items for the Milwaukee auction to raise awareness of an issue she said is making little progress because of a lack of funding and support for women’s causes nationwide.  

“I watch my diet, don’t drink, do all the necessary things women do to stay healthy, because you never know,” Jones said.

Jones fell in love with Bead-It-Forward because of her passion for beading and because of her personal experience dealing with breast cancer. Jones’ mother is a breast cancer survivor in remission.

“Beading is an obsession, not a hobby,” Jones said.

Mike Ann Zable is another member of the Mat-Su Bead Society who made six pieces for Shanigan’s quilt and aquarium projects. Her mother, 83, is a cancer survivor who went into remission six years ago.

“I do these things that remind me of my mother,” Zable said, sewing gold beads onto a rose square. “This kind of thing is personal to us, like it is to everyone involved with breast cancer.”

Zable said she is amazed how much attention the Yahoo! group received after Bead Button Magazine’s article on the quilt, and she hopes more people jump on board with the project.

“I’m telling [Shanigan] we’ll get millions of squares by April — just you wait and see,” Zable said.

Zable said she spends eight to 15 hours a day beading and has unlimited ideas on what she’d like to create next. She runs Stone Age Diva, a unique bead shop in Wasilla and specializes in selling gemstone, vintage and glass jewelry to other bead lovers in the Mat-Su Valley.

Jeannie McElhaney admires the craftsmanship of the beaded roses at Shanigan’s kitchen table. “Wonderful. There are so many ways for us to use our talents.”

McElhaney lost her sister, Pauline, to breast cancer in 2006, then lost her brother to cancer a year later. Having cared for both siblings, watching them slowly deteriorate through the disease, chemotherapy and other treatments over the years, has left an impression in McElhaney’s mind forever.

A commercial fisher in the summer, McElhaney also picked up beading as a hobby for something to do on her time off. It turned into more than she expected after a short time practicing.

When her sister passed away, McElhaney was devastated and turned to beading to deal with her grief. It was through Shanigan’s group that McElhaney realized others were out there going through the same ordeals.

“Donating my time to this cause has really opened my eyes,” McElhaney said. “There are a number of people out there suffering and I feel like I can do something about it. Raising money and awareness through beading is a healing obsession for me now.”

Bead-It-Forward, now in its fourth year, has artists ages 7 to 85 donating pieces to the breast cancer cause, Shanigan said. The Yahoo! group has more than 270 members and is growing, thanks in part to the popularity of beading.

“This keeps the fire going,” Shanigan said. “It’s easy to let life get away from you each day. We mentor each other and nag each other with beading ideas, but we’re aiming at a common thing and trying to make a smidgen of difference in the world. That’s why I do what I do each day.”

To learn more about Bead-It-Forward program, the aquarium project or breast cancer awareness, visit Shanigansbeadshenanigans.com.

Contact J.J. Harrier at valleylife@frontiersman.com or 352-2269.