Awash with jewels

How does one keep her sanity living in this country that has not changed in approximately 121 years? I live alone — no maids, so at the end of the day I enjoy peace and quiet. I get headaches — borrowing of money, sob stories, all that helper jazz — only from my driver because I never learned how to drive. I am willing to take that because I need him. But he doesn’t live in. All right, it sometimes gets depressing. You have no one to talk to, but you can watch TV and then sleep it off. In the morning everything is all right again.

One day I had lunch with my old friend, Linda, who said she had taken jewelry-making classes with Portia Leuterio, who I remembered meeting before but, as usual, I had forgotten where. I got her telephone number and quickly enrolled. That, in my opinion, was one of the best decisions I ever made in my life.

Portia’s atelier or workshop is in Bel-Air. Above her doorbell are tiles that read, “This is not the home of Martha Stewart,” which always makes me smile. You enter a picturesque little terrace full of flowered tiles and pretty pots and climb up the stairs to enter a charming classroom full of neatly piled boxes of beads, clasps, bracelets, boxes, mirrors, vases full of beaded or fake flowers, piles of pink plates all very tidily arranged. There is a big table and that is where everyone sits and works. The dominant color is pale pink, Portia’s favorite color. She wears it most of the time. I love spending three to four hours of an afternoon here with women who have become my friends, and French music, which I love. Portia is the daughter of an ambassador. She was raised on foreign assignments in New York and Paris. This is a lady with a definite style. But when she teaches, she gives you the skills and allows you to keep your own style. I like crooked jewelry. She allows me to make them.

She calls her workshop Endearments and will issue you a class information sheet printed on pink bond paper giving you the rules, for example: Limited enrollment. Classes are small and intimate. Full payment is required one week in advance, for lead preparation, on a cash basis and is non-refundable. Hmm, I think, I should make one of these for my writing class but my color will be lavender. That is, if I have another writing class. Sometimes I feel I’m too lazy to prepare.

Flower power: The author Barbara Gonzalez wearing the giant flower that Portia made.

I love attending classes. They broaden your world. You meet new people and make good friends with them. This class is where I ran once again into Dolly, who told me about her death experience, making me reclassify death as wonderful, something to look forward to. This is where I made friends with Tess, who sits next to me and is one of the nicest women I know. Then there’s Tita, who is related to one of my exes. Though we didn’t get to be good friends before, we may become good friends now. Tita loves to come to class with her own lamp, which she designed herself. It runs on batteries. I think she was born a natural engineer. There’s Eaga, who has become my closest friend. We text each other and giggle a lot. There’s Crissie, one of my earliest friends. I think Crissie might be English, but we’ve had discussions on bi-polar disease, exchanging what she knows with what I know. We’re all women so there is intimacy and laughter in class. And there are snacks. Once there was even sangria.

What do I learn? I have learned a lot. We are a group but Portia teaches us individually. I learned to bead using plastic thread and the term “crossover.” I learned to coil wires and turn them into watchstraps and brooches. Okay, but those didn’t move me too much. I knew how to bead before. I have always liked to make jewelry since I was very young. What I really enjoy making now is twisted wire jewelry. You string beads onto a soft wire and you twist them. I love making those pieces.

Photographed here is an earring I made to wear on only one ear. It is patterned after an earring my mother used to wear when I was a child. She had a pair but she only wore one over one ear. You can see the materials are not expensive. They are beads and stones that you buy at Carolina’s to decorate your dresses with. Can I sell these in our little kiosk in Fairview? No. It’s too eccentric and would be expensive because of the amount of time I put into it. So now I am known in class as the lady who says, “Now that I have fabulous jewelry, where do I wear them? I don’t even go out to dinner any more. Never mind, I’ll wear them while watching TV.”

This class of women is what brings joy to my life these days. Portia also teaches creative packaging and the giant flower with me in the photograph is also made by her. In case you want to take classes, please call Portia Leuterio directly. Her tel. no. is 896-3839. She charges P7,000 for five classes and that includes all materials.

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