History on Your Arm

Long, long ago, in the early 1980s, a treasure was found inthe basement of a vintage home in New Lenox, Illinois. The 24 by 6 inch barrel of cast offbuttons was not immediately recognized as such by

Long, long ago, in the early 1980s, a treasure was found inthe basement of a vintage home in New Lenox, Illinois.  The 24 by 6 inch barrel of cast offbuttons was not immediately recognized as such by the homeowners and sat,ignored in their basement until seasoned history and miniature art lover, PamBiesen visited for the first time.

 

The owners of the unbeknownst treasure were Pam’s in-lawswho had recently bought the house and were conducting a tour, which includedthe basement.  As Pam and herhusband, Bill followed along with the tour, she stood transfixed by what sheconsidered the mother lode of ultimate treasure: a container of the moldy,blackened buttons sitting out in plain view.

 

There was no time for niceties.  Eager and straightforward she uttered the phrase which hasbeen known to procure treasures over and over again.  “Can I have those?”

 

Bill playfully reprimanded her, amused that she would simplyask, but Pam went home with thousands of buttons that day and a warm feeling ofdelight.  She didn’t have anultimate plan but sensed that a muse would come upon her eventually.  

 

Her attachment to what may seem to be simply a device forattaching clothing started early. Growing up as one of seven sisters on the south side of Chicago, Pamremembers her very busy mother, stopping her work from time to time to gatherher gaggle of girls on the porch to play, Button, Button, Who’s Got the Button,a very rare treat.

 

An interest in art, history, miniatures and treasure huntingoften propelled her to the dig through the discarded and mundane to find thetreasures of her heart.

 

But the treasures she discovered in her in-laws basementwould soon take a back seat to her broken heart when her 33-year-old husbandunexpectedly died in his sleep, leaving her with three children under the ageof 8 to raise on her own.  Thegrueling aftermath of grief completely engulfed any small pleasures that camebefore.

 

Eventually Pam sought solace in that which had brought herpleasure in the past.   Picking through her children’s art supplies for a distractive project,she plucked out some wooden beads and paint.  “I developed a very quick and easy way to paint woodenbeads.  It was very comforting andthe result was so bright and lively,” she remembers.

 

Before long, Pam had more than a 500 beads waiting forfurther inspiration, which was forthcoming.  Borrowing from a Native American display of beaded costumesat The Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, where she worked at thetime, she threaded seed beads around the painted wooden ones, creating a floralmotif which she attached to a cha-cha bracelet.   

 

A satisfyingly original bracelet gathered praise and an outpouring of interest from her co-workers and those in the secluded offices abovewhere she worked.  Pam wasencouraged to branch out, which brought her to the buttons once again. 

 

Still in the barrel, the blackened, decrepit buttons nowresided in Pam’s basement  “Theywere filthy with mold, and I thought, “Fine.  Here’s me asking for these buttons now what am I going to dowith them.”

 

What she did was a little prospecting.  Grabbing a handful at a time, shetossed them into a strainer and began to run water over them as she coaxed offthe filth with her hands. Little by little, the buttons began to emerge. “Itwas like unearthing gold,” she remembered

 

Among the pearls and brass, brightly colored plastic buttoncaught her eye.  A little researchidentified them as Bakelite buttons, a highly collectible type of WW II eraplastic.

 

Although she was unaware of the value, the multi-coloredplastic called out to her.  “Theyspeak of a time period and they’re very interesting shapes: stars, hearts andgears, anything art deco. They’re just so cool,” she added with a twinkle inher voice.

 

She separated the Bakelite treasures and set them aside,once again waiting for an artful muse to visit.

 

Years passed before that muse arrived.  Harkening back to her wooden beadbracelets, Pam was inspired to wire bundles of buttons onto one-of-a-kindcha-cha bracelets that tumbled over with color and texture.  The resulting jewelry captured theimagination of friends and strangers alike.  Requests began to accumulate, sending Pam to furtherresearch the buttons.

 

Much like the vintage buttons she covets, Pam has researchedher buttons the old-fashioned way, lots and lots of books with only a smallamount of information coming from the Internet

 

“The more I looked at these collector books, the moreastonished I was,” she remembered. “People would collect buttons that were made in the 17 and 1800s andthese buttons are unbelievable, exquisite and delicate.  It occurs to me that this is a humancondition that people like tiny miniature things.” she said.

 

There are so many button lovers, in fact, that a specialclub has been in place for many years as a home base to button devotees.  The National Button Society with boastsmore than 3, 000 members, has been in existence since the 1930s.

 

“They are very artistically pleasing.  The color and value and size of thebuttons look amazing.  But what isinteresting to me is, trendy is very flighty.  Things can be very trendy today and just a bunch of junk inyour closet tomorrow,” she observed.

 

Pam’s research eventually led her on the search for a newtype of treasure: china buttons from the Civil War era.  “They’re made from actual china andthey’re so pretty,” she said. “It’s amazing how pretty they are. They are these tiny things, about ½inch across with these intricate little patterns.  They have kept their beauty and artistic value for, in somecases, over a hundred years.”

 

Bracelets, once again were the medium Pam chose.  As with the Bakelite, Pam can tell youthe history of the buttons transformed into jewelry, making them less of a cutecraft and more of a historical way to tribute the beauty of the miniaturethroughout history.

 

Among her most prized buttons are crystal buttons that werefound in the basement of a Czechoslovakian factory after World War II.  What had been a button factory betweenthe two World Wars had been obliterated and abandoned.  A group purchased the site in thenineties and mined the treasures from the rubble, selling them on Ebay.  Her cellar button finds were a drop inthe ocean compared to these.

 

“There were, if not millions, thousands upon thousands ofCzech glass buttons that are exquisite. They were molten glass poured into molds and dyed with things likeuranium and gold dust.”  Pam hasmade good use of them, although some are kept aside to simply admire. 

 

Because Pam embraces the history of buttons, a bill of saleand a pretty accessory isn’t all a consumer gets with a purchase of herbracelets.  Her intensive researchis passed on to the buyer, revealing the hidden history behind each piece.   Sometimes she even surprisesherself.

 

Recently a customer waited asPam leafed through a value / price guide, looking for example of a specificbutton.   “I said now,see this button right here sold for 87 dollars.  And I look on the bracelet and the very same button on thebracelet.”

 

Much to her chagrin, the amount she had charged for thebracelet was 60 dollars.  Needlessto say she set the bracelet aside for a pricing adjustment.

 

This disparity in pricing can cause issues in the marketplace.  Although the value of eachbutton can be researched and validated, the cost of the materials sometimesputs the bracelet out of reach of jewelry fans and button collectors want thebuttons, not the subsequent creation.

 

Pricing can be a problem in procurement as well.  Ebay, which has a plethora of buttonslisted for auction used to be a bargain haven for button treasures, butrecently Pam finds herself outbid much of the time.  Once again she turns into the vintage method of collectors:house sales.  “I’ll go and buy thedregs, the gigantic jar for 8 bucks and painstakingly go through them seven oreight times before giving the rest away.”  

 

“It’s like finding diamonds,” she said.  “How could you go wrong if you havesomething on your wrist that women and in some cases men thought were abeautiful thing to look at and covet a hundred years ago.”

 

Decades have passed since Pam first set eyes on the treasurein her in-law’s basement.  Shecontinues to create unusual pieces from the most usual of objects, but herpurpose has never been simply about the aesthetics or history of theitems.  She sees herself ascreating her own history.  “I wantsome of my little artsy-fartsy stuff to last where my kids would put them in abox and say, My mother, your grandmother made this.”

 

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