by Kristina Logan

Jewelers, gem cutters, and bead makers use countless tools in their work. Many are specific to the individual trades, but there is one tool common to all: hands. Your hands may well be the most valuable tools you'll ever own.

Recently, I injured my hand, and this has made me look at my hands in a new light. I say recently, but the injury took more than four years to materialize. Until I was forced to deal with the problem, I'd never thought of my hands as anything special: my fingers are not particularly strong or long or quick, they've simply always done as I wished, letting me execute with precision the intricate dot patterns on my glass beads that have led my peers to dub me the “dot queen.”

Like many artists, I maintain a hectic schedule of working, exhibiting at shows around the country, and teaching. When I'm in my studio, I put in long hours of intense work, averaging 12 hours a day at my torch at particularly busy times. During one of these intense stints over the past Christmas season, I developed an amazing amount of pain in my thumb. It was so severe that I couldn't even hold a glass of water. Driving my car was difficult. I have always put up with a certain amount of pain in my hands while working on a deadline, but this time I could not ignore it. I shouldn't have ignored it for as long as I had.

Reluctantly, I went to an orthopedic surgeon to see what the problem was. My biggest fear was that he would tell me to stop working. The x-rays revealed that I had been slowly wearing out the cartilage in the lower joint of my thumb from repetitive bead-making movements in a kind of gradually self-induced arthritis.

The doctor asked me how long I would like to continue to work.

How long? I would like to work for the rest of my life!

I learned that the only way this will be possible is for me to modify my working habits. The doctor made me a custom brace that allows me to work but immobilizes my thumb. He also advised me to vary my tasks so that I do different things throughout the day.

These are changes I can live with, but I must admit that the adjustment has been difficult. Physically, I have just learned a challenging but not impossible new skill in growing accustomed to working with the brace, but mentally, I have had to look at what I do quite differently. I have always delighted in countless hours at the torch, and I have always just counted on my body, specifically my hands, for an amazing amount of production. Now I have to think about what I do, how I do it, and how I can change this so I can continue doing what is so important to me without injury.

Not surprisingly, I'm not the only one who has faced this kind of problem. While exhibiting at the Best Bead show during the recent suite of gem and related shows in Tucson, Arizona, I wore my brace at my booth for the six days of the show, and I met jewelers, beadworkers, accountants, dentists, and even a ventriloquist who all confessed to hand problems, asked questions about my injury, and offered friendly advice about stretching exercises, successful surgeries, references to specialists, and so on. We all need to be concerned about our hands.

Although I was frustrated by my misfortune at first, I now realize that my hands are the most precious tools I have. Instead of taking them for granted, I now consider them invaluable. I have some special tools in my studio that I love to work with, and I tend to treat them a little better than I do the tools I consider more common or easily replaceable. My special tools have a special place on my bench, they get cleaned regularly, they get sharpened, they get oiled.

Now my hands have entered into the category of “my most precious tools.” With this new outlook, I expect to keep working throughout the rest of my life. I am not a doctor and cannot give medical advice, but I hope that other artists will benefit from my experience. My hope is that those of you who work with your hands will take care of what you have: truly your most precious tools of the trade.

Kristina Logan is a glass bead maker and was President of the Society of Glass Beadmakers from 1996-1998.

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