Tama Swain Salomon

visit: www.cssfineart.com
email: cliff@cssfineart.com

Tama (Cliff) Swain-Salomon is an off-the-loom seed bead weaver known for creating non-traditional jewelry shapes and pushing the boundaries of color exploration. After injuring and losing use of both of their hands for over three years, they began beading when a friend recommended they try it as part of their hand rehabilitation therapy. Once they started, they were hooked.

In all of their pieces, Tama integrates over 30 years of study in multiple fields, including graphic design, painting, sacred geometry, and chromotherapy, as well as apprenticeships with several medicine men and women.  They have exhibited their work internationally, including at the Toho Bead Galleries in Osaka and Tokyo, Japan, as well as stateside at the Museum of Beadwork in Portland, Maine. Several publications have featured their jewelry, including Bead & Jewellery UK (Issue 112, 2021 front cover), Beadwork Magazine, Facet Jewelry, and Bead & Button, to name a few. Tama’s beadwork has earned them several awards—they were the grand prize winner of Bead Dreams in 2018, where they were chosen for the People’s Choice Award, and they also received the Facet Jewelry Reader’s Choice Award in July 2019 and Judge’s Award in November 2019. Their work has also been featured in ad campaigns and in a blog article for The Museum of Beadwork and Toho Beads in partnership with Bobby Beads & Starman. Toho Beads also invited them to be a featured artist for their 2019 and 2020 Toho Bead Challenges. They are also a permanent ambassador for the Beadworker’s Guild and International Beading Week who featured them in their January 2022 Journal, as well as the international tutor for Melbourne, Australia for 2021.

Tama teaches beadweaving at various stores, for bead societies, and for retreats internationally. Before becoming a full-time artist/teacher, Tama had worked as an instructor for a college of natural medicine, as a chef, and had held a private holistic medicine practice. They are married with a 7 year-old daughter and live in California, near San Francisco.

Upcoming classes via Zoom by Tama:

To register: email me.
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