Mike and Casey. Me at the torch.
My name is Leah Preble Holmes, and I am a Lampwork Bead Artist (meaning that I actually melt glass and make my own glass beads in a torch) and silversmith here in Poplarville, Mississippi--about 45 miles southwest of Hattiesburg.
As you'll see below, I've been something of a professional student for years. I love reading, learning, studying, theorizing, and exploring in depth the things that, well, "light my fire." One of those things is the study of literature. After a 6-year stint as a high-school teacher at St. Stanislaus College Prep in Bay St. Louis, my husband Mike and I left the Gulf Coast in 2002 so that I could continue my study of Victorian literature and culture at USM in Hattiesburg. We sold our house, moved to Poplarville, and emersed ourselves in our new lives there.
In 2007, after having finally completed my doctoral courses and comprehensive exams, I was done; just completely spent physically, emotionally, and mentally from the rigors of constant teaching, studying, and writing. The Academy was no longer the place for me, at least full time. I re-evaluated my professional goals and realized that I no longer wanted the big tenure-track professor's job that I thought I did: I didn't want a life of constant research afterall, even though literary archival work--digging around in publications from the 19th century--is still one of my favorite pleasures.
I started beading partly as a form of meditation therapy and partly just to have something to do while I tried to figure out how I would adjust my career and personal life towards an updated version of fulfillment. Beads, rocks, geodes, gems had always been curious to me, especially glass beads and patterns involving spots and dots and bumps--I loved bumpy beads BEST!
Long story short, it is now 2011, and I feel I've finally landed on my own personal recipe for happiness--part-time college teaching and part time serious bead making! Neither of these is something that I want to be "forced" to do all the time, but both of these are necessary for me to enjoy what I see finally as a balanced life of professional work and creative, personal artistry. I once thought of myself as an English teacher who made glass beads. But I'm now more of a glass bead maker who happens to teach English! Either way, both of these paths have their own rewards that continue to greatly enrich my life, and I feel completely fortunate to have discovered this truth relatively early in my career of both.
So that's me! Thanks for reading this far, and thanks for your interest in my website. It's small but growing all the time! Feel free to contact me for questions about my beads . . . or the works of Dickens, Thackeray, or Gaskell. :)
Wishing you a joyous life of balance,
Leah
Ph.D. (ABD)- The University of Southern Miss, Hattiesburg, 2002 - 2007
(British Literature / Specialization in Victorian Sensationalism, Street Literature, Depictions of Crime in Victorian Press, Iconography of Skeletons between 1790 and 1912, Charles Dickens, William Thackeray & Industrial novels). Doctoral dissertation halted upon discovering the joys of playing with fire.
M.A.-The University of Southern Miss-Gulf Park, 1998
(British Literature / Esp. Victorian Sensationalism & the Role of the Butler in Mid-century British Mysteries)
B.A.- Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA, 1994
(English; Minor in Spanish)
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