Doing something from “nothing” is the most exciting aspect of creativity for my husband, Philip, while designing with elegant lines and rich colors, using materials that radiate light, is my passion. Our visions were joined together by an unexpected event: a devastating drought during the late 1990s in Kenya where we live.

Our home is in the bush several hours south of Nairobi, and our neighbors in the Great Rift Valley are the elegant, tall Massai, who still maintain their pastoral way of life. During the drought, as the grasses died off and the earth became parched, over a hundred Maasai mothers were coming to our house for money to buy food for their children.

Traditionally, the Maasai men who trade in livestock to provide for their families handle financial matters. When their cattle began dying, bleached bones were a signal that the men must drive their remaining herds to greener pastures for survival- sometimes hundreds of miles. Families were left behind to fend for themselves and, in the absence of men, a need grew into what would later become an opportunity for the women. My husband knew he could not take care of all these families for very long, so he sought a way to create something out of ‘nothing’ that could be made by the women- a product that could be sold.

Inspiration came to Philip as he studied some stands of tall golden grass. He envisioned jewelry that could be made from a sustainable natural resource, utilizing the Maasai women’s skills as master beaders. Soon the women were harvesting the grass-already dried by the hot African sun-one blade at a time, and then the blades were cut into tiny “beads.” As the system has evolved, only three or four blades are selected to be cut from a stand, leaving most of the grass behind. After it is collected and cleaned, it is weighed and packed into bundles for sorting, cutting, dying and drying.

As we dyed the grass rich hues of every color imaginable- reds, blues, pinks, greens, yellows, purples, burgundies, browns and earth tones- we discovered that it turned into an element with an amazing beauty of its own. The grass beads have a depth and luster not found in other materials, and because the dye penetrates the waxy grass unevenly, lovely variations in tone occur in every color. We were thrilled. We had a product. We had made something from ‘nothing’.