December 16, 2005: Headlines: COS - India: Jewelry: Wilkes Barre Times-Leade: Jewelry maker and button artist Helene Elko, 64, was in India from 1963 to 1965 while in the Peace Corps, and for the past 40 years the experience has been a significant point of reference for her
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December 16, 2005: Headlines: COS - India: Jewelry: Wilkes Barre Times-Leade: Jewelry maker and button artist Helene Elko, 64, was in India from 1963 to 1965 while in the Peace Corps, and for the past 40 years the experience has been a significant point of reference for her
Jewelry maker and button artist Helene Elko, 64, was in India from 1963 to 1965 while in the Peace Corps, and for the past 40 years the experience has been a significant point of reference for her
“It certainly did impact my thinking, my whole perspective on life,” Elko said. “It is a point of reference for me in understanding people and cultures and broadening how I look at things and experience life.”
Jewelry maker and button artist Helene Elko, 64, was in India from 1963 to 1965 while in the Peace Corps, and for the past 40 years the experience has been a significant point of reference for her
HELENE ELKO
By DAWN ZERA For Times Leader
Jewelry maker and button artist Helene Elko, 64, was in India from 1963 to 1965 while in the Peace Corps, and for the past 40 years the experience has been a significant point of reference for her.
“It certainly did impact my thinking, my whole perspective on life,” Elko said. “It is a point of reference for me in understanding people and cultures and broadening how I look at things and experience life.”
For instance, her book club recently enjoyed “Life of Pi,” the bestselling novel by Yann Martel in which the main characters hail from India. And Elko can see parallels between India and the United States.
“India went from a nation of 450 million when I was there to over a billion today,” she said. “We’re experiencing some of the same experiences here that come with that, for example the expansion of the upper class and the burgeoning population of the poor.”
A Larksville resident, Elko only recently returned to the town she was born in and the home her parents left to her. After graduating from College Misericordia, and traveling to India, she lived in California for several years as well as Wisconsin and western Pennsylvania. With a master’s degree in social science, Elko made her living as a family therapist, retiring last year.
This is a well-traveled woman of passion, and retirement for her simply means more opportunities to pursue other interests.
When her father died a few years ago, she was working for a western Pennsylvania adoption agency and traveled to Europe, where she visited a Romanian orphanage. In the orphanage, she came across a young boy who was being adopted, yet his two older brothers, ages 15 and nearly 16, were not being adopted. As a single, childless older woman, Elko figured she could offer the boys a better life in the United States and they in return might be able to help her manage a household. So she adopted the two boys just days before the cut-off date – Romanians do not allow adoptions for children older than 16. The two boys now are 20 and 21 recently spent Thanksgiving with her.
Also during Elko’s retirement, she now is able to concentrate on a passion she developed as a child: buttons. She became fascinated with buttons when she discovered her mother’s button box and has since become a collector of vintage and antique buttons, which she uses to make jewelry, including bracelets, pendants and necklaces.
“Buttons are one of the fifth-largest collectibles,” Elko said. She attends button auctions about three times in a year in New York and in Ephrata and is a member of the National Button Society.
The price of collectible buttons ranges from pennies to thousands of dollars. Elko once sold a brass button for $350 that had a heraldic theme, with a lion and shield. The button was set in a turned-corner square design, which made it collectible and desirable.
Buttons alone can be considered little pieces of art, with different themes. There are picture buttons, theater buttons, opera buttons, mythology buttons, Aesop’s fable buttons and Romeo and Juliet buttons, for example.
In her jewelry art, Elko works with metals and mother-of-pearl buttons.
“There are collectors out there who do nothing but collect, but I’m more of a practical collector and buy what I can appreciate and work with,” Elko said.
In particular, she likes carved, homemade buttons and likes to work with French enamel buttons for her pendants, some of which date to the 1800s.
Her work recently was featured at a holiday boutique at Beadweaver’s, 487 Bennett St., Luzerne.
For more information about the jewelry, or to buy her products, visit Beadweavers online at www.beadweaver.com or call 714-6700.
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Story Source: Wilkes Barre Times-Leade
This story has been posted in the following forums: : Headlines; COS - India; Jewelry
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