A Life Shaped by Handmade Things
The story of Garan-Beadagio begins with Anna Johnson and a lifelong fascination with handmade objects. From an early age, she was drawn to textiles, ornament, mosaics, beads, and the quiet beauty of things made by hand.
As a young traveler and merchant, Anna bought and sold rare kilims, embroideries, vintage beads, and antique materials. She visited historic centers of beadmaking and traded with artisans, collectors, designers, and shop owners. In 1983, she taught herself glass beadmaking, reviving old techniques at a time when there was little organized beadmaking community in the United States.
From Beads to a Broader World of Artisanship
Anna’s experience as an artisan and independent merchant naturally led to producing events where makers and buyers could meet directly. Since 1992, Garan-Beadagio events have brought together thousands of artists, craftspeople, designers, and tradespeople from across the United States and around the world.
To Bead True Blue began in Tucson in 2005, growing from a small, invitation-based gathering into one of the best-known events of its kind. The first Bead & Design Show followed in 2008, expanding the idea into a series of events centered on beads, jewelry, wearable art, materials, workshops, and independent design.
Arts & Crafts Shows and Artazan
Over time, the same appreciation for materials, technique, and individual expression grew beyond beads and jewelry. Marin Arts & Crafts Show began in 2019 as a broader marketplace for fine craft, art, design, handmade goods, and the people who create them.
Pasadena Artazan followed in 2023, bringing together contemporary artisans, artists, designers, and small independent studios in a setting shaped by discovery and conversation. Sacramento Artazan joins the family in October 2026, continuing that tradition in a new community.
Although the shows have different names and personalities, they share the same foundation: respect for skill, honest materials, creative independence, and the human connection that happens when people meet the makers behind the work.
What We Believe
We believe handmade work carries something that mass production cannot: the decisions, imperfections, knowledge, and imagination of the person who made it.
Our goal is to create welcoming marketplaces where visitors can discover unusual work, learn how it was made, meet artists and artisans directly, and take home something with a story.
Produced by Garan-Beadagio
Garan-Beadagio, LLC is a family-run event company based in Nevada City, California. In addition to Arts & Crafts and Artazan events, we produce Bead & Design Shows and Colors of the Stone in Tucson.
Each event is built around its own community, while remaining part of a larger tradition devoted to art, craft, materials, workshops, and independent creative businesses.