Mixed Media/ Beaded Stories

Lips   © 2008   Mixed-media   16" x 16"

Series notes:

In 1990, a friend of mine showed me a beaded mask she had bought in a gallery. It was made by the Huichol Indians from the Sierra Madre Mountains of Central Mexico. The beading was spectacular and the art left a memorable impression on me.

Six years later, I remembered the Huichol mask and wanted to try my own style of beading on canvas. I came up with three paintings that I wanted to cover with beads for my son's nursery. It took me months to hand-apply the beads to the small canvases I had designed. It was a wonderful meditative art form that prepared me for the patience required in parenting. Much later, I beaded his first pair of walking shoes, and then I tried beading a football helmet and a mannequin torso. Some things work in the bead medium and some things don't work. Experimenting is part of the adventure.

Currently I bead various canvas sizes. Each canvas can take months to create. This particular series emerged from my interests in symbols, Folk Art and Haitian Vodou flags. There is something powerful and perhaps magical that happens when you combine symbols, visual stories with three dimensional beads that reflect and refract light.