“I was interested in bead works, what beads become when they’re worked by human beings.” — curator Marsha Bol
espite the seemingly limitless variety of objects made with beads, they are often associated with peak moments in the life of an individual, marking passages between life stages such as birth, coming of age, and marriage. These are what former Museum of International Folk Art director Marsha Bol calls “high occasions.” She writes about beading in this ceremonial light in her new book The Art and Tradition of
published by Gibbs Smith. Beaded objects carry a certain prestige, but they also impart, through their imagery, cultural norms and meanings.
The book accompanies MoIFA’s latest exhibition, which opens on Sunday, April 22, and paints a detailed picture of recent and contemporary uses of beads on all continents. Bol’s ambitious tome and the show are not a survey of beads and their history, but a broad overview of the many types of objects that are made with them.
“I felt that there needed to be some homage to how ancient this art form is, even though the book focuses on the 19th through the 21st centuries,” Bol said. Historical examples of beadwork go as far back as the reign of Khufu during the Old Kingdom era of Egypt. The book includes a shapely Egyptian beaded dress, circa 2551-2528 BCE, made of faience, a glazed ceramic-like substance that contains elements of glass. “I started the book when I was still director,” she said. “Gibbs Smith actually came to us and he wanted to do a book like this. I was interested in bead works, what beads become when they’re worked by human beings. There are other fine books on beads. I thought I’d rather work on what people do with the beads and what they’re used for.”
Glass beads in particular originate from a handful of places, such as the Czech Republic and Venice, Italy, making their way through various means to the far corners of the world. But Bol is more focused on the living traditions of beadwork. “I thought it was interesting that in Borneo, they don’t really care where the glass beads and carnelian beads come from,” she said. “They care about what they do with them and pass them down through the generations. What interested me is the artistic use that’s made of a material.”
The exhibition follows the format of the book, for the most part, arranged in sections corresponding to its 10 chapters. The first of these chapters is “Life Begins,” which centers on beadworks that commemorate births and adorn objects associated with childhood. The volume has a dedication to Thomas “Red Owl” Haukaas, a Lakota beadworker. His fully beaded cradles, contemporary examples of a traditional baby carrier design that he imbues with references to his tribal history and myths, are included in the book as well as the exhibition. Also among the Lakota, beaded turtle and lizard amulets were given to girls as protective objects. They contained the dried umbilical cord that connected the child to her mother. “Some grandmothers still make them for their grandchildren, but not as many as there used to be,” Bol said. “When I was at the Carnegie Museum, I wanted to see if there really was an umbilical cord inside one — and this doctor was willing to X-ray it — but the glass of the beads blocked the rays and you couldn’t actually see inside.” Other beaded objects worn by children in various places were also designed to protect the wearer. Dangling beads and small metal discs on Afghani hats dating to the mid-20th century, for instance, offered the child protection from the evil eye.
and its companion catalogue offer some context for the objects through the narratives of many individuals, making for a lively format. This was a decision by Bol that stemmed from her discussions with representatives of tribes from different locations. “They are focused on living artists or women’s cooperatives to give examples of the ongoing, living form,” she said. Among the women’s cooperatives she writes about is the Umoja Uaso Women’s Village in northern Kenya, which was started by 15 Samburu women for victims of rape and domestic violence. The women support themselves by running small businesses and selling beadwork crafts.
In the second chapter of the book, “Becoming an Adult” — which deals with the onset of adulthood and puberty rites — one such narrative details the experience of Nellie Star Boy Menard (Lakota). Menard, who also receives a dedication in the book, recounted to Bol the story of a puberty rite among
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