Beads
I started out as a painter. All I did is draw and paint for years. It
was the only art I did and the only art I cared about. I even got a tattoo
that read: Cogito Ergo Pingo, which I'm told is Latin for: I think therefore
I paint. (A sort of pun that spins off of the old I think therefore I am
thing in philosophy.)
Then I was asked to make a sculpture. I had never tried it
and never thought I could do it, but this person really wanted
this piece and I agreed to make it using paper mache, which lead to
more sculpture and eventuallyI discovered polymer clay.
Soon I tired of doing small sculptures moved on to making of jewelry.
Since discovering my love of handcrafted art jewelry I have added
precious metal clay, dichroic glass jewelry, polyshrink plastic, and
wire wrapping to add to my art mediums.
I do not consider myself a crafter, but rather a jewelry artist.
I've discovered a love for the bead. In my study of my art I have
discovered that there is just something peculiarly human about the bead.
The Bead is one of the oldest known human artifacts. When archeologists
search for signs of early human activity they look for crude stone
tools, but every time the stone tools are found, so are the beads.
Beads have been found in the caves of Ice Age Europe. When they looked
northern China they found beads among the oldest relics of human
activity there. When scholars searched the vast wilderness of Australia
they found ancient beads.
The oldest known beads, dated at about 38,000 BC and found in France,
were made of animal teeth and bone by Neanderthal people. Remember, the
Neanderthal are a branch off the human evolutionary tree that died out.
Homo Sapiens survived, and the Neanderthal people went extinct. Some
might call these people pre-human, or sub-human, yet they were makers of
stone tools and they made beads.
About 31,000 BC, Cro-Magnon people were crafting beads
representing female fertility figures and game animals.
[Do a search of
goddess beads and pendants and you will find that this image continues
to be used by art jewelry artists to this very day.]
Upper Paleolithic sites dating from 17,000 to 10,000 BC in Russia,
Southern France, northern Spain, Italy, Czechoslovakia, Germany and
Austria have yielded piles of beads. The Magdalenian culture, known for
it's famous caves paintings in southern France and in Spain, but they
were also creating beautifully crafted beads by at least 15,000 BC.
Sometime around 8,000 BC there was a widespread transition in the human
population from nomadic food-gatherers and hunters to food-growers
living in settlements. The ability to grow and store surplus food
allowed time for these early artists to specialized. The Neolithic
(stone-age) people also made beads for adornment and trading. Scholars
believe that these people would consecrated temple areas and holy places
by sowing it with beads, or mixing beads into the mud used for
foundation bricks. This ritual was intended to bring prosperity to the
temple, which was also a repository of a city's wealth.
By 6,500 BC, civilizations based on extensive agriculture were rapidly
evolving in the Mediterranean region. Artists in these cultures made
beads using semi-precious stones and shells. Archeologists now know that
some of these materials were imported as the Mediterranean cultural
centers developed trade with mountain cultures of western Asia,
including those in today's Afghanistan. Sumerian and Mesopotamian
jewelry and bead making had a major influence on the adornment of
cultures, which followed in western Asia and the Mediterranean.
At Catal Huyuk, in 6,000 BC, a great trading center emerged in central
Anatolia. Beads from that area were made from Mediterranean coral. In
ancient Cyprus, the wealthy wore necklaces of imported carnelian beads.
In the 3rd millennium BC, the Sumerians of southern Mesopotamia wore
beads of lapis lazuli imported from Afghanistan.
From about 2800 BC, ancient Syrians made butterfly-shaped beads and
other beads of agate and serpentine, Sinai turquoise and Mediterranean
cowry shells. By 1600 BC the Minoans of Crete were well known for their
beads of gold and semi-precious stones. For 500 years starting about
1700 BC, the Mycenaens, forerunners of the Hellenic Greeks, were leading
maritime traders in the Mediterranean, exchanging copper and bronze
implements for rare amber from the Baltic. Why did they trade
metal-smithing products for amber? Because they were using this stuff
to make beads. When you think about how difficult it must have been to
make objects out of metal in the ancient world, it shows just how
important beads were to the people of that time. Their artisans also
made fabulous jewelry of gold beads, still ranked among the world's most
skilled examples of goldsmithing.
After thousands of years of using natural materials such as bone,
shells, and stones, beadmaking took a great technological leap forward.
Glassmaking was developed, revolutionizing the world of beads, and in
the process international trade.
By 4,000 BC, a new material was invented in either Mesopotamia or Egypt.
Called "faience" today, it was the forerunner of true glass. Faience was
the first mass-produced, synthetic material to simulate stones such as
turquoise and lapis lazuli. Evidence indicates that glassmaking, and the
glass bead making that followed has a western Asian and possibly a
Sumerian origin. The earliest examples of glass beads are from the Akkad
dynasty of Mesopotamia, circa 2340-2180 BC, as well as those from the
Causcasus region in Russia made between 2400 and 2300 BC By about 1500
BC, a technique to make mosaic glass beads had been invented in
Mesopotamia. Faience and glass beads satisfied the desire of almost
everyone to wear inexpensive beads that resembled the precious stones of
the wealthy.
Egypt's New Kingdom, circa 1350 BC is generally considered to be the
world's first great glassmaking epoch. At about the same period, the
Phoenicians became highly skilled glass bead makers. By 1200 BC, they
had become the leading navigators and traders of their time, trading
cedar lumber, purple cloth and glass beads for copper, gold, precious
stones, ivory and spices. And by 800 BC, Carthage, a colonial Phoenician
outpost which became a great international seaport, was famed for its
glass beads and pendants. Glass beads were carried by sea thousands of
miles to be traded by ancient Phoenician and later Roman mariners, and
over the ensuing 19 centuries glass beads have been traded the world
around, becoming one of civilization's most familiar and popular
currencies.
Beads evolved into status symbols based on wealth and social
stratification. Mesopotamian, Egyptian, and Indian civilizations were
hierarchical societies, in which wealth was concentrated in the upper
classes. Beads held a dual function as amulets and status symbols for
the wealthy throughout most of western Asia, Egypt and the Mediterranean
in ancient times.
The early Egyptian people so loved beaded jewelry that virtually
everyone, even the poorest of people, wore beads. This was true
throughout the three dynasties which continued from 3100 BC to 30 BC The
Egyptian word sha means "luck," and sha-sha means "bead.," The Ancient
Egyptians may have believed that beads had some sort of protective
powers. Large quantities of gold, semi-precious stone, or glass beads
were buried with wealthy owners, but even poor families buried pottery
or faience beads with their dead.
This history of the bead goes way back and is found every place humans
have ever lived. With so rich a history of the bead, it seems justified to
say that there is something uniquely human about the bead. The bead is not
less popular today. With the Industrial Revolution came new, faster, cheaper
ways to manufacture elegant beads. You would think, since a factory can
crank out beautiful beads by the dump-truck load, that there would be no
market for handcrafted beads, but the facts would contradict you.
Jewelry artists continue to labor with care and love to create unique
one of a kind beads. The masses have grown tired of these perfect,
uniformed beads of plastic and faux stone. The one thing we all share
in common is that we are all different. Like snowflakes, no two human
beings are exactly alike. You are the greatest YOU this world has ever
seen. There is no YOU greater than you. There is no YOU like you,
there never has been, and there never will be.
We human beings long to do things that announce our distinctiveness to
the rest of the world. We style our hair, use make up, tattoo our skin,
and adorn ourselves with jewelry all in an effort to say to the world,
I'm unique. You can't get that message out with a $1.99 necklace
from WalMart. So people continue to seek out handcrafted art jewelry.
We want beads and jewelry that belong to us alone. We don't want to see
similar adornments on the other Mall-rats.
I rarely wear beads of any kind. I'm a guy and my hippie days are far
behind me. For me it is
not the
wearing of beads that draws me in, it
is the
creation of beads and jewelry that has captivated my mind, my
time, and my energies. I have literally spent a fortune in buy supplies
for making my jewelry. I was so enthralled by dichroic glass that I
bought a kiln within two weeks of seeing my first piece of dichroic
glass jewelry. (And I'm still paying off the loan for he kiln.)
I work as a social worker by day, and while most social workers earn
6 figure incomes I am not among their numbers. I work long hours
for less money than I earned as a school teacher (now that is sad)
to go out an provide services to families and children who have been
abused and neglected. Sometimes my day job is filled with human
misery, and injustic. With my privite time I spend every evening,
and every weekend, and every holiday working at some aspect of
my art.
I believe there is room for all of us. I am not in competition with
other bead artists. My jewelry is a reflection of me, just as your
jewelry would be a reflection of you. It is easy to believe that
jewelry I make today could have a treasured place in museums 500 years
from now. So I want to promote art jewelry. I want to encourage others
to enter this field. I want to share what I learn, and learn from
others. Visit my Home Page
www.thekraftyartists.com or my on-line store at: www.shop.thekraftyartists.com
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