Of Beads and Beaded Artistry: A Paradigmatic Study of the Beadworks of David Herbert Dale (original) (raw)

Creativity and Beaded Aesthetics: Thematic Analysis of the Beadworks of David Herbert Dale

Mediterranean Journal of Social Sciences

In traditional Africa, beads function as adornments, as designation of royalty, and in many activities that have to do with commerce, religion, and healing among others. The use of beads has however found it ways into modern artistic expression. Literature abounds on the traditional use of beads, whereas there is a dearth of literature on creative usage of beads in contemporary Nigerian art. This study therefore examines creativity in the beadworks of David Herbert Dale. Data were collected through oral interviews with David Herbert Dale and relevant key informants such as art connoiseurs and gallery owners. This study relies on the theory of aesthetic response and functional theories of art; it also adopts the visual analysis approach to evince the aesthetics and deconstruct the contents of the beadworks. The paper argues that the beadworks of Dale are visual chronicles of historical, religious, economic, and socio-cultural aspects of Nigeria in particular, and Africa as a whole. ...

AFRO-CULTURAL IMPERATIVES IN THE BEAD PAINTINGS OF JIMOH BURAIMOH

Beads had been a universal form of personal adornment from generation to generation across cultures. Studies on beads have therefore focused so much on excavated beads and their uses in antiquities; while the exploration of beads as a medium of creative enterprise in the contemporary times have received little attention from scholars of African arts. This study therefore evaluated how Jimoh Buraimoh has explored beads as a medium of artistic expression drawing on his afro-cultural milieu. This study traced the evolution of Buraimoh's bead painting; identified and selected the relevant bead paintings of the artist; examined the forms; and appraised the afro-cultural themes in the bead paintings. Data were sourced from field work which included oral interviews with the artist, art collectors, as well as gallery owners. Twelve (12) bead paintings spanning through the artistic career of Buraimoh were purposively selected for analysis. Photographs of the selected bead paintings were taken to appraise their forms, cultural themes and imageries. The descriptive approach adopted in analyzing the data focused on the thematic thrusts of the bead paintings. The findings revealed that Buraimoh's bead paintings reflect cubistic organization of forms, were abstract in style, and drew much inspiration from the Yoruba tradition. The study concluded that beads which had been a universal form of personal adornment were explored by Buraimoh, to produce visual records of extraordinary creative force with afro-cultural imperatives.

The Maturing of a Medium: Contemporary Beadwork in Europe and North America

Surface Design Journal, 2003

Long dismissed as a stepchild of the textile arts, beadwork is increasingly respected as a legitimate contemporary art form in its own right. In this short survey, we focus on four major artists with studios in Europe and North America. After discussing the work of established artists Joyce Scott and Jacqueline Lillie, we turn to newcomers Joseph Barbaccia and Natasha St. Michael. Each has a unique personal vision that we will come to understand as we engage in the comparisons and contrasts that follow.

Material histories of African beads: the role of personal ornaments in cultural change

Personal Adornment and the Construction of Identity: A Global Perspective, 2021

Africa is the continent that provides the longest track record of personal ornaments, back to the earliest use by our hominid predecessors. Beads made of marine shell, ostrich eggshell, stones, and later glass appear consistently in Africa's archaeological record from the Middle Stone Age onward, and have long been linked with indexing ethnic and interpersonal identity (Bednarik 2001, 2008; McBrearty & Brooks 2000; Sciama and Eicher 2015). As one of the most enduring artifacts in human history, beads have served in cultural, cognitive, and communicative systems of language, art, and symbolism. Beads have played a central role in ethnographic studies, which have explored the range of cultural signals and meaning among various groups (Klumpp and Kranz 1992; Leach and Leach 1983; Malinowski 1922; Trubitt 2003). Yet, their role in social change is less explored. This chapter is framed around two African contexts: first, in northwest Kenya, where the first pastoralists buried their loved ones and community members with brilliantly-coloured stone beads underneath megalithic monuments 5,000 years ago; and second at the edge of the Kalahari in Botswana, where 1,000 years ago and 1,000 km inland, societies used glass beads coming from India and the Middle East to index increasing inequality. In both situations, beads played a role in the ways these past African societies understood their lives at key moments of transformation: here, animal domestication and early monuments, and proto-global trade and stratification. Importantly, these societies—and their use of beads as personal ornaments—should not be conflated. The goal of focusing on two case studies is to demonstrate the breadth of the uses of beads in various historical processes, while providing enough depth within each example to examine the varying roles these material objects played. ***Please contact for chapter off-prints***

The Poetics of Traditional Ghanaian Beads

Global Journal of Human-Social Science Research, 2015

The use of beads in Ghana is a site for a robust cultural meaning-making. Beads have been very popular in the past and are growing stronger in popularity with modernity to the extent that their modern meanings seem to be eclipsing the traditional ones. This paper takes us back to their traditional meanings by examining closely their relationship with the wearer. Using qualitative instruments of research methodology basically through interviews and participant observation, this paper, by examining the bead as a cultural text, identifies two main relationships between the bead and the wearer: the synecdochic and the metonymic relationships. Using mainly linguistic theories to interrogating these relationships, the paper, relying on the entextualization theory of Michael Silverstein and Greg Urban and the performance theory of Richard Bauman, discovers that in addition to being objects of aesthetics as the modern meanings mainly suggest, the bead has very important traditional meanings...

The Poetics of Traditional Ghanaian Beads The Poetics of Traditional Ghanaian Beads

The use of beads in Ghana is a site for a robust cultural meaning-making. Beads have been very popular in the past and are growing stronger in popularity with modernity to the extent that their modern meanings seem to be eclipsing the traditional ones. This paper takes us back to their traditional meanings by examining closely their relationship with the wearer. Using qualitative instruments of research methodology basically through interviews and participant observation, this paper, by examining the bead as a cultural text, identifies two main relationships between the bead and the wearer: the synecdochic and the metonymic relationships. Using mainly linguistic theories to interrogating these relationships, the paper, relying on the entextualization theory of Michael Silverstein and Greg Urban and the performance theory of Richard Bauman, discovers that in addition to being objects of aesthetics as the modern meanings mainly suggest, the bead has very important traditional meanings. The paper also demonstrates that where the bead is placed on the body is a function of traditional meanings. Again, when the bead is used is also contingent upon traditional meanings. Abstract-The use of beads in Ghana is a site for a robust cultural meaning-making. Beads have been very popular in the past and are growing stronger in popularity with modernity to the extent that their modern meanings seem to be eclipsing the traditional ones. This paper takes us back to their traditional meanings by examining closely their relationship with the wearer. Using qualitative instruments of research methodology basically through interviews and participant observation, this paper, by examining the bead as a cultural text, identifies two main relationships between the bead and the wearer: the synecdochic and the metonymic relationships. Using mainly linguistic theories to interrogating these relationships, the paper, relying on the entextualization theory of Michael Silverstein and Greg Urban and the performance theory of Richard Bauman, discovers that in addition to being objects of aesthetics as the modern meanings mainly suggest, the bead has very important traditional meanings. The paper also demonstrates that where the bead is placed on the body is a function of traditional meanings. Again, when the bead is used is also contingent upon traditional meanings. Furthermore, who wears which kind of bead is also circumscribed by the tradition and that even when the concept of aesthetics is being applied in the use of traditional beads, you are sure to know that it is only a secondary role. Finally, the bead sits on top of a huge mountain of traditional meanings unknown to the foreigner. This paper seeks to fill this knowledge gap on the part of the foreigner or the uninitiated to be able to appreciate fully the place of pride of the traditional bead in the Ghanaian cultural context.