Skip Navigation

RFH 2010, Cover Stories, Colgate News

Beaded Items on Display as Part of Conference

Mon, Aug 29, 2011

Beaded Items on Display as Part of Conference
Colgate hosts the third annual Iroquois Beadwork Conference, which opens with a reception in the Longyear Museum of Anthropology on Sept. 16t from 4:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. for the exhibition Birds and Beasts in Beads: 150 Years of Iroquois Beadwork. The conference organized by the Iroquois Studies Association.

The exhibit will be on display through Oct. 30.
The conference will include lectures on Iroquois bead history and the development of styles over time; Iroquois beading workshops; displays of contemporary beadwork; a bead and beadwork marketplace.
The Iroquois nations adopted glass beads as ornaments in the 16th century and soon began to incorporate them into their ornaments and garments, often using abstract forms drawn from nature. During the Victorian era, Iroquois women produced innovative designs to decorate the sorts of personal and household items desired by American women, including purses, pincushions, wall pockets, and picture frames. The beaded images became more naturalistic and the repertoire of imagery expanded to include a great variety of birds and animals, as well as written words and dates. The beaded animals include not only local forest dwellers, but also house pets, farm animals, and exotic creatures seen in zoos and circuses.

The conference includes:
  • From 'Naturalized Invention' to the Invention of a Tradition: The Victorian Reception of Onkwehonwe (Iroquois) Beadwork Saturday, Sept. 17 at 7:30 p.m. in Golden Auditorium, Little Hall. The keynote by Ruth B. Phillips concerns the changing climate of reception of Onkwehonwe (Iroquois) women's beadwork, tracing the shift from the popularity of these items with Victorian women buyers in the 1850s and '60s to the dismissal of the same items as old fashioned and inauthentic in the late 19th and early 20th century. It contrasts this reception to the "traditionalization" of what had been a highly innovative art form in the mid-19th century among the makers and their communities. It also briefly considers the contemporary repositioning of this artistic tradition among contemporary Onkwehonwe bead artists and makers.

For more information call 228-6643.

Source: Colgate

 

Please login to post your comments.