An eclectic blog about beads, beading and beyond



Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Signs and beading - a new collection in the making


Signs are an important way of communicating in many ancient and contemporary cultures and the process of making meaning from the signs of cultures other than our own can be puzzling, fascinating and inspiring all at once.

In my new pattern collection I am celebrating our human capacity to communicate through signs in and across cultures. My first pattern is based on the musical notation of a G Clef and it celebrates our capacity to communicate music to each other through one particular sign system that originated many hundreds of years ago in Europe (around the 10th Century) and is now commonly used in western musical forms to indicate the pitch of the written notes that follow it. As with all signs it will mean different things to different people - for non-musicians it's meaning will be much less specific than for musicians. I wonder what it means to you. For me as a designer and a beader the wonderful curl of the clef was fascinating to try to emulate, it was a beading challenge - The C and F Clefs are equally fun and challenging to do and the designs are on the way.... stay tuned!

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Really beautiful

Jessie said...

I love this story and your design and execution are stunning and innovative as always!

Glenda of Dax Designs said...

Thanks both for your kind and supportive comments. Working on the next design in earnest now - hope to share next week.

Dax Designs - now on Byhand.me Artisan Co-op