Beloved Beadwork Blog

May

Love Child

We Nomlambo, weNomlambo uphuma phi?
Kwaqhamuka wena, thina savuya sonke…
Nomlambo, Nomlambo where do you come from?
You appear in our midst and suddenly we are all so happy…

(An extract from Love Child, a collection of poetry and writing by Gcina Mhlophe)

Gcina Mhophe’s simple but beautiful story of a young lady who suddenly arrives in a village and makes peace and happiness for all around her has always stuck in my mind since the day I read it. It is such a lovely reflection on the way in which a person can enter a group of people’s lives and change the way they think and feel.

Recently at Beloved Beadwork, a Love Child has entered our midst also.

Nomgcobo

Nomgcobo joined us initially to help out with the curtains we were making for Bili Bidjocka (pictures to follow), and showed an instant flare for detailed and complex work. But it wasn’t her competency that brought us such joy, it was her manner. Initially I feared that she would feel isolated as she happened to be in a linguistic minority in that particular group (she was the only Xhosa speaker with 11 Lingala speakers and 1 Kirundi speaker), but to everyone’s amazement she was soon picking up enough Lingala to be able to greet everyone in the morning and laugh at their jokes.

Nomgcobo has studied fashion design, but her flair for clothing style goes beyond something taught. I always look forward to seeing her to see what clothes she’s picked out! When I took this photo I noticed she was wearing our Chocolate Brownie colour scheme. Sticking mostly to browns, she always picks out brighter colours in the patterns of her skirts with the colour of her head scarf.

This is what I love about my job. Just when everything feels settled and comfortable, a beautiful event happens to shake us all up! I’ll leave the last words to Gcina again:

From that time on, always in January, when the moon was full, the two villages came together on the battlefield, not to fight this time, but the celebrate, to sing and dance and play many, many drums. Some of the songs they sang were in praise of Nomlambo, the ‘love child’ as the old women called her.

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Tags:
Beauty, Clothing, Gcina Mhlophe, Nomgcobo, Poetry

Posted in photos, the team

Mar

Go Alice Go!

(Alice back in 2007, when her baby J was so little and quiet!)

One of our group, Alice, is facing a difficult but exciting four years ahead of her. Alice has been accepted to study Occupational Therapy at the University of the Western Cape.

(J, now three, much less quiet and little, but just as lovely)

Once the initial shock of starting uni is over, we hope Alice will be able to come back to us part time. Alice is our Africa expert, ie she makes our Africas with each country in a different colour, not an easy task.

Alice, we’re so proud of you! Good luck at UWC.

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Posted in Uncategorized

Mar

Ode to Ellen

Following on the success of the Jennifer’s Sea colour scheme, and inspired by the beautiful Plascon Colour Magazine, we thought we’d play a little more with reds. We started to combine them with indigos, to really quite pleasing results.

Plascon Colour Magazine

Now, if there’s one thing Beloved Beadwork definately is, it’s a company of strong, resilient women. So what better a name for a colour scheme that so resembles the colours of Liberia’s flag, than ‘Ode to Ellen’. Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, is Liberia’s, indeed Africa’s, first modern female head of state. We hope to pay a small homage to her with our little colour scheme.

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Mar

What does it mean to be ‘more African’?

This year at Design Indaba, the exhibitors were again treated to a brilliant seminar given by renowned trend forecaster Li Edelkoort. During her talk, she said something very interesting indeed, that perhaps our work in South Africa is becoming too refined, that it is not as ‘African’ as the outside market desires.

image from www.trendunion.com

Image of Li Edelkoort from TrendUnion website

In order to examine this proposition, I intend over the next few weeks to explore relevant African history and design to ask the question; what does ‘African’ mean in the context of our industry? And, do we allow the outside world to tell us what it is to be African, or do we have the guts to define and express it for ourselves?

Image from Guardian website.

And what better way to begin than to direct you towards a beautiful exhibit being shown at the British Museum at the moment, showcasing sculpture from the ancient civilisation of Ife in modern day Nigeria. This incredible work is so detailed and fine, exhibiting a diligent and fine culture of craftmanship and representation dating back to the 12th Century. More images can be found at the Guardian’s website.

I hope you enjoy looking at the exhibit pictures, and I hope you might be interested in joining me in exploring this question further.

p.s. I know, I’m white and British. What right do I have to pronounce on being African, right?! Well, it isn’t my intention to make grand prescriptions. But I do run a proudly pan-African business, which looks to the principles of the feminist and black consciousness movements for guidance and inspiration, and whose products represent African visual culture. So in my mind, the question is unavoidable. I hope that makes some sense.

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Tags:
black consciousness movement, design indaba, feminist movement, li edelkoort, questions

Posted in Cape Town Contemplations

Mar

Welcome, post-Design Indaba visitors

It’s hard to believe, but Design Indaba, that brilliant showcase of the best of South African design, is over.

Beloved Beadwork exhibited for the first time this year, and wow, what an event!

We met so many lovely and enthusiastic people, and so enjoyed the camaraderie amongst the exhibitors. So I just wanted to say a big ‘hello’ and ‘welcome’ to those of you finding our blog for the first time. Please keep watching for all our exciting news!

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Feb

Jennifer’s Sea

One of Beloved Beadworks kindest and most enthusiastic supporters is Dr Jennifer Fish, a brilliant academic and dear friend of mine from Old Dominion University in the States. (Her latest co-publication is Women’s Activism in South Africa: Working Across Divides and is well worth a read). Jennifer organises groups of enthusiastic young (mostly) women to come to South Africa every year to learn and perform some voluntary service. Last year she organised for the lovely Hayes to join us at Beloved Beadwork. We still miss her greatly.

South Africa was lucky enough to receive a second visit from Jennifer in December last year, and while she was here, she fell in love with a new colour scheme we were trying out, combining turquoises with deep reds. At that time, we only had it in rings, so Jennifer asked for a Thousand Hills necklace in the same colour. And wow, did we love the results! So we called this colour scheme ‘Jennifer’s Sea’, in honour of surfing adventures!

I feel so incredibly blessed to have the support Jennifer, someone who really really gets the feminist and transformative principles we try to live by at Beloved Beadwork. We miss you Jennifer, come home soon!

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Tags:
Beloved Beadwork Family, colour schemes

Posted in photos

Jan

The Closeness of Things

(I hope, dear readers, you will forgive me a self indulgant and non-work-related post!)

A part of life in South Africa I find myself frequently rejoicing in is the closeness of things. It sounds a rather odd thing to say, but having grown up in an inconsquential city in the middle of England, Cape Town by contrast feels like where it’s all happening.

Cape Town is the most marvelous mixture of small island life and big city bustle. There are too many illustrations of this to name here, but I’ll give you a few.

I have idealised a great jazz pianist, Abdullah Ibrahim, for many years. And one day, I just saw him in a shopping mall. Just like that, in a queue! Or, travelling past the cathedral in town with my mum, a flash of purple will catch our eye, and we’ll realise that Desmond Tutu is tottering past the car in deep conversation with the Dean. Having read and adored the the work Antjie Krog for many years, an email will pop up in my inbox informing me that she’s reading at next week’s poetry night, and I’ll find myself sitting in the front row soaking in her words.

But it’s not just the glimpses of the famous that surprise me. It’s the coming together of different worlds. Hearing first hand accounts of genocide. Seeing children treated worse than dogs. Encountering the wealthiest people I’ve ever known. The talk of miracles, amazement, divine deliverance and joy. The overcoming of seemingly insurmountable barriers.

It all combines to form a feeling of intense technicolour. A sensory and emotional overload unlike any other. And it is utterly, completely and truly addictive. I cannot ever imagine leaving this place.

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Posted in Cape Town Contemplations

Dec

I can feel an obsession coming on…

Fate keeps sending wonderful people my way, and at the moment, it seems to be particularly favouring those with mathematical information to share! No, not stocks and shares! Just knowledge of maths and how it could possibly apply to beadwork.

You see, something I’ve started to notice with beadwork is how often it mimics or replicates natural shapes or forms. So, for example, every other customer walks in, sees our rings and says ‘oooh, they look like sea anenomes’. It was that reaction that prompted us to name them ‘Ocean Floor’.

Left - photograph of a Nudibranch anenome by Jacques Devos (click image for his Flickr stream). Right - Ocean Floor rings.

Likewise, one of our lovely and knowledgeable customers pointed out that our Thousand Hills necklaces are remarkably similar to Girdled Lizards.

Left - Thousand Hills Necklace in elemental form. Right - this photo is all over the internet but I can't find the source. Anyone know?!

Left - Thousand Hills Necklace in elemental form. Right - A Girdled Lizard. This photo is all over the internet but I can't find the source. Anyone know?!

We also noticed the ability that certain mathematical sequences had to produce intensely nature-like shapes, such as the one-two-one-two sequence we use to make our flowers.

A fringed flower

Enter the lovely people who drift into my shop! I consider myself truly lucky for the customers and visitors who come here. So many are highly knowledgeable and skilled.

Mary, who was exhibiting her amazing mandalas at Montebello’s Art Box a few weeks ago, introduced me to the Institute for Figuring. They are dedicated to making mathematics more understandable and tangible by making crochet models of mathematical concepts. And it turns out, the one-two-one-two pattern I described which produces such a nature-like effect is used by these crocheters to make ‘hyperbolic planes’.

A 'Hyperbolic Plane' Click for the IFF Gallery

And the lovely Kechil, a fellow poetry lover, a wonderfully enthusiastic astronomer not to mention computer scientist, introduced me yesterday to Mandelbrot Fractals. She was followed by a customer who told me there had been the development of a near perfect three dimensional Mandelbrot structure. And today a customer mentioned Projective Geometry. I don’t think I’ve ever been so excited about maths before!

I can feel the possibilities, and I know something good is on it’s way. Luckily for me, I have two staff members with Economics degrees, and another with an Honours in Demographics, so I’m not alone in my love of maths. Right now at home, Estella is attempting a Hyperbolic Plane similar to this example from the IFF:

And Mado is attempting ‘flowers’ with different increase sequences. Now the challenge is Mandelbrot, that’s going to be interesting!

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Dec

South Africa is a poorer place now…

Myself (left) and Jeanne (right) at the Beloved Beadwork photoshoot at her apartment

Our beloved Jeanne flew home on Sunday night. There are few people who arrive in Cape Town from overseas and are able to make this place home with such ease and grace. An incredible friend to and a founding member of our group of wonder women by night, amazingly capable and intuitive activist-academic by day, Jeanne will be sorely missed by many as she makes her way home to New York. Not only an amazing personal friend, Jeanne was a wonderful supporter of Beloved Beadwork, whether by hosting our two-day photoshoot in her perfect-light apartment, climbing on top of our showroom to drill holes and fit ceilings, or placing well-timed orders to feed her Beloved Beadwork addiction, she has been vital to keeping us sane.

Bring on June. I can’t wait for you to be back here Jeanne.

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Posted in Uncategorized

Dec

A Lazy Day…

My lazy day began with one of my biggest temptations.

kalk bay03

Camphill Creme Fraiche is my absolute downfall. It is sold at the lovely Montebello based Kwalapa deli, and made at Camphill Village, a place of community and belonging for people with learning disabilities. And it is yum yum yum, especially with a warm scone or a homemade banana chocolate muffin.

(I’m getting used to working six day weeks these days, so I really treasure my Sundays.)

Next up was a trip to Kalk Bay. K, J (my in-laws), Moneo (our dog) and I waited in the queue at Kalky’s, and lapped up our long awaited fish and chips, before a walk to burn them off!

kalk bay01