Bead Here Now

N THE XHOSA and Zulu languages of South Africa, the word means “beauty,” and it is used by a group of women artists in rural KwaZulu-Natal to describe the works they are making in a new art medium. , which literally means “cloth,” involves sewing colored Czech glass beads onto a black fabric backing to create “paintings in beads.” From a distance, an appears to have a smooth, continuous surface but on closer inspection reveals itself as having a shimmering mosaic-like texture. Due. Whether figurative, abstract, or a combination of both, the brightly colored and graphically bold panels are described by their creators as coming “directly from the soul,” and the that the artists speak of, while it refers to the reflective, ever-changing quality of the glass surfaces, is a spiritual beauty.