history/multicultural theme
Next Entries »Pre-Columbian Jaguar Beads
Thursday, February 1st, 2007
1. the tray 2. the beads 3. a picture of the original necklace.
The Pre-Columbian Jaguar Beads are made of Polymer clay, a permanent material once baked, acrylic paints, varnish, tray re-purposed and paper-mached, painted and varnished for durability.
I was drawn immediately to this Pre-Columbian Mayan necklacewith jaguar beads upon seeing a photo of it, and would love to own it. Well, making one is the next best thing! The original necklace of gold jaguar head-shaped beads was made over 500 years ago, discovered in a tomb in Guatemala.
Like much of the pre-historic and tribal art that looks crude or seems like it should be easy to recreate, there is a lot more here than meets the eye. One of the things that’s so enjoyable about a project like this is experiencing the same design dilemmas that the original artist might have encountered.
There is a lot of good design in that simple-looking necklace! I think the goldsmith who created the original might have used a mold because each individual jaguar head-shaped bead needs to be identical, and so do the small round ones in order to string the beads together and obtain the exact uniform semi-circle shape. Mine were individually shaped, less than perfect, and did not fit together well unfortunately. I’ll need to make a mold from one of the more perfect beads in order to replicate this with consistancy.
The jaguar beads are glued onto a useful tray, a recycled film case that was paper mached then painted with acrylic, and it’s as if a moment in time is recaptured, a moment when the original artist had beads on a surface, ready to be strung together. The refurbished tray is varnished, durable and useful. Hand wash gently with damp soapy cloth, and the crevices with a wet paintbrush, dabbing the area softly to absorb excess moisture.
Ancient Mayan Bowl Chair
Thursday, March 30th, 2006
Mayan Bowl Replica Chair, 29H x 29W x 29D inches durable, functional, comfortable refurbished vintage 1960’s plastic lawn chair, mixed media: woven canvas strips, plaster cured and painted, varnish and wax.
This replica of an ancient Mayan artifact re-utilizes a vintage plastic lawn chair that was considered Art in its own day. The refurbished chair was created by a process of weaving canvas strips and white glue paper-mache style over the entire plastic top and bottom, layering wall plaster sanded in between coats, acrylics paint, varnish, graphite, marker, more varnish, then waxed for durability. Three more chairs are yet to be created with historic Art themes from other cultures.
The original bowl design is from the Late Classic Period of Mayan history, 600 – 900 A.D. Common Era, portraying two water Gods witnessing the birth of the all-important Maize God who emerges from a turtle, symbol of the earth and origins thereof. Customarily, hieroglyphs written along the top rim show the bowl-owner’s name and what the bowl was used for.
Inspirational resource: Maya, Divine Kings of the Rainforest edited by Nikolai Grube ISBN 3-8290-4150-0
Post-dated notes: Accepted into Grand Prairie Arts Council Juried Exhibition and Sale Sept./Oct. 2007, and won Second Place cash award, 3D Category. Also accepted into Artjury.com’s 2007 Fall/Winter Juried Online Exhibition.
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