Ornament is the leading magazine celebrating wearable art. Explore jewelry, fashion, beads; contemporary, ancient and ethnographic.
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VIRGIN OF GUADALUPE AND CLOSEUP of woven glass beads, 35.6 x 22.9 centimeters, 2009. Photographs by Patrick R. Benesh-Liu. BUDDHA (FIRE & WATER) of hand-blown Murano glass, beads, wire, thread, 50.2 x 38.1 x 27.9 centimeters, 2013. will become more and more inchoate. It is not only in our capacity to see the same thing in one of Scott's beaded masterpieces, but the potential for wildly different interpretations, that makes her work contentious and thought-provoking. This is the challenge that Scott is faced with. Making a narrative recognizable to all, resonant, is no mean feat. Part of the exhibition's focus is on a new series of collaborative work that Scott has conducted in concert with Murano glassworkers. Since 2012 she has partnered with Adriano Berengo of Berengo studio in a residency program where glass craftsmen act to enable artists from different mediums to express themselves. Creating large- scale sculptures has established an entirely new canvas upon which to express, and for Scott the experience was one of push-and-pull with the glassworkers. Drawing from the interview in the exhibition's catalog, Scott remarks within, "In the glass studio I bring my ideas—often in the form of drawings—to work with the glass person but I have to submit to their skill and knowledge and their way of working. We have to arrive at some kind of meeting place," she describes. "For example, in the Buddha series the end result was sort of like my drawings but trying to even get the ears right was a challenge. But then the craftsman got it. This often involves convincing people to do things they don't want to do. The thing about glass is that the craftsmen will try something even if they think it is ridiculous and not workable. And then they are often amazed that it worked. They are like mad scientists." The product of Scott's cooperative effort with these mad scientists is like a shout piercing a silent night. Her Buddha Series, as well as one-offs such as her provocative Breathe and White Tongue sculptures, are blunt and forthright. While a beaded neckpiece, such as the Virgin of Guadalupe, replete with red devils, skeletons and yellow faces communicates by relation and inference, a sculpture where an immature human figure is being pulled out from a mother's vagina, as is the case with Breathe, leaves little to the imagination visually. The message is right there, and 52 ORNAMENT 38.1.2015