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Glass Beads & Cabs: Egyptian Revival |
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Written by Dara Spiotto
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Monday, 05 November 2007 |
 Egyptian Revival
When taking a gander at my bead stash I realized that I’m not really a collector of anything in particular. Just about any interesting bead that tickles my fancy can end up in my private bead hoard. But it has to tickle me into hysterics, so to speak. I’m actually pretty picky about what goes in there, but all in all I’ve managed to find a lot of stuff.
On a closer look I’ve realized that I have a stash of Egyptian Revival building up in there. It started with some cabs I bought from the Beadin’ Path a long time ago, with funky Egyptian portraits in crazy colors. I don’t know what they were thinking back then, putting green pharaohs onto red backgrounds, or green Egyptian queens onto blue backgrounds. I sort of like that it's not traditional. Then I was at  a great store in Las Vegas called Williams Costume Shop located at the end of the strip by the Stratosphere. I found more of these amazing beads and cabs in larger sizes and had to have them. So now I’ve got a little gathering of stuff that I’d like to put into some themed jewelry some day. That would be fun and kitschy. Doing beadwork like this lets me live on the wild side! So where does this stuff come from? Here’s where…
Egypto-Mania
The pieces in my collection were made in the 1920’s and 30’s. They were part of a wave of fashion hysteria that began in 1922 with the discovery and opening of King Tutankhamen’s tomb. This tomb was nearly intact, and gave the world a close up glimpse of Egyptian history, culture, tradition and ritual. It spawned a fad of Egyptian themed items, from jewelry to home décor to dolls to clothing to art. There were motifs of pyramids, obelisks, mummies, sphinxes, pharaohs and queens, lotus blossoms, scarabs and hieroglyphs popping up everywhere. In the 1960's, the movie "Cleopatra" created another surge of interest in Egyptian themed motifs. Even real scarab beetles were  used in jewelry of the era. Stickpins, brooches, bracelets, earrings,necklaces and rings featured these preserved scarab beetles with their iridescent bodies. Very weird but very cool.
The Czech bead makers did their best to appeal to particular markets or make beads with fun, novelty designs. In other words, they jumped onto the beaded fad-bandwagon. It wasn’t just Egypt, either. They did Buddha and temples, Jesus and cathedrals and other stuff… animals, flowers, and bugs. Whatever was popular. Most were made with opaque glass in vibrant colors, also a fad of the era.
I think I would like to save my pieces, and then make a hand made book for them.  Maybe a felted cover with some metallic threads in the wool, and then I can put the cabs right onto the felt and seed bead them in. In fact, each page could be fabric so I could incorporate one onto each page. I’ve wanted to do a mixed media book for a while. Or… I could do a wall hanging in all opaque seed beads with a black background and then mimic the crazy colors of the cabs. I’ll have to keep brainstorming while I collect them. Right now The Beadin' Path has a couple of cabs on it in a cool shape. So if you want to start your own collection, here’s a good place to start! |
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