acrafterslife

I grew up in the Northeastern corner of New Mexico near the Taos Indian Reservation. The beautiful peyote beadwork they did was a mystery to me. The silver smithing I could understand even though it was intricate and I didn’t know how it was done, but the peyote beadwork seemed to be something mystical that must be a secret they kept within the tribe because I didn’t see it anywhere else. It seemed I would never be able to understand how those tiny beads were woven to make all those designs.

When I got interested in beadwork many years later I found that peyote or gourd stitch has been found in ancient ruins of cultures throughout the world, and it wasn’t really mystical at all even though the designs in it may have had religious meaning to each culture.

I made many simple pieces of jewelry from patterns when I first started beading, and I tried to understand peyote for over a year before it finally took up residence in my brain and I could actually see the “system.”

My first peyote attempts were bitty beads. They’re little strips of peyote which are joined end to end to make a small tube. You can then string them with other sizes and shapes of beads in whatever pattern you like.

Peyote can be made with all one size beads in a flat pattern such as a belt or bracelet or hatband, or it can be made into pictures called beaded tapestries. By increasing and decreasing, you can sculpture peyote into vessels as seen in Julia Pretl’s work, and by using various sizes of beads you can make a sculptured or raised design in bracelets as I have done in this sculpted zig zag and in this Raised Diamond Design.

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