Bent Needle Barb - The Dead Marshes

Category: Sculpture.
Free form peyote and netting were used to constuct this piece, along with labradorite chips and glow-in-the-dark Fimo.

I'm a self taught beadweaver, also designer, teacher, artist, and whatever the future holds for me. I started doing traditional Amerindian beadwork on animal skulls (giving them spirit masks for their sky walk); 1 displayed these “Spirit Masks” at historic reenactments (starting in 1984) and was given the name “Bent Needle.” Below you will find a list of things I’ve done since then, when my skulls got too numerous and heavy to take from camp to camp.

Juried Exhibits:
Native American Gallery Detroit Mi — 1988—1990
Our Town - Birmingham Ml -1992, 1993, 1994, 1998.
Art Center - Mt Clemens MI - (2)1993, 1996, 1997.
Seed Dreams/Beaded Visions - Goldstein Gallery MN - 1996, 1998.
Beadwork: Beyond Boundaries — contemporary Artifax Gallery KY—1996
Sculptural Seedbead Show — Beadworks Boston MA - 1996
Beadwork From Beyond The River’s Edge Wyandotte MI—1997 (curator)
The Beaded Object - Folk Art Center Asheville NC 1996, VA 1997 St Petersberg, FL 1998
Bead Art: Dairy Barn Athens, 0+11998
Embellishment CA 1998

Published work:
Creative Beadweaving (pg. 84) Lark 1996
Friendship Beading (entire booklet) Design Originals 1996
Bead & Button Kalmbach (#12, pg• 31)1997, 1999
Bead Art (pg. 31) Kalmbach 1998
Beadwork (pg. 9) Interweave Press summer 1998
Jewelry Crafts (pg 52-53) Miller 1999
Bead & Button (pg. 66-69) Kalmbach August 1999
Bead & Button (pg. 78) Kalmbach December 1999
Jewelry Crafts (pg. 43) Miller December 1999
Bead & Button (pg. 94) Kalmbach April 2000
Jewelry Crafts (cover) (pg.32-34) Miller October 2000

My entry was inspired by a prophetic dream about these little bald beads. I knew it was for this competition — was I wrong! Anyway, I started making bald headed beads and reading “THE LORD OF THE RINGS’ by J. R.R. Tolkien for the dozenth time. Yes, everything (my dream, the story) led me to “The Passage of the Marshes “Part Two” THE TWO TOWERS.” So I furiously worked on my “Dead Marshes.” For months, I made heads and faces and bones oh my! (Sorry, different story.) I used a deer antler for the marsh, connected it to a craggly tree, incorporated labradorite chips; Oh, did I mention all the polymer glows in the dark? It is very cool. Well, I was almost finished when I took a day off for a small surgery. In recovery, I was told it was cancer. Which brings me back to the prophecy in the dream — remember my dream? Well, I finished the piece and kept making little bald heads so my jewelry would match my own bald head. I have been cancer free for 1 year thanks to prayer, medicine, and my silly bald headed beads that glow in the dark and scared away my disease. I’m still making “Stone Head” beads--I guess there are a lot of people who want to heal with humor!

Based on the Lord of the Rings Part Two: The Two Towers by J.R.R. Tolkien

From book four: II The Passage of the Marshes - page 297:

"...catching his foot in some old root or tussock, he fell and came heavily on his hands, which sank deep in the sticky ooze, so that his face was brought close to the surface of the dark mere. Wrenching his hands ou of the bog, he sprang back with a cry. "There are dead things, dead faces in the water," he said with horror, "dead faces!"
Gollum laughed. "The Dead Marshes, yes, yes; that is their name. All dead, all rotten. Elves and Men and Orcs. The Dead Marshes."