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David Chatt, one of the leading lights in beadwork in the US for the
past decade, was the star of this year's Great British Bead Show in Coventry
in May. David's creativity stems from an ability to break new ground,
to discover new and different ways of doing things - 'pushing the envelope'
as he calls it. This could have something to do with his childhood. While
he was growing up in Seattle David's father, who was head of a community
college art department, encouraged him to appreciate the simple beauty
of things like pebbles on the beach or the sky at night.
David's interest in pattern and texture became evident when entered his
'dotty' phase - doing drawings made up entirely of small dots on every
possible surface; his school folder, his hands, even his desk. Later he
worked with clay, rolling up little pea-sized dots and sticking them together
to make sculptures and vessels.
David took a degree in apparel design but quickly decided that beadwork
was his real love. Initially he thought of beads as fashion accessories
but he wanted to use vibrant colours - orange and chartreuse 'called'
him - and didn't want to be restricted by the colours people would wear.
Working with beads was like 'the marriage of all the things he had liked
in any artistic endeavour he had tried'. They brought together his fascination
with minutia and pattern and texture, but also introduced colour and light
in a way that only glass can offer.
Seattle is known as the land of glass and David soon started working with
a glass blower who made vessels for him which he covered with beadwork.
After a while he found this restricting and wanted to branch out.
Developing the right angle weave stitch came from his father's discovery
of a purse at a yard sale. The purse had been made using the two-needle
method of right angle weave and, using it as his only guide, he figured
out how to do the stitch with one needle and how to layer it up to create
three dimensional designs.
David's sense of adventure is what drives his piece 'Portable Pink Parts',
which came about from a desire to create an accurate and literal representation
of a human ear. This developed into a series of cubes which unfold to
reveal the ear and other human appendages; an eye, a Finger, lips, a nipple
and a nose.
His most recent work is related to toys. He decided to create pieces that
can't be appreciated unless they are picked up. The 'Toy Box' sampler
includes nine little toys which all open to reveal a surprise inside.
One is called 'Everything you might Need for a Weekend' and contains a
red boa and pumps. 'Puzzle Box' contains one-inch compartments inside
each of which is a small puzzle piece that unfolds and can then be put
together with others to form the puzzle. 'Caroline's Tea Service' is a
miniature toy tea service in bright primary colours.
Perhaps one of his most interesting pieces is 'Hanging on a Thread' -
a bag with the face of a man losing marbles out of the top of the bag
(as if it were the top of his head). The piece expresses David's self-deprecating
humour and also says something about the questionable sanity of someone
working in an art form which requires so much time and patience but necessitates
such poverty.
David also has his serious side and talks with great passion about the
need for beadwork to take its proper respected place in the art world.
He would like to see the encouragement of patrons to collect and donate
important and innovative work to museums. Hopefully his vision will soon
be realized and his work among the first to be so valued.
Sue Richardson has an obsession for anything and everything to do with
embroidery. She has recently taken up beadwork and is attempting to squeeze
this in between her busy career as a freelance writer and copy editor
and City & Guilds in Embroidery with Cherilyn Tyler in Leicester.
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