Huichol Beadwork

The Huichol people of central Mexico do some of the most fantastic bead and yarn work. What shows up in the galleries are their bead embedded gourds. These are gourds lined with beeswax that have individual beads set in intricate patterns.



This afternoon I had a rare opportunity to spend a small amount of time with a young man, Santos, in advance of the Tucson Gem shows. It was a chance meeting at a Tucson swap meet. He had some bead jewelery pieces with him that were delightful.

I bought this bracelet from him. He called it a corn and cactus flower design. In a way it reminded me of my Nopal freeform bracelet. The similarity being the cactus flower. He said that he, and a few of his friends, were adapting some of the traditional embroidery designs into bead woven pieces.

The other interesting tidbit was that he was using fireline in his work. I asked about that and he said that he saved some of his money to buy fireline and take home with him for bead weaving. He joked that it worked a lot better than cotton threads.