Beadwork is the art or craft of attaching beads to one another by stringing them onto a thread or thin wire with a sewing or beading needle or sewing them to cloth. Beads are produced in a diverse range of materials, shapes, and sizes, and vary by the kind of art produced. Most often, beadwork is a form of personal adornment (e.g. jewelry), but it also commonly makes up other artworks.
The art of creating and utilizing beads is ancient, and ostrich shell beads discovered in Africa can be dated to 10,000 BC. Faience beads, a type of ceramic created by mixing powdered clays, lime, soda, and silica sand with water until a paste forms, then molding it around a stick or straw and firing until hard, were notably used in ancient Egyptian jewelry (beginning in the early Bronze Age) onward. Faience and other ceramic beads with vitrified quartz coatings predate pure glass beads.
Beads and work created with them were found across the ancient world, often made of locally available materials. For example, the Athabaskan peoples of Alaska used tusk shells, which are naturally hollow, as beads and incorporated them into elaborate jewelry.
Beadwork has historically been used for religious purposes, as good luck talismans, for barter and trade, and for ritual exchange.
Today, beadwork is commonly practiced by jewelers, hobbyists, and contemporary artists.
Some ancient stitches have become especially popular among contemporary artists. The off-loom peyote stitch, for example, is used in Native American Church members' beadwork.
Jewelry made of beads was widespread and fashionable in Western Ukraine, which was connected with the familiarity of Ukrainian artists with the artistic achievements of the countries of Western Europe, where from the 18th century. There was a fashion for artistic products made of beads. Modern Ukrainian beadwork includes: beaded clothing, collars, bracelets, necklaces, necklaces-gerdanes, clothing accessories, and household items such as pysanka.
Native American beadwork, already established via the use of materials like shells, dendrite, claws, and bone, evolved to incorporate glass beads as Europeans brought them to the Americas beginning in the early 17th century.
Native beadwork today heavily utilizes small glass beads, but artists also continue to use traditionally important materials. Wampum shells, for instance, are ceremonially and politically important to a range of Eastern Woodlands tribes, and are used to depict important events.
