Cultural Collaborations

Amy Schilling has always been interested in beads. When asked at age five what she wanted to do when she grew up, Schilling replied, "string beads." True to her wishes, Amy has now been designing jewelry for over 15 years.

Amy Schilling submitted photo | more photos in gallery

Schilling's latest collection uses handmade African beads from recycled glass.

"I became interested in recycled glass beads because I liked the idea of taking something that would be thrown away and turning it into something beautiful," Schilling said.

Glass bead making is a tradition and high art form in Africa, with the glass powder beads being unique to Ghana. The process of creating these beads is both labor intensive and founded on a balance of creative vision and painstaking attention to detail.

Inspired by the idea of "cultural collaboration," Schilling recently traveled to Ghana to learn the hands on technique of making recycled beads. Amy sensed the importance of learning the artisan community's story and sharing it to bring wider benefits back to the source.

At best, bead makers sell their wares at bead markets for prices that sustain them in the local economy.

More often, beads are sold through middlemen for export, yielding unsustainably low prices.

"To me, cultural collaboration means working side by side, learning each other's techniques, as well as connecting the artists to the end useBekir," Schilling said.

A few days a week, Amy would take a tro-tro (a bus full of luggage, sheep and goats) to TK Designs; a small bead factory in Ghana ran by Florence Marty. On her commute, she would pass through small villages, and locals carrying food and water on their heads.

"Sometimes it would really hit me that I was trying to do business in Ghana with a chicken sitting on eggs at my feet and a computer a half day of travel away. My reality quickly became crazier than fantasy."

She spent one month working alongside the artisans in each step of the process, beginning with mixing mud and forming it into molds. The glass was then crushed into a powdery substance called frit.

"This step can be exhausting, so I would have to take breaks every fifteen minutes and stretch," Schilling said.

Cross collaboration went both ways at this step of the process, with rows of workers imitating her, stretching and laughing together.

After making the frit with intermittent yoga breaks, the molds were filled with the frit and baked in kilns until the glass becomes molten. The molds are then removed from the fire and shaped by hand. Lastly, the beads were cleaned and stranded.

Schilling spent her afternoons going between kilns, shaping the beads with the men and then stringing them with the women. Most strands contain 40 beads, placed on with the largest bead residing in the middle. Strands were double checked to contain exactly 40.

"They work quickly but never rushed and always with a great respect for the beads," Schilling said. "They exhibit true honor in the work."

Back in Ashland at her studio, Schilling finds traces of red sand, left over from the cleaning process, completed by hand in a stone along with the sand and water. The traces of sand remind Schilling of the care that went into making the beads.

"It was an amazing experience and I learned so much," Schilling said. "The way they work is so beautiful and they are very happy people. They are outside ever day and they stop and enjoy meals together like a family. I didn't want to change it. I wanted to celebrate it."

TK Designs benefited as well.

"I gave them their first invoice and probably there biggest purchase ever. I worked with them to meet a deadline and aim for consistency in the beads and also to expand their market, introducing them to new shapes."

Schilling believes her latest adventure is just another step of her mission as an artist: to positively affect the quality of a person's day.

"I want this mission to be full circle applying to the end user as well as the artisans making the product," she said. "I came to share with artists in Ghana. I feel I have done this on a much deeper level than I ever imagined. The sharing that took place was on a personal level and has forever changed my life. I would love to do more business with TK Designs and show the world not only how beautiful their beads are but also the beauty in how they work"