Ubuntu - IBW 2025

 Hi folks!

Just a quick blurb about my latest design, the IBW 2025 "Ubuntu" dish. It's been great fun making even though it was a real fight with tendonitis and other aches. I am so happy with how it turned out.  

 

The dish design is based on the one made by Dutch paper sculpture wizard Henk van den Vorst (a compatriot!). 

 

 

Diane Fitzgerald posted a photo of this dish some time in May or June last year, asking if, and perhaps how it could be made with beads. I was sure that it would be possible with 12 elongated warped pentagons, and proposed to try for IBW 2025. I mean, I somehow "saw" the shape in his vessel and all that I had to do was find out how to make the shape with beads. Beads have their own will so I was quite happy that I found what I wanted quite quickly, but it took a bit more time to bead the first half to see if it would actually work. It worked, but I found out that I'd need 14 pentagons. The two additional colors in the dish are the red and blue beads. All the beads are Miyuki opaque Duracoat, the black and white  ordinary opaque beads.

I added tiny little feet at the bottom. Here the piece seen from below. You can see that it is very similar to Henk's vessel:

 

The pattern will be posted on my website, during International Beading Week. It is a workshop on increases on its own and I will do a demo - check out the Beadworkers Guild website to book a seat for the zoom meetings. We always have so much fun during these sessions. 

It has a wonderful size, approx. 12cm in diameter, which allows to empty one's pockets when coming home, which is what dishes like this are for... at least here in my French region where it's called a "vide-poche" which translates to "pocket-emptier". I made a photo with my pearl necklace inside:

  

 

While creating the piece, my muse ran wild and talked me into making roofs for a tower and for a carousel, or a swing... crazy muse who doesn't care that my arms hurt. I hope to be able to make these things... soon, hem, hem. But don't hold your breath 😅

Why did I call this piece Ubuntu? 

The dish reminded me of a  photograph of African boys sitting all together in a circle, their legs drawing a flower. The caption said “Ubuntu”, and that it meant “I am because we are”.

 

 

  

I searched for the meaning behind it and found many explanations, all more or less the same as Nelson Mandela’s: 

“In Africa there is a concept known as 'ubuntu' - the profound sense that we are human only through the humanity of others; that if we are to accomplish anything in this world it will in equal measure be due to the work and achievement of others.” 

This piece is the fruit of inspiration and knowledge transmitted by Henk (the dish), Diane (shaped beadwork), by Helen McIntyre (the Back-through increase) and myself (geometric beadwork) and probably many others. This, and the similarity with the photo of the boys, is why I called this piece “Ubuntu”,

I am because we are.

 

Love to all,

 

Cath