![\"neckpiece](\"http:\/\/www.metalwerx.com\/blog\/10-14-ScottJ_NeckpieceC_2014.jpg\")
<\/p>\nIt is the season of the Queen of Beadwork. With three concurrent solo shows, Joyce J. Scott, the Baltimore based, globe trotting, world famous, African American bead artist modestly\u00a0refers to all this attention as merely \u201ca real whirlwind.\u201d If one is familiar with her extensive and varied catalog, an underplayed remark such as this is not what you expect.<\/p>\n
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“Triangles,”\u00a0 neckpiece by Joyce J. Scott.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n Joyce is the toast of the East Coast with three important exhibitions: her neckpieces and blown glass sculptures in \u201cFrom Maryland to Murano<\/a>\u201d at the Museum of Art and Design\/MAD in Manhattan, her jewelry in \u201cNew Work, 2014<\/a>\u201d at Mobilia Gallery in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and sculpture and prints in \u201cCan\u2019t We All Just Get Along<\/a>\u201d at Goya Contemporary in Baltimore, Maryland.\u00a0 She is one of eight Black women artists included in \u201cBrides of Anansi: Fiber and Contemporary Art,\u201d<\/a> an exhibition whose title refers to\u00a0Anansi, the trickster folk hero of Ghana, at Spelman College Museum of Fine Art in Atlanta, Georgia.<\/p>\n Joyce J. Scott.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n Additionally, she will be honored along with Simone Grunberger-Wille and Dr. Friedrich Wille with the 2014 LOOT Award for Contemporary Art Jewelry<\/a> to open LOOT<\/a>, MAD’s annual sale and show of contemporary art jewelry. Joyce also will participate in a biannual, one-night event at Boston\u2019s Museum of Fine Arts, \u201cMake\/Speak\u201d<\/a>, is a guest speaker and honoree at Beadesigner International\u2019s Bead Affaire 2014<\/a> in Lexington, Mass., and last, but hardly the least, is her workshop at Metalwerx Oct. 24-26 to teach \u201cImprovisational and Sculptural Beadwork.\u201d<\/a> Joyce is also the subject of a\u00a0 story written by Paul J. Stankard<\/a> in the Fall 2014 issue of GLASS: UrbanGlass Art Quarterly<\/a> magazine. Her beaded sculpture, “Congo III” graces the cover.<\/p>\n Joyce\u2019s art is not restrained. In her elaborate, dimensional bead sculptures, she confronts rape, racism, politics, stereotypes, and Black women\u2019s bodies, to name just a few of her controversial themes. Although the grave subject matter is sometimes softened by sly humor, there is no doubting the artist\u2019s explicit message. Then there is her jewelry: complex, brilliantly colored creations that dare you to look away. In her workshop at Metalwerx<\/a>, she will demonstrate her technique for flat and dimensional sculptural beading using the Peyote stitch.<\/p>\n “Blue Arrow,” neckpiece by Joyce J. Scott.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n Countless exhibits describe her work as being socially conscious, provocative, startling. With series titles such as \u201cDay After Rape\u201d and \u201cLewd,\u201d it\u2019s easy to see why.<\/p>\n \u201cI keep trying to not do so much on the ills of our world, and as soon as I think I can move away from it,\u201d she says, some new world event will grab her attention. She cites as an example two recent pieces inspired by the \u201cBring Back Our Girls\u201d campaign in Nigeria, created to pressure world governments to rescue hundreds of young boarding school girls who were kidnapped by Boko Haram, a brutal militant terrorist group. \u201cWe live to make a difference in the world through art,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n \u00a0From the “Day After Rape” series.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n Creating her neckpieces, however, allows Joyce to simply concentrate on beauty. \u201cJewelry can afford me that time [away from political work], to make wearable, beautiful necklaces,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s a luxury to do what you want, to make whatever you want. For me it is to make things I enjoy without considering the theme.\u201d<\/p>\n Joyce keeps busy not only in her own back yard, but in far-flung places around the world. In March of this year, she traveled to Cape Town, South Africa, to work with Monkeybiz<\/a>, a nonprofit women\u2019s empowerment project where income is generated by women who create beaded artwork. While in South Africa, Scott, two assistants, and three artist scholars taught, lectured, and performed in Durban, Kwa Zulu Natal, and Johannesburg. She has twice been an artist in residence at the glass-blowing capitol of the world, the island of Murano, in Venice, Italy, where she collaborated with master gaffers at the esteemed Berengo Studio<\/a> to create glass sculptures that she later sent to America and finished with beadwork. Three sculptures, personifications of Buddha, created during her stay in Murano, were included in the 2013 Venice Biennale.<\/p>\n “Buddha (Fire and Water).”<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n Now back on home ground to relish the season of Joyce J. Scott, she continues to support Monkeybiz by staying in touch and periodically sending materials. \u201cThe completion of this is not just to tell everybody about it, it is to make something happen after you go, something real and enduring.\u201d<\/p>\n After receiving her BFA\/Education from the Maryland Institute College of Art, her enthusiasm for international travel\u2014and politics\u2014was born in the 1970s in Mexico, when she arrived in San Miguel de Allende to study art. The experience propelled her to Guatemala, Panama, and Peru, then to Europe, Africa and Asia. She described being in a country where the majority is brown and black as a \u201cstepping off\u201d point. \u201cIt was great to learn that we can be very spoiled as American artists. I can go to a paint store for cerulean blue. In other parts of the world, people work with rubber band and wire. I am easily humbled,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Born the only child of North and South Carolina sharecroppers, themselves descendents of generations of makers, Joyce credits her mother, renowned quilter Elizabeth Talford Scott, and father, Charlie Scott Jr., a steel crane operator, for supporting her pursuit of the artist\u2019s life. Upon returning from art school in Mexico, she began to see the importance of her mother\u2019s work. Employing her network of friends and connections, Joyce helped her mother organize quilt exhibitions. Elizabeth eventually gained fame as a textile artist for her talent that went beyond traditional quilt making.<\/p>\n \u201cShe used improvisation, syncopation, in the work she made,\u201d Joyce said. Her mother, with whom she lived her entire life, passed away in 2011. \u201cShe always supported my zest for life. She didn\u2019t only support it but elevated it. She let me know I really could do what I wanted as an artist.\u201d<\/p>\n “Quilt Squares,” neckpiece by Joyce J. Scott.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n That zest, the sense of playfulness that comes across in her sculpture even when the subject matter is intense or profound, carries into her personal life. There are a couple of television shows, one about gladiators, another about a superhuman crime fighter, that feature a certain handsome, beautifully sculpted actor of Maori\/New Zealand descent who also has appeared in a couple of Hobbit movies.<\/p>\n \u201cI used to make all these jokes. I\u2019d tell my friends he was my husband,\u201d Joyce said. The actor appeared at a Comic-Con in Philadelphia, Joyce had her photo taken with him, and she showed it to her friends to see their reaction. \u201cAt first they were dismayed because they thought I was a stalker, but I\u2019m not! It\u2019s a completion<\/em>.\u201d She laughs raucously as she recalls the story.<\/p>\n “Fall,” neckpiece by Joyce J. Scott.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n \u201cBut fantasies are just like that,\u201d she said. \u201cCertainly as an artist you can do that, see a joke through. The look on a couple of friends\u2019 faces was just —. I was the happiest camper ever! Following through on an impulse is what I do in my artwork. I want it to be a complete experience for the viewer.\u201d<\/p>\n “Lewd 1,” from the Lewd Series, by Joyce J. Scott. The viewer has much to choose from when assessing her productivity. Joyce\u2019s talent also includes printmaking, sculpture, apparel, music, performance art, and teaching.<\/p>\n \u201cOne of the things that makes my artwork strong is the choice, the option, the fact that I have the ability to go after what I want. I\u2019ll use whatever facility is open to me. I\u2019m not a bead snob or a material snob and I believe people want to work. I probably have a bigger ego than I should have, but I believe that I can go after stuff,\u201d she said. \u201cI would like for others to have the same opportunity with beads, or anything that extends their palate as bead artists.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"portrait\"](\"http:\/\/www.metalwerx.com\/blog\/10-14-ScottJ_ArtistPortrait.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"neckpiece](\"http:\/\/www.metalwerx.com\/blog\/10-14-ScottJ_NeckpieceB_2014.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Day](\"http:\/\/www.metalwerx.com\/blog\/10-14-From-the-Day-After-Rape-series.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Buddha\"](\"http:\/\/www.metalwerx.com\/blog\/10-14-Buddha-(Fire-and-Water).jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"neckpiece](\"http:\/\/www.metalwerx.com\/blog\/10-14-NeckpieceA.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"neckpiece](\"http:\/\/www.metalwerx.com\/blog\/10-14-ScottJ_NeckpieceD_2014.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Lewd](\"http:\/\/www.metalwerx.com\/blog\/10-14-Lewd-1.jpg\")
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