This week I went to the opening of my new friend’s show that she curated, Re-Accession: For Sale by Owner. I had heard from her about the Ladd brothers but hadn’t seen any of their work. Without realizing it my favorite piece in the show was theirs, 2010 Grenade Calendar, one piece of it is shown below.
I’m not sure how they made the piece: cutting, folding, weaving, writing, painting, etc. I love the time they spent on this – you can see how long it took in the intricacy.
In exploring their site after the event I was in awe. Philae had told me that she went to see the studio of two brothers who were making unbelieveable beaded landscapes, jewelry, ant infestations, bags, and more. Again, I had no idea these were the same brothers.
The detail of these works are incredible. If their grenade calendar’s any indication they do not lack for time, patience, or creativity.
The idea of creating textures and patterns in beading isn’t new but they’ve re-imagined the traditional tactics – I love the texture on the all-white beads above.
These remind me a lot of the bracelets that my mom and dad brought me back from South Africa last year – I imagine these could be wearable art though they may be more design elements too.
Many of the brothers’ works are pieces that, from what I can tell, emerge out of boxes that are also handmade. Some of them are works that are formed within the box themselves.
The above is their Knife Box – amazing. It’s like a Tom Binns necklace!
Also these bracelet type elements look like snakes – I like thinking of the natural inspirations.
A page from one of their books.
In addition to their incredibly prolific live/work arrangement the brothers also have a simple philosophy on doing work you love for your life and they emphasize the principle of collaboration, something that I work with everyday with Indaba Music – for the creation of collaborative music projects.
Great colors, amazing layers, beads that strike a youthful chord with me given the scale of beads I’m into now (the bigger the better).
I think the above is my favorite piece of theirs. The idea of a beaded grenade and the visual of it blowing up and beads going everywhere – it just makes it seem so much more delicate, which I never thought grenades could be!