Have you ever felt guilty wanting to buy a
pair of sandals or a garment decorated with tiny glass beads, picturing slaves,
possibly children, bent over in a sweatshop, handcrafting a miniature masterpiece
for which we pay too little and for which they've been paid next to
nothing? My own sense of guilt about any
and all cheap Third World beadwork enjoyed by me has suddenly begun to lessen,
thanks to my discovery of the painstaking art of a New York native called Liza
Lou. Liza, now in her 40's, spent several
years of her life working on a room-size sculpture called "Kitchen" (compl.
1995) followed by "Backyard" (compl. 1998). She covered everything represented in the
kitchen with glass beads. I mean everything, from the bag of Lay's potato
chips on the beaded counter to the dishes sitting in the beaded sink! The fridge all by itself is an amazing piece
of work. "Backyard" features
250,000 individually beaded blades of grass, complete with a beaded tree, beaded
flowers and bugs, a beaded lawnmower, and a beaded red and white checked
tablecloth on a beaded picnic table next to a beaded BBQ grill, all true to
size, with even a beaded salad and beaded ears of corn. At her Internet site, we read that glass
beads are Lou's primary art material. Her
latest sculptures and woven paintings are "meditations upon process, the
impossibility of perfection, and what Lou terms 'the culpability of craft'." Few critics took her seriously at first. People not at peace with her work called her
"obsessive." At the San
Francisco Art Institute 
where she studied, her teachers even told her the use
of beads was "not allowed." But
beads continued to be far more interesting to Lou than paint. Her reply to all ongoing criticism: "It's summing up someone's lifework as a
mental oddity. What's far more
frightening is for people to consider the possibility that I'm completely aware
of what I'm doing." And what is she
doing? She's applying glass beads with
tweezers! One bead at a time! Her work has caused her acute tendinitis in
the past, which seems like a natural consequence of so much effort on any one project. She has gone from exploring Pop art, mass
culture, and feminism to confronting violence and confinement. She can turn a box of laundry detergent into
a visual splendor and make an ugly fence seem beautiful. By now, her sculptures and paintings are recognized
and on display all over the world. At the
moment she has got two shows, one in San Diego and another in Tempe, Arizona. Lou's use of glass beads takes the medium to a
new level. We are not talking only about
pretty patterns and everyday objects transformed. How about a metallic heap of dark links made
from woven glass beads as in"Chains" (2010), or a panel that
uncannily resembles finely grained wood as in Untitled #20 (2011)? How about "American Presidents
1-43" (1995-2000) which features quirky cartoon-like portraits of U.S.
chief executives from the first, George Washington, through William Jefferson Clinton. Appropriately, those portraits now belong to
the Smithsonian in the nation's capital.
Today Liza Lou lives and works between KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa and
Los Angeles. She collaborates in her
Durban studio with about twenty-five male and female beadworkers who are employed
as co-artists. They begin their work each
day with an hour of song and dance, together with their boss, Liza, and then
get down to gluing beads onto things, one bead at a time, entertaining
themselves as they work. Durban has a long
tradition of beadwork. A few years ago
they were recreating wall-sized Islamic prayer carpet designs using bugle beads
imported from Japan, turning the tiny bead cylinders on one end, as in the work
now showing in San Diego, "Color Field" (2010-2013). Why does Liza do all this, even 
with a lot of
help? The fact is, Liza had a very rough
upbringing, thanks to unstable parents, especially her father. When she first saw one of her pieces
finished, a cross-shaped fence, she said, "I wonder if art can become an
act of forgiveness. The object stands
gleaming, arms open wide, big enough to love anyone, forgive
anything." As she patiently and
deliberately applies her medium, Lou is hardly neurotic, but rather, absolutely
Zen. And given the realization above,
about art being a vehicle for all-embracing forgiveness, surely Liza Lou is
also divinely inspired. UN’AMERICANA
AVENEZIA
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