Gerdany – Past to Present: A Conversation
With Maria Rypan on Ukrainian-Style Beadwork
By
Melaina Juntti
Reprinted by permission from BEADWORK magazine, www.beadworkmagazine.com. Copyright Interweave Press. All rights
reserved.
It
all began with a gerdan. The Ukrainian-style beaded collar Maria Rypan
received as a gift in the early 1990s sparked her deep passion for the
country’s traditional and contemporary beadwork. Now, after taking six research
trips to
From your research and what
you’ve viewed in Ukrainian museums, what are some of the characteristics
Every region had its own
colours and ornamental motifs. Beadweavers used symbolism to express the
ancient peoples’ view of the World. For instance, a horizontal line represented
earth, wavy lines meant water, crosses depicted fire, and circles and squares
represented the Sun.
Old ethnographic photographs
are excellent for studying fashion trends and folk-costume components. Women’s
adornments included collars, chokers, bracelets, medallion pendants, belts, and
hair ornamentation. Men decorated their hats with beaded bands on twill and
sometimes wore medallion pendants. Wedding hats in particular regions were
topped with tryasunky, a rattle-like adornment full of beads, sequins,
and baubles meant to create sound when a groom danced.
How is
Originally, beaders took
traditional charted patterns, matched beads to the prescribed colours, and
re-created the patterns, bead by bead, on a loom. Later, certain motifs were
isolated and loomwoven between connector bugles or seed beads so they’d appear
to be floating. Now, traditional motifs are beaded in various colours to
coordinate with contemporary fashion. The same holds true for beadweaving: in
contemporary beadwork, there isn’t a resemblance colour-wise to traditional
multi-needle and netted patterns—but the patterns and motifs are unmistakably
Ukrainian.
Have styles and methods
evolved gradually over time or have political and cultural influences incited
major changes?
At first there was little
change or innovation. Everyone followed the beadwork style of his or her
particular village. You had multi-needle weaving, netting, and loom-work using
certain colour palettes and patterns. But then, the independence of
Why do people bead nowadays?
Many people are now beading
for fun. And some artists bead for commerce. One premier selling place is
“beadwork lane” at the Vernisage, a folk-art piazza in the centre of
Lviv,
What stitches are most
commonly used in contemporary Ukrainian beadwork?
Cascading Twigs, a pattern
created with chips, bugle picots, and contrasting seed-bead picots suspended
from a netted base, seems to be a favourite. The netted band is embellished
with larger cut beads stitched on top in a diagonal pattern.
This type of embellishment
is also added on top of a netted collar or choker-band bases. They overstitch
with cut beads (special Czech beads similar to thicker bugles cut short and not
readily available in
Gemstones are used as drops
along the edge of V-necks or added sporadically along the lower edge of a
collar. A few bead artists at the Vernisage like large cabochons set
into seed-bead bezels. Once a style is developed, it’s available in several
colour ways.
What do beaders make besides
jewellery?
Beaded eggs that mimic the
pysanka, a “written” Ukrainian Easter egg, have become popular. Artists use
either wooden or actual eggs emptied and filled with material to hold the
beadwork’s shape. Purists don’t like them, but I see them as a contemporary
beading adaptation to a traditional folk art. Some artists create designs by
inserting a single bead, hole end face-up, into a soft wax (Huichol-style) or
by gluing strings of beads sideways onto the egg. Some beadweave around the egg
using a netting technique, while others work decreasing square stitch toward
the ends.
Let’s talk about the
three-part loomwork methodology you developed.
The contemporary
Ukrainian-style medallion or swag neckpiece, the gerdan, is created from
one long band of patterned sections loomwoven in between pre-strung
bugles/seed-bead connectors on a long wooden loom. Once all sections are woven
per pattern, you either finish your neckpiece with a multilayer swag or join
the bands into a loomwoven medallion, which is then finished with fringe for a
crowning touch.
The single-band method
differs from splitloom in that you start from the medallion and work upward
toward the back, where you need to create a closure. By using a longer (36”)
loom and weaving the design in one long strip, you avoid having to make closures.
Once the band is woven per selected pattern, it’s folded and finished in front
by either tying the warp threads full of beads into a series of swags to
connect the two ends or transforming the warp threads into fringe once you join
the two ends of the single band and loomweave a medallion.
I developed four distinct
patterns that cover every silhouette imaginable. Choose the straight-edged
pattern sections finished with a swag or the straight medallion, diagonal, or
diamond-shaped patterns. Once you select a silhouette shape, each one requires
pre-stringing in a specific way to accommodate the appropriate space for
loomweaving per charted pattern. I have written very detailed instructions for
each of these.
And what about your own
beading? What are you into these days?
I’m fascinated with how
patterns are created simply by bead-colour placement or by a variety of bead
types and textures. As seen in the project that follows, I use interesting
materials and textures within traditional designs and mix Swarovski
crystals, semi-precious chips, pressed-glass beads, and pearls with seed beads.
Melaina Juntti is a Boulder,
Colorado-based freelance writer and frequent contributor to BEADWORK and
Stringing magazines.
Maria Rypan’s “Scythian
Gold” beadwork project relates to one of the original habitants of
For information on Maria’s
art, teaching, books and presentations, visit www.rypandesigns.com.