The Design of a Handmade Necklace Using African beads, Turquoise, and Vintage Murano Glass

A friend found the large black ceramic beads with incised pattern shown above when she was working in
 Liberia. I went to work on the beads hoping to create a necklace worthy of them. The result is the necklace above which combines ebony and silver rondelles with turquoise spacers from the Kingman mine in Arizona, blackish ceramic beads, and frosted white vintage Murano glass. An exotic combination to say the least. However, I am not happy with it.  Although I tried many renditions, this is the best of my attempts.

The interesting thing about a design is you know when it is right. I might give it one more try with larger stronger beads.  Maybe big round recycled beads from Ghana.  Any suggestions?   

Journal of African Beads from Ghana

Learn about  beads, bead makers, artists, and history related to beads in Ghana from the colorful and interesting journal published by Tanya Jardi Kordylas called "Ahene". Ahene means beads in Twi, a local dialect in Ghana spoken by the Akan tribe. You can reach Tanya on ahenejournal@hotmail.com  and she will forward a copy to you.

 As you can see from the necklace above designed by Adner-Bergart with beads from Ghana , there are many styles of beads produced in Ghana.  There is new powdered glass, recycled glass, new patterned glass, Ashanti brass, and many old beads still available. Ghana is the center of beadmaking in Africa. "Ahene" is a wonderful resource of information about Ghanian beads.

The necklace shown above is from the website adner-bergart.com,