2019 Bridges Conference Fashion Show
Contemporary Geometric Beadwork
Designers
Kate McKinnon
team leader
Contemporary Geometric Beadwork Team
Boston, Massachusetts, USA
Biography
Kris Emtping-Obenland is a professional bead artist from Germany, and Kate McKinnon leads the Contemporary Geometric Beadwork team from the USA. Kris says, "Beads are my passion. I like to compare them with Lego: you can build anything with beads. I'm using different stitching techniques depending on the construction I want to achieve. Otherwise it's just thread and beads - seed beads mainly - that help me bring my fantasies to life. I draw a lot of inspiration from geometry. I love how repeating strong geometric shapes over and over again create organic textures and optics." Kate says, "When I first saw the Moths bangle by Kris, I wanted to create a cloak covered in butterflies that showed this kind of clustering. I was crafting the first butterflies by casting them off of the edges of an open set of 3-faced mirror tetrahedra I happened to have on hand. Imagine my surprise when I saw the neckpiece by Kris and it was the triangles of the moths, loosely structured into lots and lots of incomplete tetrahedra. I felt this collaboration already existed, and I was simply fulfilling it by dreaming the cloak. Sam Norgard is a professor and artist at the Savannah College of Art and Design, and her team in Nova Scotia will be creating a series of the butterflies for the cloak.
Looks
![Image for look 'Moths bangle, Ripply, Cloak of Butterflies'](/_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fsubmit.bridgesmathart.org%2Frails%2Factive_storage%2Fblobs%2Fproxy%2FeyJfcmFpbHMiOnsiZGF0YSI6MTEyNTYsInB1ciI6ImJsb2JfaWQifX0%3D--bfbbd4cad84796d8c22c0639bbcbf236af2872b0%2Fmoths_bridges_kris.jpg&w=1536&q=75)
![Image for look 'Moths bangle, Ripply, Cloak of Butterflies'](/_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fsubmit.bridgesmathart.org%2Frails%2Factive_storage%2Fblobs%2Fproxy%2FeyJfcmFpbHMiOnsiZGF0YSI6MTEyNTcsInB1ciI6ImJsb2JfaWQifX0%3D--174302233be0ca9059fea31ad7d85f192254e578%2Fkris_bridges_ripple_white.jpg&w=1536&q=75)
![Image for look 'Moths bangle, Ripply, Cloak of Butterflies'](/_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fsubmit.bridgesmathart.org%2Frails%2Factive_storage%2Fblobs%2Fproxy%2FeyJfcmFpbHMiOnsiZGF0YSI6MTEyNTgsInB1ciI6ImJsb2JfaWQifX0%3D--2295318c2f5eabf6bb2ce80d1ec1659d4a77b924%2Fbridges_butterfly_cloak.jpg&w=1536&q=75)
About the look
Moths bangle
glass beads and thread
2014
Ripply
glass beads and thread
2014
Cloak of Butterflies
glass beads, thread, fabric
2019