Etsy-find: An elegant mask of glass beads woven so beautifully it’s scary

The Venus of the Sea mask by Catherine Ross.

Catherine Ross didn’t plan to become an expert at creating structured masks and other forms out of woven glass beads using highly evolved versions of traditional Native American techniques, but she found her way there after dropping out of Bryn Mawr College and picking up some of the basics from some Grateful Dead fans passing through the Virginia town where she was living.

At the age of 25 she was laid off from her job and she used the free time to devote herself to deciphering traditional Native American brick weaving (also known as Comanche, Apache, or Cheyenne stitch), which offers a more rigid structure to the finished work.

Further discoveries of how to mix bead sizes and shapes to give architectural form to the finished weaving allowed her to create sculpted elegant masks, a form she was drawn to after seeing the Japanese film Sayonara (1957). Using Czech “three-cut” glass, as well as vintage steel-cut metal beads, both of which are shaped more like hexagons and well-suited to controlled curving results, Ross created her Venus Mask, currently selling on Etsy for $3,200. She  considers it her finest work to date.

Ross considers her Venus of the Sea mask her best work to date.

Ross credits her Russian Orthodox upbringing for her appreciation for the finely wrought Byzantine detail she incorporates into her work.

“When I think of Venus emerging from the sea, I see  dripping, sparkling  droplets in the sunlight, translated into vintage opal-glass crystals and freshwater pearls, of course,” she says. “The paua shell in the centerpiece came from a Native American bead trader, and my big challenge was bridging the crest across the brow with my weaving, through the piercings in the shell, to create a semblance of the humble clamshell in the myth.”