David Chatt

One might wonder about the sanity of the contemporary bead artist. Why would a 45-year-old man pick up this fastidious and ancient craft now? "This would be perfect work for someone who is in prison," admits David Chatt, who has spent as many as 1,000 hours completing a project. In "Two Hands, Twenty Years, and a Billion Beads," the nationally recognized Seattle artist exhibits his wryly absurd and insanely intricate beadwork. As someone who isn't normally attracted to the fussiness of beads, I came away from the show surprised by the cleverness and fascinated by the skill on display. This is an oddly humorous, at times pretty array of sculptures, trinkets, and vessels made from thousands of hand-sewn glass seed beads, using the right-angle weave stitch that Chatt adapted, allowing him to create dimensional constructions both beautiful and bizarre. The subjects of Chatt's work are often not what one might expect in this medium: white men in suits climbing a corporate ladder made of dollar bills, a golden evening bag that opens to reveal a glass eye staring up (Private Eye), or Flab Bag, a bulbous pouch in multiple shades of pink with sacs of beaded flab sprouting around it, effectively pushing the art into the realm of surrealism. "I think my best and most mature work uses the come-hither qualities of beadwork to draw the viewer in and then takes them someplace they didn't expect to go," says Chatt. (It's true: The tiny, glistening, and seemingly innocuous beads are very appealing.) "I also like to play with irony in my work. A big white guy [Chatt is 6 foot 4] making his way in the world with needle and thread is already ironic, but when you see your granny's kitchen-table craft used to make a lovely red purse that opens to reveal dismembered body parts (Portable Pink Parts), well, I don't think most people expect that, and I enjoy that reaction." Bellevue Arts Museum, 510 Bellevue Way N.E. (Bellevue), 425-519-0770, www.bellevueart.org. 10 a.m.-5:30 p.m. Tues.-Sat. (until 9 p.m. Thurs.); 11 a.m.-5:30 p.m. Sun. Extended through Feb. 19.

Full-length interview with David Chatt

DAVID CHATT, 45, is a contemporary bead artist. The Seattle artist, who is showing his work in "Two Hands, Twenty years, and a Billion Beads," at Bellevue Arts Museum, recently had an e-mail chat with Seattle Weekly's Sue Peters.

Seattle Weekly: Could you tell me a little bit more about your work and yourself? What inspires your work?

David Chatt: The work that is included in this exhibit spans 20 years and includes work from the very beginning. When I first started working with beads, I was most interested in mastering technique. Beadwork has enjoyed a renaissance in recent years, but twenty years ago it was still something that people's grandmothers did at the kitchen table. There were not very many places to turn to for supplies or instruction, so it was with a sense of discovery that I began to experiment. My parents had a small collection of Native American beaded objects that interested me. After a few initial experiments with embroidery, I started looking at a beaded basket that they owned. I visually dissected it and figured out how it was made. I then took that technique and used it to form a second skin over glass vessels.

I grew up with an artist. My father, Orville, lives in Sedro Woolley, where I grew up. He is a maker of jewelry and was head of the art department at Skagit Valley College before his retirement in the mid-1980s. He always had a wall of beads and a variety of materials for us to work with. Several of my early childhood art projects are part of the bead wall display. My drawings from those years were covered in tiny dots, my clay work consisted of little bits of clay that were stuck one to the next. . . . I have always been attracted to fine detailed work. I also have several architects in my family on my mother's side. When I started working with beads I saw them almost immediately as architectural units and figured out how they could be sewn together to form structures. My early beadwork is mostly about design and color, but for me it was also about learning how to best exploit the seductive qualities of glass combined with the intricate qualities and their inherent architectural potential. Technique building was and continues to be a source of inspiration. I was very attracted to the process of assembling thousands and thousands of tiny bits of glass and also to the seemingly untapped potential of the medium. I could imagine all kinds of ways to form structures and to sew beads together in ways that I had never seen before. That sense of discovery was exhilarating.

I think that when you look at the early work (the vessels), at first you see something beautiful, but as you look closer you start to see the thread, and even if you don't know anything about beadwork you understand on some level that there are countless hours invested in each piece. As society moves more and more away from hand work and seeks faster and more efficient ways to accomplish things, there is now new respect and interest in processes that cannot be hurried. Each piece becomes a meditation and draws the viewer in in a different way than one might be had the work been made in more traditional ways.