Gallery: Power Puff and Caldera Bangle

The Power Puff Bangle was a pattern contributed to CGB, Volume I, by innovative English designer Jean Power. It’s a joined peyote rope with a captivating triangular structure of herringbone increases and decreases. The resulting bangle or neckpiece is accordion-like and very sturdy.

Another visual version of the Power Puff, the Caldera Bangle, was also included in Volume I, as was a starter project, a single puff on a ring band (the Power Puff Ring).

 

Power Puff Bangle, beadwork by Marg Gapper, UK

The Power Puff (and Jean Power’s structural body of work) was the inspiration for the entire CGB project, as Dustin Wedekind, Christina Vandervlist, Gabriella van Diepen and Kate McKinnon turned corners into Wings and Wings into Horns… and Dustin and Kate, working in Tucson together, developed the MRAW Band threadpaths for a simple and deeply architectural start to the new forms.

 

Above, a Power Puff segment by Kate McKinnon. The Puffs can be different sizes (and orientations). The connecting tube can be created in a series of different diameters as well, simply by choosing different points at which to increase and decrease.

Jean’s work can be seen in her fully-stepped out series of books simply titled Geometric Beadwork, and the explorations that grew from the CGB project can be seen in Kate McKinnon’s mostly photographic and technique-based books, Contemporary Geometric Beadwork, Volumes I and II. 

 

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