for all before and after

glass beads and metal jingles, 2021

by Asia Tail and Raven Juarez, with beadworkers Maya Lopez, Michael Anderson, Ashley Mocorro Powell, Kyle Maluy, Hillary Maluy, Mike Vos, and Olivia Mathison, fabrication assistance from Absalom Shantz, curated by Priscilla Dobler

For the 2021 Bellwether Arts Festival, Asia Tail (Cherokee) and Raven Juarez (Blackfeet) designed a temporary public installation along Bellevue Art Museum’s entrance soffit. Collectively spanning nearly 50 feet across, 302 individual strands feature a unique combination of hand-strung translucent, silver, and white beads. Metal jingle cones at the end of each line move together in the wind, creating sounds intended to bring calm and healing to visitors crossing the museum’s threshold. The triangular archway the assembled strands outline brings balance to BAM’s western angular architecture, while reorienting eyes to the sky when viewed from within.

This project was made possible with generous support from Potlatch Fund, 4Culture, and the City of Bellevue.

Artists’ Statement

Each line a lineage—many cut short—cascading continually in towards the earth. A consistent, persistent, downpour. Impossibly different stories, sharing the space and transforming it. Suspended in air like breath, or whispers, these gentle familiar echoes touch and shift in wind and light. Moon drops, tear drops, shining in grief or sparkling in joy.

Process-focused, for all before and after created itself. Fate worked through a jumble of glass and many hands to construct each length. As we learn from our histories, you can only plan for so much.

The completed work is an acknowledgement of the beauty and bitterness of our shared experiences within community—what it means to hold a complicated past, and at the same time shape a future for our healed and empowered descendants.

Photos and videos by Mel Carter.