their apparent ability to com-
municate over thousands of
miles are a source of fascina-
tion for her. (“I want to bead
a dolphin – I just need to talk
Scott into carving me one,”
she says.) They’re invitations
to explore unknown realms
and express imaginative
possibilities.
Youngquist’s works can
be as small as 1-inch pendants
or as large as installations that
measure 6 by 7 feet. She likens
the process of covering forms
with beads to a dance, partly
planned and partly intuitive.
She attaches the materials with
glue, and for most pieces she
also adds a layer of black tile
grout over the surface, allows
it to set, then rinses and scrubs
it off the beads. The grout pro-
vides additional adherence, but
also tames the colors and makes
the pieces seem older, as if they
were discovered after centuries
underground. “There’s some-
thing mysterious and primal
about a dirt-covered object,”
she observes.
If a piece has eyes, though,
Youngquist always begins with
them, incorporating prosthet-
ics or glass pieces from antique
dolls. “I’ve been eye-centric inmy art since high school,” she
says. “In meeting a creature
through the eyes, I begin to
understand what each char-
acter wants to become.” Still,
the process of meeting and
making each one must follow
its own, often unpredictable,
path. Among her best-known
pieces is Metamorphosis, a nearly
4-foot-tall, bead-covered human
figure modeled by Youngquist
and carved by Long. The 2011
work was a response to the
Deepwater Horizon oil spill
in the Gulf of Mexico the year
before. Initially, the artist
thought she would create ablack-bead-covered pelican,
as if smothered in oil, but she
changed her mind. “I realized
it needed to be human, because
whatever we’re doing to the
Earth, we’re doing to our-
selves,” she says. With a large
beaded butterfly on her back,
the figure came to represent
“recovery, restoration, and
healing,” Youngquist says.
“It’s about our inner connection
and the world’s beauty. We’re
all cells in the same body.”byart.com
Gussie Fauntleroy is a writer
and editor in Colorado.Gargoyles, 2019,
mixed media,
14 x 12 x 8 in.Aphrodite (Pig),
2013, mixed media,
14 x 9 x 10 in.right:
Metamorphosis (2011)
was a response to
the 2010 Deepwater
Horizon oil spill in
the Gulf of Mexico.
The butterfly on the
form’s back represents
recovery, restoration,
and healing.Photos(^4):^ LarrySanders46 american craft aug/sept 19