Ntombephi "Induna" Ntobela
South African, born 1966My Father's Spirit, 2017
On view
Glass beads sewn onto fabric
Dimensions17 × 18 1/2 in. (43.2 × 47 cm)
Museum purchase with funds donated in honor of Barbara J White, lifelong artist, avid traveler, devoted wife and mother, 2018.20
This artwork is a new form of bead art, ndwango (which translates to “cloth”), developed by a community of women living and working together in rural KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. The black fabric on which the artists work is reminiscent of the headscarves and skirts that many of them wore growing up. By stretching this textile like a canvas, the artists apply colored glass beads like paint to transform the canvases into art. Using skills handed down through generations as well as working in their own unique style or “directly from the soul” as Ntombephi “Induna” Ntobela explains, the women create abstract as well as figurative subjects for their ndwangos.
Ntobela is one of many Ubuhle artists. The Ubuhle arts organization was established in 1999 in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa as a means for local women to use inherited beading traditions as a way to achieve financial independence. Ubuhle means “beauty” in the Xhosa and Zulu languages and eloquently describes the shimmering quality of light on glass that for the Xhosa people has a particular spiritual significance.
