Onye Ndika

I have been a bead artist/jeweler since 1994, and I have had a passion for handicrafts all of my life. I prefer to work with glass beads, but I make use of all types, sizes and forms of beads. I am most functional in cross-needle weaving, right-angle weave, ladder stitch, peyote stitch, daisy-chain stitch, brick stitch, stringing and designing jewelry. I also create tessellation art using cartesian and isometric grids. From time to time, I enjoy practicing modular and functional origami, braiding lanyards and basic macramé.

The artists that inspire me are MC Escher, Salvador Dali, Piet Mondrian, Claude Monet, and Pablo Picasso, bead artists Lois Sherr Dubin, Valerie Hector (IL), Suzanne Golden (http://suzannegolden.com), Gwen Fisher (http://beadinfinitum.com), Virginia Blakelock, Carolyn Wilcox Wells. Additionally I am artistically inspired by scientists such as Buckminster Fuller & Bih-Yaw Jin (thebeadedmolecules.blogspot.com), and mathematicians such as Sandor Kabai (http://kabai.hu) and George Hart (http://georgehart.com)– also a sculptor.

The best thing about being an artist, in my opinion, is that I can reflect aspects of God's beauty and ordered complexity in my work. Many of my pieces (such as the Dodecahedra and Particle collections) are clear representations of Platonic & Archimedean geometry. To date, discoveries are still being made of platonic geometry in nature & human biology. I've managed to integrate my analytical nature with my creative desires to generate pieces that are functional, thought-provoking, and hopefully inspirational and engaging. This is one of the many gifts God has given to me so I want to use it to the best of my natural and spiritual ability. Maybe I am not always understood, which is not really my aim, but God knows my heart and is continually blessing me with fresh creativity and ways to praise Him, and to bless (i.e. empower to prosper) and uplift everyone around me.