By Theresa Nance

On a bright, sunny Sunday afternoon, the Newark Museum was inundated with tiny tots, toddlers, teenagers, most who were visiting the museum's Circus Science event.

But tucked away on the facility's second level was something equally exciting - an exhibit titled, the Glass Beads of Ghana in the museum's African Gallery. There they were, some shining like sparkling baubles encased in Tiffany's windows. Other beads were beautiful wooden necklaces strung together and adorned with splashes of dazzling colors that could have only come from the Motherland.

According to information regarding the making of the beads, each piece is made in its own clay mold and heated in a stove so the glass fuses together into the desired shape. Barbara Pitney, who described herself as a long-time member of the museum, stood watching a video produced by Suzanne Gott of a few indigenous people creating glass beads from scratch, so to speak, by using recycled glass. Pitney, who had an uncanny resemblance to actress Kate Hepburn, revealed that both she and her husband lived in Nigeria for 4 years and she was familiar, she said, with glass beads.

As visitors to the African Gallery walked toward the exhibit, many were, caught up in a photo that was embossed across the wall of two Ghanaian girls who may have been twins, or perhaps sisters only, but what grabbed the attention of onlookers were the rows and rows of beads that adorned their necks. After the novelty of gazing at these translucent or Cedi beads begins to subside, you soon discover there's a story that accompanies these artifacts.

Here's such a story. In Ghana , the wearing of beads as gifts of beads and bead displays are a fundamental part of a girl's coming-of-age rites. Waist beads, on the other hand, are women's property. According to Asante tradition, girls would be dressed in waist beads from infancy in order to enhance the development of a rounded, fertile body. Waist beads are also used as a farewell gift to the elderly at a funeral. 

The colors, well what can one say about the colors used to create these beautiful designs? One can get lost in the beautiful blues, the rich greens, brown and clear bottle glass. A male peacock would do well not to show off his array of multiple-colored feathers for they pale in comparison to these dazzling mixtures and designs. A few bead makers in Ghana with contacts in Europe and America have now begun importing glass art to create even more rich, new colors, according to museum information.

There's an amusing sign that hangs behind one of the encased glass displays. It said, "Bead all you can bead." It was created to advertise a bead workshop in southern Ghana . It's a takeoff of the Armed Forces slogan. Finally, when one considers that these "brothers" and "sisters" are not engaged in this meticulous work as a hobby, but what they do contributes to their livelihood, it makes this exhibit even more astounding.

Just for historical information, bead making technologies utilizing recycled glass were first developed and refined in cosmopolitan trans-Sahara trade centers of the western Sudan . The earliest and most extensive evidence of West African glass bead makers dated back between the 8th and 12th centuries and was discovered at Ife in South-central Nigeria .

Run! Do not walk to the Newark Museum to view the originators of this fine artwork. The exhibition is open through June 25, 2008 .