Asian Beaded Textiles & Artifacts

Valerie Hector is an award-winning American studio jeweler and independent scholar of Asian beaded textiles who has long illustrated her academic articles with pieces from her private collection as well as museum examples. She gained expertise by personally examining pieces of beadwork from various cultures in the storage departments of museums such as the Tropenmuseum in Amsterdam; the Rijksmuseum in Leiden; the Ethnographic Museum in Gothenburg, Sweden; the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge; the Victoria & Albert Museum in London; the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh; the American Museum of Natural History in New York; the Corning Museum of Glass; the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC; the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; the Field Museum of Natural History; and more.  She gained further expertise by collecting - and by studying books.

Valerie's most recent article, "Evoking the Aso': Dayak Beaded Baby Carrier Panels with Dragon-Dog Motifs" appears in the 2022 edition of The Journal of the Society of Bead Researchers. To read the article online, click here, and you will be redirected to academia.edu. To order a copy of the 2022 Journal, click here, and you will be redirected to the Society of Bead Researchers' website.  

Forty years on, the time has come for Valerie to begin dispersing her holdings and simplifying her life. Although her collection focuses on pieces from Indonesia, India and China, it also includes a few pieces from African, Middle Eastern and European cultures. 

Her book, The Art of Beadwork: Historic Inspiration, Contemporary Design was published by Watson Guptill of New York in 2005. In 2007, she co-edited with bead scholar Jamey D. Allen the proceedings of The International Bead & Beadwork Conference in Istanbul published by the Rezan Has Museum of Kadir Has University.

Valerie welcomes your interest and will provide further details - or undertake additional research - upon request.