Earth Beads

Artist

Robert Tully

Year

2004

Location

Soft Gold Park

Description

Robert Tully's recently completed Earth Beads, located off north College Avenue on west Hickory Street, consists of large strands of beads made of river cobblestones and small river boulders of varying sizes. The work is inspired by the beads that trappers traded peacefully for furs from Native Americans between 1820 and 1840 in the Fort Collins area.

Many of the cobbles are flat and oval in shape, with several large stones about 16 inches across, using color and shapes to make patterns. The two strands cross each other in places like two necklaces worn together. The upper ends of the beads are buried in the ground so that the beads emerge from the earth, giving it a connection to the place and metaphorically to nature, representing the fact that the fur trade was entwined with nature, sometimes over-trapping the beaver and changing the water flow and plants.

Photos