Joyce Scott, an artist-in-residence at Brandeis who works in visual and performance media, spoke last Tuesday in Pollack Auditorium, discussing her life and art. Covering broad topics such as beadworking and her experiences with race and gender, the discussion wove many ideas into a coherent narrative of her life.Growing up in the South, Scott knew from an early age that she wanted to be an artist, especially from exposure to the African-American quilting style of her relatives. These quilts, which have recently found a place within the art world, are very meaningful, telling stories and borrowing from rich traditions such as jazz and African art.

She explained that when attempts at painting in college were unsuccessful, she found beadworking to be well-suited to her abilities. After traveling the world and receiving graduate degrees at the now-defunct Institute Allende in Mexico, she became proficient enough for her art to start receiving attention.

Among the most popular of her beadwork are bead phalluses and breasts. She proclaimed that if she wanted to be wealthy all she would make were genitals. But her beadwork cannot be confined to anything so specific. Crossing boundaries of sculpture, mixed media, jewelry and many other media, Scott's works deal with as many themes as did her talk. Particularly, issues of race and gender are evident in her work, and her artwork has an impressive aesthetic quality that is often a product of complete experimentation rather than concentration on any specific issue.

In the 1980s, Scott became more of a performance artist with a show that was part theater and part burlesque. Dealing with issues in her life, the show also helped her hone a number of skills, many of which she displayed in her discussion. Interlacing her talk with singing, tangents and overheard phrases, the event was as diverse as Scott's career. She concluded her talk the same way she started it, singing in a style reminiscent of Mahalia Jackson.