Laura McCabe has become one of the most influential figures in contemporary bead art through her highly distinctive fusion of meticulous craftsmanship, historical reference, and visionary design. Nowhere is this more evident than in her celebrated series of Neo‑Victorian cabochons—beaded jewelry works that transform traditional cameo and cabochon settings into extravagant, architectonic pieces of wearable sculpture. With an aesthetic rooted in 19th-century opulence and ornamentation, McCabe breathes new life into Victorian motifs through a dazzling application of modern materials and beading techniques, constructing pieces that feel at once antiquated and futuristic.
At the core of McCabe’s cabochon work is the interplay between the central stone or image and the beaded environment she builds around it. A cabochon, in jewelry terms, refers to a polished stone, glass, or resin that is typically convex on the top and flat on the bottom, designed to be set into a bezel or mount. Victorian cabochons often featured carved cameos, miniature portraits, or semi-precious gems and were set into brooches or pendants surrounded by filigree and decorative flourishes. McCabe takes this classical format and explodes it outward, constructing elaborate beaded frames, fronds, tentacles, and halo-like forms that transform the jewelry into something far beyond ornament—an intricate dialogue between past and present, stone and stitch, material and mythology.
Her process begins with the careful selection of focal components. These can include vintage glass cameos, hand-carved stones, dichroic glass cabochons, Lucite figures, antique buttons, and occasionally hand-painted or photographic inserts. Each chosen piece is rich with historical or emotional resonance, often evoking the visual language of mourning jewelry, reliquaries, or Victorian symbolism. However, McCabe is not content to merely echo antique designs. She surrounds her cabochons with beadwork that defies the symmetry and restraint of classical settings, instead opting for asymmetrical growths, swirling motifs, and sculptural spikes that seem to emerge organically from the central form. This design approach lends the pieces an almost biological quality, as though the jewelry is alive, evolving around its core like a coral reef around a stone.
McCabe’s technical execution is unparalleled in the beadwork world. She primarily uses off-loom techniques—particularly peyote stitch, right angle weave, and herringbone stitch—which allow her to construct complex three-dimensional structures with minute control. Her materials include an extensive palette of Japanese and Czech seed beads, known for their uniformity and lustrous finishes, as well as Swarovski crystals, fire-polished beads, and hand-blown glass elements. Each bead is placed with an eye for gradation, texture, and light reflection, resulting in surfaces that shimmer, pulse, and subtly shift color as they move. It is this attention to surface and structure that elevates her work into a realm of fine artistry.
Color plays a crucial role in McCabe’s Neo‑Victorian aesthetic. While she often embraces the moody tones associated with 19th-century fashion—garnet reds, inky blacks, dusty rose, verdigris, and deep amethyst—she frequently juxtaposes these with unexpected bursts of acid green, metallic teal, or electric violet. This chromatic tension disrupts the historical illusion just enough to assert the contemporary nature of the work. In doing so, McCabe creates pieces that feel both timeless and radically current, as if they could belong in a Victorian parlor, a cyberpunk novel, or a museum of speculative design.
The architectural quality of McCabe’s beaded settings is especially pronounced in her collars and statement necklaces. These pieces often incorporate multiple cabochons set into elaborate beaded structures that rise and fall with sculptural drama, curving around the neck like an exoskeletal form. Spikes, fringe, and layered beadwork create movement and dimensionality, while smaller details—beaded bezels, filigree edges, and beaded chain—recall the intricacies of lacework or wrought iron. In some works, she introduces hidden elements—tiny skulls, anatomical hearts, eyes, or insects—tucked within the beadwork, adding layers of symbolism and narrative for the attentive viewer to uncover.
Her bracelets and earrings, while smaller in scale, retain the same attention to complexity and storytelling. A pair of earrings might feature miniature cabochons surrounded by beaded tentacles, while a bracelet could be built around a series of connected cameos, each representing a different symbolic figure from Victorian folklore or literature. These pieces often function as miniature dioramas or talismans, each telling a story through its iconography and arrangement of materials.
Though her work is resolutely intricate, McCabe emphasizes accessibility and pedagogy through her books and workshops. Her instructional texts, such as Embellished Beadweaving and Creating Crystal Jewelry with Swarovski, share her techniques with clarity and generosity, encouraging others to explore the expressive potential of bead embroidery and off-loom weaving. In doing so, she has helped elevate beadwork from the realm of hobbyist craft to that of serious artistic practice. Her workshops attract both seasoned artists and beginners, all drawn by the promise of creating pieces that are not only beautiful but conceptually rich and personally meaningful.
Philosophically, McCabe’s work engages with the idea of adornment as identity. In an era where fast fashion and digital ephemera dominate, her cabochons are radical in their slowness and permanence. Each piece is a meditation on memory, labor, and the act of care—care for the object, for the tradition, and for the stories embedded in every material choice. Her jewelry invites the wearer to participate in that meditation, to carry a fragment of the past transformed by the present, to embody a new kind of Victorian romanticism—one forged not in mourning but in making.
Laura McCabe’s Neo‑Victorian cabochons are more than jewelry. They are sculptural relics of imagined histories, luminous declarations of devotion to craft, and vibrant dialogues between eras. With every bead, she stitches a bridge between centuries, binding together the elegance of the past with the defiant creativity of the now. In her hands, the cabochon becomes not just a focal point, but a portal—to memory, to mystery, and to the limitless possibilities of form.