"Poppy" Sculpture

Dequa — Debra S. Booth
Cherokee · Irish · Tallahassee, Florida
Dequa is my name in Cherokee. It is also my art. The two have never been separate.
I am a beaded sculpture artist rooted in a tradition my Cherokee grandmother placed in my hands as a young woman. She taught me bead crochet — a practice of patience, precision, and cultural memory. As my hands have aged and my artistic vision has deepened, that tradition has evolved into fully beaded sculptural work: three-dimensional forms brought to life one seed bead at a time.
My pieces draw from the natural world — monarch butterflies, wolves, rabbits, flowers — rendered in thousands of micro beads across curved and complex surfaces. The imagery is intuitive, rooted in Cherokee reverence for the living world, and informed by a lifetime of looking closely at beautiful things. Each piece carries geometric pattern, nature symbolism, and the quiet accumulation of thousands of individual decisions.
I work slowly. Deliberately. A single sculpture can take weeks or months to complete. This pace is not a limitation — it is the point. In a culture that rewards speed, I make things that demand time. Things that will outlast me. Things that ask the person holding them to slow down too.
For forty years I built a parallel life as a senior research administrator at nationally recognized research institutions, directing federal programs at the highest levels. Dequa was always there — at the worktable after hours, on weekends, in the quiet spaces between a demanding career. Retirement did not slow me down. It set me free.
My current major work is B Rabbit — a two-foot fully beaded figure that I am creating over the course of a year, documenting each session publicly as she comes to life. She is part sculpture, part performance, part testament to what becomes possible when you stop waiting for the right time and simply begin.
I am Cherokee and Irish. I am nearly seventy years old. And I am doing the most ambitious work of my life.
Dequa is my name in Cherokee. It is my art. It is the part of me that was always becoming.