Or rather, beaded X’s? One has to wonder how long we will keep holding to the idea of what Twitter was supposed to be rather than what it is, but “beaded tweet” has a good ring to it.

The idea of beading is both old and new (the only way for culture to be relevant) and this new art form is an effective way to keep it fresh and relevant. The principle, developed by Noelle Peppin (https://twitter.com/Beaded_Tweets) is to represent characters in 8 bit binary in the form of beads. We did a simplified version to fit on a bracelet so I went with initials to keep it short: C&LA, continentia et longanimatus, Latin for patience and long suffering (grit.)

(I don’t wear jewellery so on my water bottle it shall remain.)

On this and other practices such as drumming I find myself with a hands off approach by nature, largely on fears of cultural appropriation. It is good that Indigenous culture has been reclaimed to the point that practicioners can share their culture with confidence and have it be received as something of value. It is still worth remembering that this is not our culture to share freely: it was developed by Noelle and her efforts should be respected. It is something that we can freely mention, though, and towards which we can direct co-workers and students. So it is for many Indigenous cultural resources: we don’t have to claim it or claim mastery in order to raise awareness of the resource.

The act of beading itself was a good exercise in patience and understanding the material properties of elastic strings. Organization and planning were also key skills as it is easy to lose your place in what bead you are on. To simplify you could have kids just do their initials I imagine, though you wouldn’t want to get too far ahead of yourself before first running it by Noelle.