My favorite form of indigenous artwork is
beadwork. I really enjoy beading. I find it relaxing. I enjoy thinking about the designs and the
type of materials that I wanna use, the look that I wanna create. I also really enjoy making beadwork because
it's functional artwork. Beadwork is a form of traditional Native American
artwork. So anywhere around the country as you visit
different tribal nations you'll see different styles of beadwork. I've been making beadwork since I was about
15. And usually when I design beadwork and I create
beadwork it's for use for cultural events or ceremonies or Powwows. So I'm a Powwow dancer, I'm a fancy shawl
dancer. I like to dance jingle and traditional from
time to time too. But my kids and I, we Powwow dance, and so
a lot of the beadwork that I make is for Powwow outfits or regalia. So when I'm coming up with beadwork designs,
I often first start with the essence of the piece. So I'm really thinking about the person that
I'm designing for and the use of the final product and the look that I wanna create. I like to lay everything out on graph paper
and then I'll translate that paper to material and I'll sew it down to the material so that
I have a pattern to work with. And then I just start beading. Beadwork is incredibly time consuming. As you look at these different beaded pieces
you know that each one of those beads was hand sewn. Artists will have their own techniques. And so I like to put on four beads and then
go back through two. Every single bead is touched by the artist
at least once but sometimes multiple times depending how they tack it down. And so the larger pieces, they could have
hundreds of hours of man time. I would say one of my favorite parts about
beading is watching the piece come together 'cause you have this vision. And a lot of times your vision is pretty true
to the final product but it's sometimes it's not. And so it's fun watching the piece come together,
but actually seeing the colors come together and the designs come together, it's really
exciting and it provides me a lot of motivation 'cause I'm gonna be like, "Two more hours
and I'd have this piece complete "and I can finally see what it's gonna look like." When I make beadwork, I make it for really
specific purposes. So my husband and I got married about seven
years ago. I wore a traditional woodland outfit for our
wedding, and then my husband wore a traditional Payu outfit for the weddings. And then our daughters they wore some beaded
pieces also. My 14-year-old, her name is Siyabi which means
wild rose. And so you'll see in those pieces that there's
an image of a rose. And then Pasitiva our little one, her name
is wild iris, and so there's iris beaded into her hair ties. And then in my bandolier bag there's several
different flowers that are beaded in that. There's a flower that represents me, my favorite
flower, and then my husband's favorite flower. And there's a hummingbird which symbolizes
love. And then going up the straps are the flowers
of our kids. So Busceppi, his name is red earth. I beaded a red star-like flower for him. One of the pieces I brought was the medallion
I made when I graduated with my bachelor's degree. I went to Michigan State University. The medallion's in the shape of a Spartan
S with a little sash across with the abbreviation SOC for sociology and then the year I graduated. I graduated with a bachelor's degree in sociology. So it's common in indigenous artwork to see
things like that that are symbols that are very specific to the individual or specific
to that ceremony. All my beadwork that I create has a lot of
symbolism. It feels good to wear our traditional artwork
because I know it comes from a special place. I know that there's a lot of meaning behind
the pieces but I also think it's important as Americans that we see the indigenous people
how live here and who've always lived here. Here in Nevada there are 27 federally recognized
tribes. That's a lot of tribes. That's a lot of tribes. Most states don't have 27 federally recognized
tribes. Sometimes when we think about indigenous cultures
and indigenous arts we think about them as history, something that's in the past or something
that's not current. There's all kinds of beautiful work that's
being done by artists around the country where they're capitalizing on contemporary materials,
themes. It's beautiful to see art evolving, even indigenous
art 'cause what's indigenous is also contemporary.
