 I'm from Alexis Nakoda Sioux Nation in Alberta. I'm in my fourth year of visual arts at Emily Carr University and today I'm going to show you some beading. Beading predates contact and it's been around for a long time for First Nations people. Beadwork is not only a decorative art in First Nations culture, it was also a means of illustrating histories and traditions within each tribe, identifying each family and clan as well. The basics are just the traditional patterns, triangles, like geometric type of patterns that are passed on from different tribes. There's different types of designs now because there's a more contemporary sense where there's a lot of beaters that do portraits of tribal leaders like Sitting Bull and those are really advanced beaters. I never really formally learned it from anyone. My parents and my grandparents have always made their own regalia. I just picked it up and from observing my family doing the beadwork, in the traditional beadwork each color means something and each pattern means something. There's a lot of tradition in beading hides and telling the whole story of a battle, illustrating that history. The nylon thread nowadays because it's thinner and it's quite strong so it won't break unlike sewing thread which breaks really easy because it's made out of linen. You also want to use beeswax and there's some thimbles. There's different types of needles that you can use as well. Size 12 is the needle and then there's 10 which is a little bit thicker. It goes by gauges. People like to use smoke tan hide of caribou, deer, elk, moose and the most common bead that we use today is the seed bead and it's made out of glass. These ones are really easy to purchase. They're very common and they come in different colors too. They could come in a solid matte color or there's these ones that are kind of a translucent glass bead. They're painted metallic on the inside so they appear shiny. They're also smaller ones for more detailed works. They come on a hink. They're glass cut beads so they have a little shine to them. One that's completed in a beret or something. It really stands out and looks sparkly. These beads that I have here are just some regular seed beads that I got. The more traditional beads what they would be made out of is shells and bones. These are some bone beads as well. They're used usually for making breast plates or chokers, bracelets. I have a lot of examples here right now. I'll start with these berets, styles here, some hair pieces and then there's some earrings that I have too. This one kind of matches it with the same colors but it's done in a different kind of stitch. It's called peyote stitch where you stitch around it versus flat. Then there's different types of edgings that you can do too. This one you can see has a different edging all the way around. There's some bounce here too, moccasin bounce. These moccasin bounce are the top of the moccasin so you would sew the around it and then the bottom. You decorate it first and then you sew it into a moccasin. This is beaded a different way. The moccasin is constructed first and then it's beaded right on there. When you start, this is how you're going to start with your thread. I typically use just one of my arm lengths for reference and then I double that. Then you're going to cut your thread and then you thread it through your needle. Once you thread it through your needle then you're just going to tie the two ends together once the needle is thread. I already have one prepared right here but you just tie the two ends together and cut the excess off so that way your needle is already on your thread and you're ready to start beading. I'm going to use pink beads here and I'm going to put a couple on there. When you start, I typically go from the back so that you do not see your knot at all. You want to make sure that your knot is big enough knot so that your thread doesn't come through at all. There's different ways that people like to do this. You'll get a more secure row of beads if the less beads that you pick at a time. Some people like to do two at a time, some people like to do maybe even ten at a time but it's a matter of going back. I'm going to start with four, about four on the needle. You want to pull your beads all the way to your hide and you want to lay them flat down like this so that you can tell where they end. Once you pull all your beads right up against your hide here, you're going to poke your needle through and pull it tight. From there, what I typically do is I like to go back to secure this more. Some people like to leave it like this but I want a more secure line so I'm going to turn this around and you can see I want to pick the midway point. Put your needle through, come back up so you want to make sure that you're directly underneath your beads and in the middle too. From here, you go back through the last two beads of your line and then you have a secure line here. From here, you can add some more beads now since I'm four at a time. You want to make sure it's right up against your other beads now and you want to pull it in a straight line. Once you pull all your beads right up against your hide here, you're going to poke your needle through and pull it tight. From there, what I typically do is I like to go back to secure this more. Some people like to leave it like this but I want a more secure line so I'm going to turn this around and you can see I want to pick the midway point so you put your needle through, come back up so you want to make sure that you're directly underneath your beads and in the middle too. From here, you go back through the last two beads of your line. I'm going to do some more beads, just a little bit more. I'm going to pick up the four beads. You want to make sure it's right up against your other beads now and you want to pull it in a straight line. Then turn it over and look at the back. Then you want to go back through the last two beads of the four that you just put on and go back through them. There's your line. You're going to poke your needle through. It's really hard to get a knot really close to your hide when you just tie a knot in your thread. What I like to do is take a little piece, go back not all the way through. You just want to basically tack right through like so. You're just piercing the hide. Then from there, this is how you get a nice close knot. Now is these types of curves here that you can make which can create petals or just circles like berries. I'm going to do a curve now. A curve is pretty easy. I'm going to do it on this right now. For a curve, what you typically want to do is you want to mark your shape of what you're doing, but right now I'm just going to freehand it. I'm just going to start right here. Go from the back so that your knot isn't showing. I'm going to go in with my purple beads here. What you're doing basically is you're manipulating your beads to make a curve. The curve that I'm going to try and do is just basically a little hook almost. Now from here, what you want to do is you want to look in the back since it's going to curve this way. I don't want my beads to kind of flare out a little bit like that. In the back, I'm going to go off the line of what I'm doing. Then from here, you're going to tack down your beads by going back through the last two so that way it's starting to curve for you. Typically, beaters like to use graph paper to design mark out all the little squares of each bead because it can be pretty mathematical when you're working with big patterns. It's basically the same as a line because what a curve is just you usually mark down where your beads are going to go, kind of like a stencil so that it makes it a nice and strong line too because it buckles a little too much. It's best to just go back through the entire line of beads that you have already so that way the tighter string that you just put through kind of reinforces it. Then from here, you can see that the beads aren't that strong. They're not as linear as you want it to be. So to fix that, I'm going to come back through the last four here just to make sure it's nice and secure and make sure that it sits nicely. I'm going to pull it nice and taut so that it'll stay there for you. Make sure that it sits nicely. There's kind of your curve. Again, it's the same idea as your straight line. It's just you're sewing around a curve. So when you're done your line, you typically want to finish it with a knot. So it's really hard to get a knot really close to your hide when you just tie a knot in your thread. So what I like to do is take a little piece, go back, not all the way through. You just want to basically tack right through like so. You're just piercing the hide. Then from there, this is how you get a nice close knot. This is how you get a nice close knot. Then from there, I wrapped it around a few times and then I'm pulling it. There you go. Your knot is as close as you can get to your hide. So it won't be loose on your beads on the other side. Then you just trim it from there. You had to do some edge beading. It's easier to show with two colors, so I'm going to grab another color here. I'll grab white. This is a little square that I cut out of this smoke tan hide. Then what you do essentially, you're working along the whole edge of this. So I'm going in through a corner here and I'm coming up like this. So it's important that you come up from it and then you want to stay beading along this edge here so that it'll stay nice and clean looking. The first bead that you use is going to dictate what this inner ring is going to be. The outer ring is the second bead that you use. So I'm going to use white as the outer bead and pink as the inner. So I'm going to start with a pink bead because it's going to be on the closest to the hide. Then the white inner color, which is the pink. It's only at the beginning where you start with three beads. So now you want to go right next to one. Pull your beads close and then you see how it lines up inside of your bead work like this one. You can see a little white thread that I used here and it's the back. So you want to decide which side is the back in the front and pull it through and then it'll sit like this. So once you're here, you want to go back and through your very last bead, which is this pink one. So you come back through it, pull your thread all the way through and then now this is going to be the pattern that you're going to stick to for the rest of the edge beading. It's going to be white and then it's going to be your outer color and then your inner color, which is pink. So you just have to remember that to keep it concise. Then you go right next to it, right next to the last bead, up like this. Then you come through this very last pink one. Now I'm going to add another white first because that's going to be the one that sits on top and then another pink for the base or the inner color. So it's important that you go back through to keep it nice and straight or else it'll look like that. So you have to go back through the last bead. It's really hard to get a knot really close to your hide when you just say tie a knot in your thread. So what I like to do is take a little piece, go back, not all the way through. You just want to basically tack right through like so. You're just piercing the hide and then from there, this is how you get a nice close knot to look like this. So this is a simple kind of zipper edge beading style that you can use. Edge beading I like the most because it's faster too so you feel way more accomplished when you do it because it's really discouraging sometimes when you're working on beadwork because it's so time consuming and it can be tedious at times. My elders always told me that keep positive thoughts because whoever's going to wear it will have that with them as well. So those were the three basic techniques for learning beadwork which you can practice and improve on. There are a lot of web sources that you can find as well as at the original gathering place here at Emily Carr University you can find some examples of beadwork.