On Sept. 19, the Eufaula Public Library hosted a special presentation by Cherokee bead artists Jennifer Saenz and her mother, Vicki Watson. The mother–daughter team described their work as Beadtelling, a term they patented to capture their collaborative way of telling stories through bead portraits.
The artists told the audience: “We invented the word Beadtelling because each bead is like a word, and together they create a portrait that tells a story.” For them, the practice is about more than art. It ties family and tradition together while also recognizing figures in Cherokee and Native history who are often overlooked—especially the Freedmen.
Jennifer told the audience that their exhibition, Threads of Untold History, first debuted on Tulsa’s historic Greenwood Avenue, once home to Black Wall Street. She explained that it is the first bead portrait series devoted to Cherokee Freedmen— descendants of Black people enslaved by Native nations and emancipated in 1866. Each portrait, she said, grew out of months of research into photographs, census records, and oral histories, often carried out in consultation with Freedmen descendants to ensure accuracy and respect.
Before showing the portraits, they passed around the first piece they ever made together: a bracelet designed with a heartbeat pattern. “We started in Wichita, Kansas, in 2022,” Vicki told the crowd. “That bracelet was our first project, and it showed us this was something we could build together.”
The portraits were arranged on tables in the library. One table was devoted to Freedmen, with likenesses of John Docus Baldry, Harrel Bruner, Caesar Bruner, Claude DeVoe Hall, Marilyn Vann, and Sally Walton. Another table held portraits of Native leaders including Quanah Parker, Pretty Nose, and Redbird Smith. Visitors moved between the tables, viewing the two histories side by side.
Jennifer and Vicki also spoke about how they divide the work. Jennifer explained: “I focus on the color palettes, finding the right blends for skin tones and shading.” Vicki added: “My eye is on the likeness. It takes both of us to bring a portrait to life.”
Each piece, they said, requires time and commitment. “A single portrait can use up to 10,000 beads,” Jennifer told the audience. “It can take months before it’s finished.” Working together, the two said, requires patience but has strengthened their bond.
As the program ended, audience members gathered around the portraits. Some leaned close to examine the fine detail. One remarked that the faces looked “alive.” Jennifer and Vicki said they hear that often. “That’s what we want,” Vicki said. “For people to see them as real, as people who lived and mattered.”
Threads of Untold History has since traveled to other museums and cultural centers. At its opening, Cherokee Nation Principal Chief Chuck Hoskin Jr. praised the project, saying: “Art can be as powerful as politics in advancing justice.”
For Freedmen descendants, the portraits have offered recognition long denied. For Jennifer and Vicki, the process has also been personal. As they reminded the Eufaula audience: “Stories don’t just live in books. They can live in beads, in portraits, and in memory.”
