Spoke cards are decorated, laminated cards held in the spokes of a bicycle wheel. Predominantly used by bike messengers to commemorate races and events, their popularity has spilled over into the wider cycling culture; bicycles in cities all over the world are rolling art galleries and vehicles of expression.
Artist and sometimes San Francisco bike messenger America Meredith has given spoke card art a new spin by making it a medium for the endangered Cherokee language. As Meredith says: “With less than 10,000 native speakers, primarily in North Carolina and Oklahoma, Cherokee is, like all other Native American languages, in extreme danger of extinction, as the social and economic impetus to speak English drives out smaller languages.”
Meredith, who is of Cherokee, Swedish and Celtic ancestry, enlisted the help of the worldwide bicycle messenger community to realize her Cherokee Spokespeople project. Meredith creates paintings incorporating an image and Cherokee syllabary (a set of written characters representing syllables and serving the purpose of an alphabet) to represent each word. The paintings are then reproduced as spoke cards which are available to cyclists on request.
After receiving a spoke card, any participating cyclist who sends a photo or video documentation of the card on their bike, in their city, can request a hand-drawn spoke card with a word of their choice. For words that don’t exist yet in Cherokee, Meredith enlists native speakers to create a new word, using traditional Cherokee methods of description.
Words featured on the cards range from the prosaic (beer, telephone, microwave) to the absurd (“this is not a pipe”, umbrella drink, monkey and fez). This is fitting, says Meredith, as “there a-re a lot of puns in Cherokee. The whole language is rife with really silly jokes. When she asked David Scott, a very traditional and knowledgeable Cherokee speaker to invent a word to represent her other heritage, Swedish, he came up with Aniuganasta or “they are sweet.”
“I try to talk to a lot of native speakers every time I go back to Oklahoma because I want different people’s opinions. It’s a living language so there are a lot of different views. The word magpie was the most epic one because no one could think of a word. I talked to seven different people then finally somebody [Beverly “Mooney” Squirrel] invented the new phrase, uwonidi tsisqua, or ‘chatty/outspoken bird’”
Being of mixed ancestry, Meredith has made a decision with her artwork to stay in the “awkward in-between place.” Her artwork is constantly exploring this in-between-ness, creating playful connections and bridging traditional and contemporary cultures.
Meredith began making Cherokee spoke cards in 2004, thinking it would only last for the summer. Three years later she says it’s the most fun she’s ever had. “I keep thinking I should quit but there’s no reason to and it’s really fun. I like the challenge of working with people and racking my brain for how I can illustrate a word. I like the interaction and all the weird requests.”
The spoke cards have now been documented in 85 cities around the globe, from Helsinki, Finland (where each of about 20 messengers received a spoke card) to Auckland, New Zealand.
For details on how to request the Cherokee Spoke Cards and to see the list of words and cities included to date, visit America Meredith’s website at www.ahalenia.com/cherokee
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