When I was a kid, we had no computers.
But did we have pixel art! It looked like this.

Pixel art is as old as the grid. Looking for old examples of the use of a grid, two disciplines come to mind: mosaic and weaving.

During a trip through Devon last month I stumbled upon some fine folk art. While entering a church, my eye was caught by colourful packages hanging between the benches like christmas presents. People bring their own cushion to church to make the praying on wooden benches easier on the knees. While in other rural churches those cushions were often covered by uniformous crotchetings (as if every grandmother had  been given the same obligatory pattern), the needlework in St. Pancras in Widecombe-in-the-Moor was far more authentic and varied. Beautiful colour schemes and patterns and the inevitable cross stitched alphabets… Say hello to Josie.