Julia Tsetso
The smell of moose hide and sparkly beads are my earliest memories of craft. When I was 1 years old, I began to bead with my aunts and mom taught me how to use a sewing machine and how to read sewing patterns. This is my foundation in all that I make.
In 2002, I completed the Alberta College of Arts & Design's Ceramics program. When I make pottery, try to emulate birch-bark baskets. It is astonishing how a large rigid sheet of birch-bark is cut, folded and sewn together to make baskets that are round. I take clay, make a cylinder, and then alter it into a square bottom pot. I wood-fire my floral decorated pottery because I love the warm hues and blushes that the flames and ash leave behind.
I moved from the potter's studio to a sewing table with moose hide, beads and canvas. I have been making papooses, baby belts, hunter's cases, knife cased and wrench cases along the beaded items for my family. Sewing give me freedom to put my work down at a moment's notice and leave it until I can come to it; whereas clay dries and waits for no one.
Regardless of whether I am sitting at the potter's wheel or behind a sewing machine, I am at play and absorbed in creating. Creating objects with my hands, sewing sparkly beads and tanned moose hide makes me feel like a Dene Woman, This is why I love making crafts.