NWT Arts

I am an Indigenous artist from Deline, NT, with a love for beading traditional goods. My parents are from the Sahtu and Tlicho regions of the NWT. I learned how to make basic stitching and patterns when I was younger from my grandma and my mom but it wasn’t until the pandemic hit that I got back into the routine of beading again. My mom knows how to make traditional clothing such as moccasins, mitts, and vests, that has a floral beaded patterns (she created) with fur on it. My dad also creates art too by making drums from caribou or moose hide, antler and hide scrapers, which all have some sort of floral designs or symbols of great bear lake on them (which he draws, & carves it by hand). Because of them both I was able to make my own style of beading by making earrings with moose hide and caribou antlers. I am still learning how to put together beaded uppers, with the help from my mom and make mitts too. It might look easy, but it's not! There’s days when my hand cramps sometimes from beading, as it takes delicate work onto thick moose hide.

Without my parent’s creativity, I wouldn’t be where I am today with my beaded earrings, they are such a big inspiration to me as an artist. My younger sister also started beading the same time I did, her beaded flowers are perfect. She'll take all her beading apart if the result doesn't look good to her, and she'll do that over and over if she has to! We both love to bead flowers most of the time, as the bright colors make a beautiful pattern. My signature piece of jewelry is my half-flower beaded earrings with rabbit fur poms attached to them.

There’s different types of beading and stitch style, such as delica and round beads, flat stitch and brick stitch beadwork. I usually work with pastel colours, like lilacs and pinks. And shades of Spring colours are my favourite! I also take time to hand-dye all the rabbit fur that I use, and although I don't trap the rabbits myself, I always buy them from other indigenous artists and trappers.

The moose hide that I use all comes from my grandma. She gives me all the scrap pieces that I incorporate in my jewelry pieces since I don’t need a big piece of hide. At her house, during the summer, which is overlooking the lake in Behchoko, you can always find multiple hides in various parts of the tanning process. Some are soaked, getting smoked over the fire, being dried or my grandma scraping it. I don’t know how she keeps up with the workload, it seems like a lot of time to process it. She’s a strong woman.

I feel like beading is a self care practice as it promotes spiritual and a healing practice. It’s almost like my body and mind are meditating when I focus on creating a beading pattern on my earrings. It helps me feel more relaxed and calm when I finish a pair. I’m glad I got back into beading, i never felt more connected to my ancestors and culture. I’m blessed that I am gifted this knowledge that has been passed down for generations, if it weren’t for my parents, I wouldn’t be able to pass down to the next generation.