Running Fox Beads

I am a Toronto based artist. My parents are visual artists; my father is Dene from Patuanak in Northern Saskatchewan and my mother a fourth generation Canadian raised off-the-grid on Vancouver Island. I am part of the Residential School legacy, growing up with a shuffled but not disconnected understanding of who I am. At the age of 15 I visited my reserve for the first time. Off a dirt-road, in an English River First Nation rez home, my auntie expected me to help cut the meat off a moose my uncle had hunted. Being from downtown Toronto, the expectation was a culture shock and I refused. Resisting my urban teenaged reaction, my auntie sat me down and taught me to bead. There, I completed my first piece of beadwork using one of my Setsuné’s designs. The act was instantly healing, and a bond formed. This narrative resonates with many young Indigenous people and beyond; when colonization has fractured cultural connections for many. 

In 2015, I invested in my bead practice full-time when my first son was born. Since I identify as a mother first, practicing my art is an act of survival, sustenance, and connection in the same way it is to carve a moose and teach one's niece to bead their Setsuné’s designs.