Voice
Voice is a way of making ourselves heard. The artworks in this section are each a protest, giving voice to Indigenous histories, stories, and contemporary experiences that settlers have tried to erase.
Adele Arseneau’s materials speak out her people’s history, while the mask she creates reminds us of the critical effect of COVID-19 on Indigenous communities across North America. Carrie Moran McCleary’s beaded judge’s robe speaks to the Indigenization of settler spaces like courtrooms, while also reminding us of how Indigenous people have a long history of fighting to protect their sovereignty through the judicial system. Crystal Lepscier’s work Save Her (Savior) draws attention to the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women epidemic, while also proposing that culture and community are powerful tools to fight the epidemic and engender healing. Monica Gilles-BringsYellow draws on old photographs to create her art, placing subjects rendered anonymous in settler archives in a new context, one of beauty, joy, and renewed connection. Meanwhile, Awanigiizhik’s Grad Fit celebrates gender non-conforming Indigenous fashion and the presence of talented Indigenous students in institutions of higher education.
Every Bead a Breath
2020
Moosehide, buffalo hide, hand carved yellow cedar, horsehair, antique abalone buttons, antique charlottes, miyuki beads, ocean jasper, hand woven arrow sash.
Nehiyaw & Métis
As an indigenous woman, I’ve largely passed through this existence feeling like I have no voice. Most of my art has been focused on creating around the endangered stories of others, to put them up on the proverbial soapbox, making them personable and real. It never occurred to me to tell my own story, with its roots so intertwined with this land now called Canada. All of my portrait carvings reflect this journey, with most of them only having the suggestion of a mouth. My hands do the speaking as they create the pieces I make. Using everything I am given, like my kohkoms before me. Appreciating the materials, and the memories they bring. Each piece is like a reflection, capturing a moment in my life. Beading my anxiety away, each bead a breath. Each stitch sewing me back into my culture, bringing with it remembering, intertwining me with my roots, making me stronger and more whole. Several elements come from family stories, the arrow sash - to remember how my family stood alongside One Arrow and his Nation before the territories became Saskatchewan and Manitoba. Buffalo hide to remember the bull taken at Pink Mountain where my father was Captain of the Hunt. Abalone buttons passed down through the family from mother to daughter, traded from the coast to the prairies and now returned. Horse hair and flower beadwork to honour my nehiyaw mother and my Métis father. Ocean Jasper and the blue palette - as air and water walk hand in hand and we cannot live without either. Everything has a place in this world, like beads - we do best when we are put where we can shine. It’s all part of a larger picture, this is how something small can impact something larger than ourselves. We all need to tell our stories, because someone out there needs to hear them.
Mistahi Maskwa
2021
Hand carved yellow cedar
Nehiyaw & Métis
In my research to discover photos of my family, I discovered that some of my relations stood with Mistahi Maskwa in the battle of Frog Plain. I have no photos of those relations but I did have a photo of Mistahi maskwa - Big Bear. So I carved this to remember my family and as a commission for a “bear” mask.
Save Her (Savior)
2020
Canvas, mixed media, acrylic paint, photo print, paper, and beadwork
36" x 36" inches
Little Shell Chippewa, Menominee, and Stockbridge-Munsee
This piece was created to invoke the idea that turning to culture can empower our Indigenous daughters to fight the epidemic of MMIW. It features my niece, who attended Menominee culture camp and engages in dancing fancy shawl at powwows. I understand this to be a connection to her relationships and responsibility as a Menominee youth, and dancing is one of her sources of strength. I have also included her fancy shawl outfit design on the background of the painting.
Beaded Judge’s Robe
Little Shell Chippewa
2022
Fabric, seed beads, thread
Striking florals cascade down the front of this robe connected by curling white vines. Turquoise tulips and purple wild roses edged in pink stand out in stark contrast against the deep black fabric of the robe. Artist Carrie Moran McCleary beaded the robe for a Native judge who serves in tribal court. She describes the powerful meaning behind this work: “To me, the courtroom, even tribal courts, are very colonial spaces. The concept of beading a judge’s robe, for a Native woman judge, speaks to the idea of decolonizing that space and reaffirming that we are still here.”
Fort Berthold Girls
Nahua, Huichol
2022
Resin, inks, and gold leaf on synthetic paper
18 x 24 inches
Three young Indigenous women, mid-laughing fit, stand in the center of this 3D collage. One is bent over with the force of her laughter, the hand of her companion resting on her back. Viewers can feel the laughter in their own cheeks as they look at the joy in the young women’s faces. Artist Monica Gilles-BringsYellow was drawn to this archival photograph because “it shows how Indigenous people actually are versus how they are portrayed. The three girls are absolutely laughing their faces off.” Gilles-BringsYellow’s remarks refer to the more stereotypical images of Indigenous people that populate settler art and media, which are usually infused with a deep sadness. Placing the laughing girls in a fantastical, abstract background, the artist creates space for them to exist in this laughter-filled moment, accentuating its beauty, and protecting them from the settler gaze that would deny them such vitality and dimension.
Grad Fit 2022: Contemporary 2S Gender-noncomforming fashion wear
2022
ermines, antique/vintage/modern beads, brass spots, dentalium shells, black cotton velveteen, and printed fabric.
70 x 50 x 1.5 inches
Turtle Mountain Chippewa
Based on a 1900s style Plains Chippewa war-shirt, Grad Fit 2022 combines the fashion styles of Plains Tribes’ T-dresses and dentalium capes with Woodland Tribes’ strap-dresses and men’s shirts. The frontside of the yoke is representative of 1800-1900s Ojibwe/Cree beadwork designs (found in strap-dresses, war-shirts, cuffs, and leggings), which fuses the transitional material cultures from the Woodlands to Plains cultural worldviews. The backside of the yoke is similar to the dentalium capes found all of the Northern Plains. The beaded rosettes and the negative space of the red biased tape, bottom hem symbolizes buffalo pound motifs. Other symbols referenced are: the Anishinaabe 7 grandfather teachings, 4 directions/seasons/stages of life, women’s and warrior’s teachings, water motifs, Ojibwe border designs, and otter-tracks motifs.
Awanigiizhik created their Grad Fit 2022 for personal gift and celebration toward recent graduation. This project is the second installment of a continuous larger series of Nehiyaw-Pwat Contemporary Gender non-conforming fashions. The aim for this series is to create, educate, and advocate for Two-spirit identity and fashion.
Crystal’s Moccasin Vamps
Little Shell Chippewa, Menominee, and Stockbridge-Munsee
2022
Brain tanned hide, beads, and thread
These vamps I created were intended for completion as moccasins for wear at my graduation from the First Nations Education Doctorate (FNED) program at University of Wisconsin - Green Bay in May of 2022. They were not constructed into moccasins in time to wear them on my feet at graduation, however, I did wear them as cuffs which I sewed on for the walk across the stage, when I was hooded to signify the completion of my Education Doctorate (Ed.D.). The design for these moccasins was important, and carefully selected. The central floral design is a common Ojibwe four part floral, which in this beaded design represents the four pillars or four R's of our FNED program - Relationships, Reciprocity, Respect, and Responsibility. As well, I included young plant designs to represent the wild rice plant, which is connected to my Menominee and Anishinaabe identities. The vamp itself was created on a brain tanned hide, which was a gift given to me from my bonus dad, his first attempt at the art of tanning. The significance of this gift was vital to the vamp design and represents that honoring of all of the work and time that went into the hide's creation.