Art

What started out as my “Art” page, has nearly become my “Mossbag” page. Traditional Metis people were known for the way that we covered everything from our clothing to our working tools to our baby carriers, with beaded, embroidered or quilled artwork. In fact, we were so easily identifiable by our art that we were given the name “The Flower Beadwork People” by our First Nations relatives. The baby’s moss bag is created to welcome the baby. It takes many, many dedicated hours to create, and is treated as an heirloom piece to be passed from one sibling to the next and then onto the next generation. These are functional items but certainly also art pieces with strong cultural connection.

Louis Riel is quoted as saying, “My people will sleep for one hundred years, and when they awaken, it will be the Artists that give them their spirit back.” What better way to do this than to raise our children surrounded by our art, music and dance! If feels apropo to me, to therefore include the Mossbags on my Art page.

My moss bags can be found in the Gabriel Dumont Institute Museum’s collection, private collections and at the Coastal Carvings Fine Art Gallery, in Coombes, BC. If you want to commission a moss bag, do allow plenty of lead time, as these are hand beaded and take many hours to create.

I invite you to enjoy the photo gallery below. Beyond the moss bag images are images of framed beadwork that I’ve done by special request. These are works of art that people have ordered so that they can display Metis art in their homes. The last images in the gallery are of the six foot tall Aboriginal Art Bottle that I created for Coca Cola. The design was one of fifteen selected from across Canada to be displayed in the Aboriginal Pavilion at the 2010 Olympics.

(To fully enjoy the gallery, click on the “Slideshow” and “Fullscreen” buttons at the bottom of the gallery.)