[MUSIC] Indigenous arts are a potent way of presenting, representing and passing on knowledge. With contemporary Indigenous art, we understand that the past is always present. Indigenous artists today push the boundaries with new art practices and materials, while still retaining and passing on cultural, spiritual, and historic knowledge. The idea in Indigenous art, the past is always present, is exemplified in beadwork and beading. This art medium, still practiced today, has been around for thousands of years on North America. In fact, the oldest known bead from North America was found in an archeological site at Tule Springs, Nevada. This bead, made of white caliche, is a sedimentary rock made of hardened calcium carbonate and is believed to date back to 11,000 BC. Although each Indigenous group created and decorated objects that were specific to their beliefs and customs, each had a great appreciation for beads. While the majority of beads that were used were made from the materials found locally, Indigenous people sought out imported stones, shells and bone to make rare beads. In some tribes, fashioning and working with beads was a sacred task. Long before glass beads arrived on North America, Indigenous people used both non-glass beads and porcupine quills, either plain or dyed. Quill and beadwork were the primary way that many Indigenous peoples of the Plains, Woodlands, and West Coast decorated everyday and special occasion items, such as cradles, log carriers, chair seats, clothing, and boxes. Quillwork is especially time consuming and requires great patience and meticulousness. Usually quills are collected from porcupines during the first months of the year. In fact, one porcupine can provide up to 30 to 40,000 quills. Porcupine quills are gathered in three ways: from ones that are killed for food; from porcupines that are harvested by throwing a blanket on the back of a slow moving porcupine; or today, quills are sometimes harvested from porcupines killed on the road by vehicles. Examples of quillwork have been found from Newfoundland to the Yukon Territory. The earliest known quillwork was found in Alberta and dates back to the 6th century. The Mi'kmaq was often referred to as the Porcupine People due to their skill and intricate quillwork. Both traditions of quillwork and beadwork continue today in a multitude of creative and imaginative forms. We will share the work of three Indigenous artists, who use quill and beadwork to create beautiful works of art. Yvonne Walker Keshick, an Odawa artist uses knowledge passed down to the generations to create porcupine quill and birch bark boxes. Many people see Indigenous quill and beadwork as beautiful works of art. And yet, not many people know that beadwork often functions as a means of communication. Bead and quillwork often told a story that could be deciphered in the materials and the designs used. Generation to generation, parents and grandparents used beadwork to illustrate stories, and pass on knowledge. This ongoing collective consists of the language and cultures of past generations and acts as a communal language that is shared within each of our communities. Teri Greeves, like Yvonne Walker Keshick, is a contemporary artist who uses traditional materials, but employs a contemporary flair. At Kiowa Indian, Teri began beading at eight years old. She was raised on the Shoshone and Northern Arapaho Wind River Reservation in Wyoming, USA. With encouragement and support from her mother and the women in her family, Teri has taken beadwork to a whole other level. Like many artists, she brings the past and the present together with her lived experiences. While some artists’ work, like Teri and Yvonne, relay critical cultural knowledge and ensure the continued vitality of traditional arts, other artists like Nadia Myre, demonstrate how some beadwork functions as a way to comment on social realities and events. Myre is of Algonquin ancestry and a member of the Kitigan Zibi Reserve in Maniwaki, Quebec. Her work, entitled Indian Act, consists of all 56 pages of the federal government's Indian Act mounted on stroud cloth and sewn over with red and white glass beads. Each white bead is sewn on a stroud cloth and replaces one letter in one word. While the red beads replace the negative space. Over four years between 1999 and 2002, the artist asked over 200 friends, family, colleagues and even strangers to help her bead over the Indian Act. Not only were others enlisted to help bead, but workshops, beading bees and presentations were also organized. This shared community of work speaks to the realities of colonization and to the lasting effects of Indian Act policies. Enlisting others to help and attaching workshops and presentations to the work speaks to the power of community. The practice of beading becomes politicized as an art form. These beading and quill working artists continue to celebrate traditional forms of Indigenous art, but are also managing to incorporate contemporary materials and ideas. Indigenous art has gone through incredible transformations since the arrival of settlers over 500 years ago. Not only have Indigenous artists maintained culturally distinct art forms and content, but Indigenous art has also become a site where Indigenous resistance flourishes. In a realm where settler colonialism continues to insist on the appropriation and subsummation of Indigenous voices, more than ever, Indigenous artists are utilizing a diversity of art media and materials to re-inscribe an Indigenous presence in the arts. Earlier lessons discuss the effects of colonialism on many aspects of Indigenous peoples’ lives. This section shares some examples of the influences of colonialism on Indigenous art. Since contact art of Indigenous peoples has been coveted, appropriated, misinterpreted, bought, sold, stolen and even destroyed. For instance, when explorers, fur traders and missionaries arrived on the West Coast, they were captivated by bold abstract designs of the Indigenous North West Coast people. Explorers like Captain Cook and Captain Alejandro Malaspina collected many items that they deemed mysterious and exotic from the North West Coast, demonstrating a fixation that is still evident as these curiosity pieces continue to sit in museums and collections in Europe. Items like bentwood cedar boxes, that were originally created for practical purposes, to hold items such as food, instruments, tools, clothing, and ceremonial objects were coveted by missionaries, explorers, and travellers for their great aesthetic and exotic appeal. During the latter part of the 19th century, the establishment of anthropological studies encouraged the classification and study of art objects produced by the Indigenous peoples of North America. Through the European lens of the colonizer and with a minimal understanding of the meanings, Indigenous art objects were studied and classified outside their cultural contexts. Classified and labeled, Indigenous art objects where seen as identifying markers for the evolution and progress of Indigenous peoples. Indigenous art objects became identified and documented as primitive, as opposed to European art, which was civilized. [MUSIC]
