Folk artist-in-residence explores bead work of her Indigenous ancestors
KITCHENER — Naomi Smith has a special relationship with beads.
There is something about the texture, the colours, the sense of history when she looks at the beaded items created by her First Nations ancestors. That sense of history is particularly strong when she looks at the bags in her collection, several of which date back to the early 1800s and are still brilliant in colour and design.
“From an Indigenous perspective, we don’t have a word for art. That’s why we needed to make everyday objects beautiful, embellished everyday objects,” said Smith, an artist from Chippewas of Nawash Unceded First Nation on the Bruce Peninsula.
She is Schneider Haus’s 2018 folk artist-in-residence.
“Some bags were made for honour gifts. They could take two years to make,” the Erin resident said. “Men would often wear two bags across their body.
“A lot of Indigenous work has stories told through the patterns used and the colours.”
The exhibit, “Baggage: Carrying on Between Two Worlds,” includes her own work as well as a collection of rare historic pieces. It opened at the museum Thursday night and continues until Sept. 3.
It includes quill-decorated birch boxes, each one depicting the stories, symbols and spiritual beliefs of the Ojibway people.
Smith did not grow up in her native culture, having been one of thousands of Indigenous children taken from their parents in the Sixties Scoop, a governmentsanctioned practice that led to children being fostered or adopted by non-Indigenous families. Smith said she was born in Kitchener to a single mother and was taken when she was about eight weeks old. She was 28 when she was finally able to obtain her birth records and reunite with her birth mother, also an artist.
“It took child services 10 years to get my file,” said Smith, who reconnected with her birth mother, eventually learning of her First Nations heritage and finding a common spirit in her artistic mom.
She considers herself luckier than most Indigenous children who ended up in foster care and bounced from home to home. Smith was adopted by a nonnative family who were kind and felt it important that she explore her heritage. They were consistent with the message that she was different and special.
Always an artistic kid, Smith first tried beading at age seven. Though the end product was not exactly a thing of beauty, Smith found the feeling of working with her hands, and of continuing a tradition thousands of years old, deeply compelling.
Smith now operates Black Tulip Designs, running beading workshops. She is contracted by various school boards to teach children about Indigenous culture, particularly beading.
Smith said she tells the kids, who come from diverse backgrounds, to use their own cultural influences in their creative work, just as she does.
In her own work, Smith tends to let her heart guide her, never pre-planning or creating any sort of blueprint. She also loves to recreate works in her collection, to give her a better understanding.
“I never copy pieces, but I do use them as foundations,” she said. “I like to honour the past, but bring the artwork forward into a contemporary setting.
“I want to know how long it took, how much material was used. It’s a way to honour my ancestors.”