Library classes aim to make beading accessible in Maskwacis

March 26, 2024 Canuck

Beading classes at the Maskwacis Public Library might be focused on teaching the basics now, but students are preparing to use those skills on some big projects — including their own regalia.

Maria Buffalo, library co-ordinator, said she is honoured to teach contemporary beading through free sessions at the library in Samson Cree Nation, about 90 kilometres south of Edmonton.

Beadwork is often — and rightly — expensive, according to Buffalo, who has her own beading business. Still, she also worries that the costs are too steep for some people to ever access it.

These workshops, she said, teach people an important part of their material culture and lets them access crafts if they may not be able to afford supplies.

“Everyone is entitled to bead and everyone is entitled to tell their stories,” she said.

Maria holds out her arms demonstrating the length of thread needed for a brick stitch. — Maria Buffalo says she hopes to continue teaching classes at the Maskwacis library. (Craig Ryan/CBC)

Although her own journey with beading began in her women’s lodge when she was 11, it was some time before she took up the practice more seriously.

While she was at university and homesick, Buffalo began to bead to work through her emotions.

“Beadwork was like for me a way to ground myself and fully embody the things that I need,” she said.

Now, she’s teaching others. The classes at the library are the first Buffalo has run and facilitated on her own.

“For me, it is very humbling,” Buffalo said.

Participants hope to make regalia

Both of Tania Lightning’s parents were fancy dancers as well as beaders, and made headdresses and warbonnets.

She had some prior beading experience but she decided to take it up again after her family rediscovered a half-finished piece of regalia her grandmother started 20 years ago.

“It’s going to be hard to finish,” she said. “But I’ll get there.”

The lessons from Buffalo at the library will hopefully help, she said.

A close up image of hands carefully cutting the leather around the edges of a beaded red and yellow flower.

Since Lightning’s grandmother was from Devils Lake, N.D., she plans to combine the Dakota and Cree beading styles together on the dress.

“[I’ll] be proud of myself to be finally finishing that outfit.”

At the brick stitching lesson in the library, Lightning was quick to pick up the technique and get to work on her earrings.

Once she’s got the rest of the skills she needs to finish the dress, Lightning also plans to start fancy dancing.

A beaded purple skull medallion and a red and yellow beaded flower. — Nathaniel Bruno made the flower during the first class taught by Maria Buffalo which then inspired him to make more pieces. (Samantha Schwientek/CBC)

Nathaniel Bruno took what he learned making a five-petal flower in the first class to copy a medallion he saw on social media and create a couple of his own designs.

Like Lightning, he hopes to make his own regalia someday.

So far, the library has hosted two classes for 10 people each session. Some participants, like Bruno, have turned out for both and plan to come back for more.

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