Between the Ruffles: Métis Storytelling

The group exhibition Love in Every Stitch: Métis Ribbon Skirts from Kistapinanihk was held at the MANN Art Gallery and featured stories from Métis artists currently living in Kistapinanihk (Prince Albert), Saskatchewan. Using material knowledge and textile messages, the artists participated in a six-week workshop and expressed their personal connection to their Métis identity through storytelling. The group was instructed by artist Leah Dorion, who encouraged participants to use lived experiences to inspire a personal narrative within their ribbon skirts. Dorion supported the group by sharing examples of such experiences in her own work and by highlighting the importance of recording personal history through what they make. The exhibition is a reminder that recordkeeping exists in the absence of ink and paper, it lives between the layers of our clothing.

Métis artists throughout time understood how vital it was to record their perspectives using the stitch, because European colonial systems punished ceremonies and gatherings where these teachings would be seen, taught, and celebrated. Stories woven into the fabric of their clothes rebelled against the European colonial glare, against corresponding records of false understandings of Métis ways of being and knowing, and against acts of assimilation that recorded the Métis identity as either a white or First Nations identity. Archival recordings of Métis people often came from non-Métis and non-Indigenous perspectives. Textbooks, museums, churches, and government agencies populate history with harmful and false understandings of Métis visual culture. Métis women and women in many cultures throughout history have used clothing and other commonly used textiles (like blankets) to represent a more fundamental recollection of writing history as it was happening: a social memory. They passed down social memories to recall a way of being and to pridefully display it on the clothes they made. Today, Métis artists like the participants in the workshop have seen the power of resistance that comes from recording stories of survival, using a visual narrative only familiar to some—familial patterns, passed-down materials, objects, and invented and revisited motifs. Even adding pockets to skirts can offer a resistance story by reinventing traditions.

The Métis adorn their families with beautiful stories of resilience in their clothing to make surviving feel a bit more glamorous. Celebration and the pride of getting through unthinkable hardship or dark times “their way” was a key message recorded through the ribbon skirts in the exhibition. Exhibiting artist Erin Dyck shared a personal story she stitched into the skirt which captured the resiliency of a Métis person. It was about a time during her life when she realized her desire of becoming a mother would be faced with biological constraints around birthing her children. She shared how she struggled with her situation, but told us that years later the moment came, and as she laid her eyes on the two girls she now calls her daughters, she knew that they were meant to be in her life.¹ She represented them and herself as small polar bears following a larger one. She recycled her wedding shawl to make the bears, offering an opportunity for her family to more deeply understand that they are safe and loved. This story is a central element to the skirt, but it isn’t the only one; there are more stories of resilient women in her life. The ruffles in the skirt function for Dyck as a tribute to matriarchy: the first (bottom) ruffle honours Mother Nature through a personal experience. She captured her awe of nature, using blueberry patterns and ribbons to tie together her love for nature and for her daughters, sister, mom, and herself. This ruffle glides across the tops of grass blades and bonds the wearer to the earth. The second ruffle is a grandmother ruffle. Looking closely at it reveals symbols that recall dark periods of her life. Deaths are represented by the pink and blue ribbon hanging vertically, fastened by two bear claw pins.

Creating art alongside other Métis people reminded me of a more traditional atmosphere, like sitting around the kitchen table where lessons were taught. Around the table, artists support each other’s personal breakthroughs, such as Dyck’s, engaging with all the challenges that accompanied that process. Throughout history Métis women have used storytelling through clothes and other textiles as a form of non-colonial record keeping of their own histories, and for a collective sense of pride. Addison McInnes, who was eleven years old at the time of the workshop, reflected on the kitchen table process; she shared with her table a story that honoured her connection to nature.

One morning I was soul singing, I heard a bird and paused to listen. All of a sudden a coyote howled a response from across the road. I continued to sing and the coyote matched with a harmonious howl. This continued—a joined song—until the school bus came. It howled a final time to say “goodbye” and scampered deeper into the bush.²

She acknowledged the connection she felt with her ancestors calling her to protect the earth when they reached out to her through song. She used passed-down knowledge, such as listening to animal kin, in order to illustrate her skirt. This provides the viewer with an ancestral story on colour symbolism, an offering that each exhibiting artist was intentional about including on their skirts. She shared that the pink, white, and green northern light patterns that make up the body of the skirt connect to her personal story, with the pink symbolizing youth, white for the creator, and green for the earth. She’s connected to an ecosystem. The coyote appears on the skirt and symbolizes “the voice of the wild,”³ which I suspect is a symbol of McInnes herself. As the youngest participant, Addison learned the importance of creating work in a good mindset by taking her time, smudging, taking breaks, and participating in laughter sessions with the group, feeding her spirit.

These historical practices, such as the ribbon skirt, are part of a tradition of storytelling. As these methods are woven into contemporary Métis art, they carry that tradition forward, reviving it as well as reinventing it. These pieces are worn to share stories of pride, mark awards of accomplishments, and reflect on hard times. Generations of knowledge can be told through social memories. Although the majority of participants had not used a sewing machine prior to completing the project, they all knew the tradition of storytelling; As they sat and sewed together, they wrote their records, a social memory—like the good ol’ days.

Holly Aubichon investigates topics of urban Indigeneity and how ancestral knowledge carries through memory, land, and body through forms of painting, writing and curation. She identifies as Métis, Cree and mixed European ancestry, born and raised in Regina, Saskatchewan. Her Indigenous relations come from Green Lake, Meadow Lake and Lestock, SK. Aubichon’s practice is laboriously reliant on retracing familial memories and connections. She uses painting as a way to foster personal healing. Since July 1, 2021 as an extension of her practice, she has been in a traditional Indigenous tattoo mentorship with Stacey Fayant. Tattooing as a practice acknowledges the memories that bodies hold, supports healing, grieving and the revival of traditional tattoo methods. She graduated from the University of Regina in 2021 with a BFA, minoring in Indigenous Art History. Aubichon was the Saskatchewan recipient for the 2021 BMO 1st Art! Award. Aubichon is the current Artistic Director for Sâkêwêwak Artists’ Collective Inc.

1. With additional context from exhibition text provided by Erin Dyck.
2. Exhibition artist statement provided by Addison McInnes.
3. A symbolic phrase offered by Addison McInnes.