The Meat and Potatoes for Métis Gatherings

The sliding glass doors at the MacKenzie Art Gallery opened with eagerness to welcome attendees to the Radical Stitch: Beading Symposium, hosted in partnership with the Shushkitew Collective.¹ As beadwork artists entered the building, they were greeted by a spinnable display of enticing beads, a table of hides, melton cloth, kokum scarfs, and other traditionally used materials for sale by His Bead Store. I shopped, of course, and walked away with a meter of lucious, navy blue melton cloth and an assortment of beads. While at the till, the owner looked at my name tag and said: “you know… I think we’re cousins… who’s your dad?” I laughed; this was bound to happen at some point today.

5 Steps to host a great gathering:

Step 1: Give people time to visit and ask each other who their daddy is. That’s relationship building.

Step 2: Bead shopping.

Step 3: Have a bannock and tea station immediately after the bead shop.

Step 4: Welcoming the attendees of the symposium in a good way.

Step 5: Applying the Métis Kitchen Table Method.²

Elder Barb Blind was invited to open the symposium with prayer. She came with her grandchild who had us all entertained. We watched the next generation together, collectively understanding that this child is growing up knowing their Indigenous identity and is going to be proud of it: a symbol of hope for how our next generations will be. For a moment, we all seemed like cousins. Everyone was laughing and sharing smiles or baby coos with our next generation, while she vigorously shook the box of tobacco that John Hampton (of the MacKenzie Gallery) offered originally to her grandmother, Elder Barb Blind, as a traditional practice of an offering. Laughter, kin, and gentleness were the perfect welcome.

After the warm welcome, we moved to the workshop portion of the event. There were four options to choose from: making a Beaded Needle Case with Jennine Krauchi; Quilling with Judy Anderson and Katherine Boyer; Hanging Amulet with Audie Murray; or Learning From The Grandmothers with Gregory Schofield. Because of scheduling, we couldn’t attend all of the workshops, so we were asked to rank our choices. It felt impossible to choose. I decided on quilling because that had been a desire of mine to learn for a long time, but also because Judy was Katherine’s mentor, and I wanted to witness their dynamic and watch how they care for one another while leading a workshop.

We were told stories of how to take quills from a porcupine without killing it, finding roadkill jackpots³, and the importance of quills for the animal’s protection. Imagine tracking a porcupine down and, with one swift move of your blanket, successfully stripping quills off its back! That’s why the creator made those fearless ones, so that every community had their quill gatherer … just joking. With every story I am humbled by the practices that our ancestors held, and how in tune with the land their practices were. Every step of the creating process required skill, patience, and relationship to the land.

At lunch time we had to find a seat amongst the crowd of deadly beaders. I was drawn to the table where a past classmate, Sara McCreary, sat. My coworker Yasmin Dar and I approached the table, giddy from the workshop conversations. It felt like a breeze walking up to Sara and also introducing myself to Vance Wright, who was sitting with her. We immediately got into laughing conversations and drew in others. Marcy Frieson joined us, alongside Brenda Smith, and soon after sat Jessie Ray Short. We talked about materials and memories—and there was lots of joking around. I barely ate, I talked and laughed so much.

Often during post-pandemic events, attendees will begin to feel socially drained due to the over exposure to humans, and in the past, I’ve frequently fallen into that category. However, during this event I could not wipe the smile off my face. I walked into every room knowing it would be populated with Indigenous folk, Indigenous art, and a familiar energy that made me giddy.

Milestones: Shaping the Medium panel discussion was moderated by Michelle LaVallee, and she hosted beadwork artists Katherine Boyer, Judy Anderson, Ruth Cuthand, and Jennine Krauchi. They discussed how they came to beading; how their practices evolved; and how beading influences them, their beading community, and the wider contemporary art scene. As each artist reflected on their art practice, they directed gratitude to another panelist, recognizing the influence their relationship has on their art practice and how they care for one another in friendship, like bonded pairs. I was shown why working together, centering community and relationships as an artist, is crucial. It builds purpose, and purpose fulfills our sense of identity. To me, that was clearly one of the goals of colonization—to destroy Indigenous identity. When those three elements are together—purpose, identity, and art—it creates a depth to artmaking that produces meaningful and deeply influential art. You often hear Indigenous people describe things as medicine, because art is also healing. The excitement to sit down and share your works in progress and to bead together resonated with every generation of beader in the room. That is medicine. I first heard the term “Métis Kitchen Table” used by Sherry Farrell Racette to describe the ‘old ways’ of learning through sharing around the kitchen table. These practices included: eating, drinking, and (art)making, while offering peer learning, community building, and generational teachings. This theory is held highly by many Métis as a framework for discussing Métis methodologies and worldviews. I grew up around many kitchen table talks, discussing politics, the Métis Nation, family stories, recipes, lectures, and rambles. This way of being also lives in me. My memories of the kitchen table are fond ones from my childhood. I remember the kitchen linoleum where I’d lay to bathe under the light of the stovetop, used to light the kitchen. I was very eager to experience sitting at the table this time. The symposium looked like the table talk olympics, with several tables to sit or visit at. I saw beaders bending and stretched over tables to get a closer look at each stitch, seeing what colour palettes people use, and connecting over familial techniques. The technical skills required for beading intrinsically teach viewers about ways of being, identity, and beauty. Looking at beadwork offers a deep history of knowledge in the same way that books do, it’s simply in a different language—beads. Without the beading circle portion of the symposium, discussions and teachings would have missed the moments of deep conversation and connection, the kind that happen around the Kitchen Table.

The Radical Stitch Symposium utilized a common Western approach to a conference, set up to support networking and showcase research. However, it did not feel restricted by who you knew going into the day or if you participated in the research. This symposium was special. I felt that my voice was welcomed, and I had familial beliefs that were represented in the space, because of the care of a platform that made space for Indigenous ways of being to be expressed freely. Indigenous worldviews see the person (physical, spiritual, emotional, and intellectual) as interconnected to the land and in relationship to others. The Shushkitew Collective’s influence was important as their work is embedded with the michif word Manâwewin,⁴ “to hunt, to gather eggs.” They attributed Métis knowledge systems (practices) as the most important exchange of the symposium for feeding attendees with resources and care in order to further inspire sustainable action from both an individual and institutional level. I believe this is why my typical anxieties around conferences and symposiums were never present at this event. I knew the framework of events through familial knowledge and did not feel imposed to aggressively network and capitalize on each interaction as an “opportunity to further my position.” Instead, they followed five steps, which aligned with Indigenous ways of knowing and being and applied that knowledge within colonial systems structured into work dynamics to succeed in both realms.

This symposium will inform the way I plan gatherings in the future; hopefully, it will do the same for others who attend.

Step 1: networking (or as I call it, cousin collecting), a space to build relationships.

Step 2: somewhere to attach a material memory to the event, which could be seen as the gift shop or merchandise sales during other symposiums.

Step 3: refuelling station.

Step 4: a warm welcome, and;

Step 5: the beading circle, representing the symposium workshop/speaker component.

The future of Indigenous gatherings in colonial spaces is brighter with the thoughtfulness and collaboration that went into planning the Radical Stitch Beading Symposium.

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Feature Image: Detail of porcupine quills being prepared for Quilling Workshop with Judy Anderson and Katherine Boyer. Courtesy of Holly Aubichon.

Image Description: A workshop participant watches as porcupine quills are prepared to be worked with. Two pots sit on top of a portable stove, and in the foreground, porcupine quills sit in piles on two paper towels.

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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. Shushkitew Collective formed in 2020 with the goal of advancing Métis self-determination and flourishing in the arts through forms of gathering, knowledge sharing, research and advocacy. The founding members of Shushkitew Collective are Jason Baerg, Rhéanne Chartrand, Tarah Hogue, Jaime Morse and Dr. Michelle McGeough.
2. Métis Kitchen Table Theory is the practice of learning through sharing around a kitchen table while eating, drinking, and making from an Indigenous (and specifically Métis) worldview. This practice is not expressly Métis – or even Indigenous – as many non-Indigenous communities gather in similar ways. However, Métis Kitchen Table talks are focused in Métis methodologies, and work from Métis worldviews. (Cathy Mattes & Sherry Farrell Racette, Métis Kitchen Table Talk on Methodologies of Making, Ociciwan Collective, Sunday March 24, 2019.
3. The jackpot that Judy Anderson tried to stop for on her drive to the symposium was for a porcupine that had been hit on the road. For roadkill jackpots, travel with a blanket to extract the quills. However, the technical maneuver is not my teaching to share.
4. “Manâwewin, a Michif word that translates to ‘to hunt, to gather eggs,’ is the name of Shuskitew Collective’s three-year initiative (2021–23). This initiative is intended to lay a groundwork of collective knowledge and understanding that will inform the advocacy and actions of Shushkitew into the future. We engage with the concept of manâwewin to speak to the precious resources we need to sustain our bodies, our communities and our creative spirit.” Shushkitew Collective, “Shushkitew Collective.”