Beadwork portraits honour women in Métis artist's life

My name is Bhai Husen. I’m a contemporary beadwork artist. These are three hand woven portraits of matey women that I I really look up to. And then the one in the middle is my grandma. This was the very first one that I did. So it was a bit of an experiment, but I’m really proud of it. My grandma wasn’t really raised with her culture either. So it’s not like our family has, you know, ancestral bead work that we’ve inherited. It’s not like we have a ton of that material culture to rely on or that inspires us. So I like to think of these as kind of like our family’s new heirlooms. In a way, I’m a little old to start into that stuff, which makes me happy that they’re doing it because. As they learn, I learn, you know. This is a group show called Honoring the Work of Hands. So this is 7 different artists. All of us completed the Foundation mentorship program through Mahwah, which is mentoring artists for women’s art. As a younger girl I well until I was actually older and married. All the May piece stuff came up, you know. I knew where did my mother and father were born. And read, but never looked at it. There was no difference to me as you know that they were just my mom and dad and my aunts and uncles, you know? It’s sort of been a reciprocal kind of process. So I got into beadwork by kind of reconnecting with the culture, working at the Manitoba Meaty Federation, hanging out at the 2 Spirit Mitchell Local and then becoming a beadwork artist. I’ve had the opportunity to meet so many other amazing artists, so it’s really kind of a reciprocal process. I feel reconnecting led to beadwork and beadwork has led me to further reconnection. It’s an honor. Real honor. I I just it’s amazing that someone would take that many hours to do something like that. It’s. I’ll treasure it, you know.