The Story Begins
The traditions of the Ribbon Skirt belong to so many different Nations, but as a Métis woman I wanted to investigate and understand my own people’s connections and contributions to what we call the modern Ribbon Skirt.
My own Journey
One of the experiences I share with many Métis is a sense of displacement and a yearning to connect. As is the story with many Indigenous peoples, I grew up partially isolated from my traditions and larger family. My parents moved us from Northern Ontario as children to British Columbia, as it was the best choice for our family to pursue opportunity and have a fresh start in a new land, like so many Métis in history.
I was constantly searching for grounding in a land far away from my Grandmothers and the Grandfathers. My journeys and investigations into the traditional Métis arts has brought me a sense of wholeness in my identity and brought a strength to my voice. In learning and seeking the traditional knowledge surrounding beadworking, quillworking and other land-based skills and practices, I reinforce my connections to my family, my language and my community. I gain a greater understanding of the story of our people and their struggle by learning and passing-on skills and stories. I have earned a sense of confidence in my Métis identity by learning my place in my community. It has granted me the sense of belonging I have always be searching for.
I want to be able to share this method of self-investigation with other Métis people, and other nations, so that through the traditional arts, we may be able to find ourselves.
What is the Ribbon Skirt Project?
The Ribbon Skirt Project Started as Métis based in British Columbia to connect Métis individuals through the art of Ribbon Skirt making, history and shared traditions. From my own beadwork printed fabric made through my company Indigenous Nouveau, I created 100 Ribbon Skirt kits to connect members of our vast community. Through funding provided by The Nakaatchihtow Arts and Culture Project Grant and Métis Nation British Columbia, I was able to provide these kits free of charge on a nomination basis to those in our communities who would benefit most. I focus on individuals who have been isolated due to geography and circumstance, those who have not had the opportunity to buy or make their own regalia or Ribbon Skirts due to disenfranchisement and societal stigma, and those whose financial situations have made it difficult to engage in the traditional arts.
To date, through funding I donate through my business Indigenous Nouveau and the generous donations and support from you, I have been able to provide 187 Ribbon Skirt Kits free of charge to Indigenous people in a position to most benefit from the project.
The traditions of the Ribbon Skirt belong to so many different Nations, but as a Métis woman I wanted to investigate and understand my own people’s connections and contributions to what we call the modern Ribbon Skirt. I truly believe that this investigation into our common roots, roots that we share with the other Indigenous Peoples of this land, can only bring resolve, lead to understanding and dialogue and help to dispel lateral violence. This is more than just making Ribbon Skirts though. It is a research project. A community one. I want to use the traditional arts as a tool for personal and cultural reclamation.
This program is all inclusive and welcomes participants from all ages, genders, identities and financial situations within the Indigenous community who hold a tradition of Ribbon Skirt Making.
You can nominate a member of your Indigenous community or an individual in who could benefit from making their own Ribbon skirt, becoming part of an online sewing circle and learning about the history of the Ribbon Skirt in a multicultural Indigenous context.
This program in taking its first steps in becoming a community fixture and an opportunity for our members to share, learn and explore their identities through stories, history and traditional arts. As the program develops, I will have special guests share their experiences and elders and knowledge keepers participate to bring us all closer to self reclamation though building an arts-based learning circle.
All materials will be included to create a finished Ribbon Skirt with Indigenous Nouveau Fabric, online and PDF lessons, and access to the online community we are building.
(Access to a sewing machine is required.)
The Ribbon Skirt Project is currently open only to participants on a nomination and need basis. In the next few months it will be open to the wider community and kits will be available for everyone to purchase on a sliding scale model, for which I would gladly accept donations to support. I want to make sure that everyone who wants to connect in this way has the opportunity to do so.
To contribute in this way, please see the How to Participate page, in the pull down menu.
Honouring all parts of ourselves is a road to wholeness .
Some words on Métis self-validation.
In the search for validation and acknowledgment by society, many of us as Métis have been taught to justify our identities and our Indigeneity by disregarding the parts of ourselves that are not Indigenous. There is a pressure to speak ever softer about our Métis identities to avoid confrontation in a society that has been fed a Hollywood story of what Indigenous peoples are and what they are supposed to look like. This society does not understand the relationship between blood-quantum and oppression and the devastation that it spelled for the Métis from our beginnings to today.
Our identities as Indigenous individuals are often seen through a colonist lens. A lens that filters us for a purpose, to categorize us, define us, separate and demoralize us.
I truly believe this is a strong factor in our sense of displacement, especially in the west where we are disconnected from our home-land and cultural bases. We are a mixed people. By definition, we are a mosaic. We are whole people, but by holding certain parts of our heritages in higher regard than others, we create an imbalance in ourselves. We begin to see ourselves as less-than. As unfinished.
Being two different things does not make you less than. It makes you twice as much.
(Please read that again.)
The idea that being of mixed Indigenous and Settler descent, invalidates one or the other, is nonsense. The sense of completion and wholeness that I have found in my art comes from investigating, honouring and feeling all of my roots. They are to be celebrated, because they brought you here, for better or for worse. In my work you will see the traditional language of Métis, Cree, and Anishnaabe beadwork, quillwork and stitching, telling the story and singing the songs of where all of my peoples come from. You will see Sami hearts and repeating patterns in beads, and you will see Scandinavian and German and Scottish motifs told in quills. This mix is what makes all of us unique, and the idea that I would throw out a part of myself, just because it did not fit into someone else’s idea of being Indigenous, would hurt my heart.
We are Indigenous. We were made here. Native Grandmothers and Settler Grandfathers. This land made us.
We belong to this land. To the grasses. To the berries. To the buffalo. We belong here.
And in the creation of the Métis peoples, is where the Ribbon Skirt comes into the story.