Wearable works of art featured in exhibit at St. Albert museum
Adrienne Lamb, Rick Bremness | CBC News | Posted: July 28, 2018 2:30 PM | Last Updated: July 28, 2018
'I’m hoping it’s not a dying art. I’m teaching my grandbabies to sit and bead and relax'
Michelle Tracy can't stop smiling.
"Beaded footwear has been a passion for me since I was a little girl, from my first pair of moccasins," Tracy says.
She remembers at 11 years old being fascinated by the huge flowers and beaver trim on her special shoes which were a gift from an uncle.
"I loved them. The smell was just so rich and wonderful and I had never seen anything like it before. I was hooked," said Tracy, an anthropologist.
Tracy has been collecting beaded footwear for decades and this month she's working alongside her husband and fellow anthropologist, Bill Tracy, to guest curate an exhibit dedicated to a century of Indigenous footwear in western Canada.
In Their Footsteps is expected to open on Aug. 21 at the Musée Héritage Museum in St. Albert.
- Exhibit of moccasins and traditional footwear offers glimpses of history, cultural identity
- The connection between traditional fashion, cultural footwear and modern identity
The Tracys narrowed the collection down to 107 pieces from more than 300 pairs of slippers, leggings, moccasins and mukluks from across Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and the Northwest Territories.
Bill Tracy says the goal of the exhibit is two-fold: "To show the history of native footwear and the other one, equally as important, that things are still happening, it's continuing to change and evolve."
Barb Morin, a teacher, grandmother and member of the Montreal Lake Cree Nation in Saskatchewan, is a part of that transformation.
The self-taught beader favours canvas sneakers over hide and fur.
"I'm hoping it's not a dying art. I'm teaching my grandbabies to sit and bead and relax," said Morin, who considers the work therapeutic.
Morin made a pair of blue and white beaded sneakers adorned with butterflies as a special order for Michelle Tracy.
"She was really happy when she got them, she phoned me and she cried, because I guess I nailed it. It's pretty cool," Morin said.
"It's just the pride of the beauty of the art. I'm so glad that somebody has an exhibit happening like that and that the recognition is there."
You can see more from the Musée Héritage Museum in St. Albert and the rest of the community on Our Edmonton Saturday at 10 a.m., Sunday at noon and Monday at 11 a.m. on CBC TV.