Métis artist recreates great-grandmother's portrait in beads
'I feel like I've really gotten to know her through the process of making this art,' says Christina Lennox
It was a feat of determination, said Christina Lennox, who re-created a 1930s photo of their great-grandmother using 87,000 beads.
When Lennox was looking through a box of family photos at their grandfather's house in Richmond, B.C, there was one that drew them.
"Something about this photo in particular, really captured me," said Lennox, who is a member of the Métis Nation B.C.
Her Métis family comes from the Lockport area, about 26 kilometres outside of Winnipeg.
The photo was of Lennox's great-grandmother Annabella McKay crossing a street in Winnipeg in the late 1930s.
"She just seemed really playful and fun in the photo," said Lennox.
"From the stories I've heard about her, she was a very persistent and stubborn lady and for me, when I look at that photo, I really see that."
Those were traits possibly inherited by Lennox, who said they needed to be stubborn and resilient to complete the project, which took 10 months.
Lennox scanned the black and white photo and uploaded it into a software program that assigned each pixel a number that determined what shade of bead Lennox would need to use.
The beaded portrait is made up of many smaller pieces, like individual earnings, hung on a board.
"It wasn't necessarily fun to make," said Lennox.
"I often hear the stereotype that beading is so relaxing but when you're sitting in front of a computer that is reading to you in a digital voice numbers for eight hours a day, it's exhausting,"
But Lennox said there was joy in making it and it made them feel more connected to their great-grandmother.
"I know actually very little about her in reality, but I feel like I've really gotten to know her through the process of making this art," said Lennox.
Remembered by her son
Lennox's grandfather, Stewart Tait, remembers his mother as a kind and self-assured woman.
"She was basically what you'd call pretty free-spirited and not too bound by the conventions of the time," said Tait.
Tait said his mother once went on a road trip with a friend from Winnipeg to visit their husbands who were working on a construction site in northern Ontario.
That "simply was not done in those days," said Tait, who says he has pictures of the trip.
Tait said when he was young he had polio and was paralyzed for a while, and remembers his mother caring for him while he was sick.
"Things like that stick in your mind," said Tait, who is now 85.
His mother died when he was 15. Tait was raised in Manitoba but moved to B.C. 50 years ago.
Tait believes the photo of his mother crossing the street is from 1936 or 1937, because the licence plate on a car in the same batch of photos reads 1936. That would put his mother in her late 20s when it was taken.
He said when he looks at the artwork Lennox has made, and his mother's smile, it fits the image he has in his head.
"I have only pleasant memories of her," he said.
He said he is proud of the work and dedication Lennox put into making the portrait.
"It's wonderful," said Tait.
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