C/O Paige Porter

Local business owner Paige Porter is rediscovering her Indigenous heritage through her beadwork

Beading has a historical and cultural significance among Canada’s Indigenous communities as an art form passed down through generations. For Paige Porter, the Hamilton-based Indigenous beadwork artist behind House of Beads, it is a means of reconnecting with her heritage and carving out a cultural identity of her own.

Porter’s small business specializes in Indigenous beaded jewellery, accessories and custom commissions. Though beading is traditionally passed from parent to child within Indigenous communities, Porter’s journey to beading arose out of a self-driven search to learn more about her heritage. She is Haudenosaunee and Onyota'a:ka from Six Nations of the Grand River. As an intergenerational survivor of the residential schools system, Porter described feelings of disconnection from her culture within her family in her formative years. 

“Growing up, I didn’t know that much about my culture. Down the line, my family was afraid to acknowledge and speak the language. Over the years it died off, which is sad to say, but because of residential schools I know some older Indigenous people went through especially traumatic experiences and were ashamed of being Native. That’s how they were brainwashed. Being Indigenous, I grew up and had to learn about my culture myself,” explained Porter.

In her efforts to reconnect with her heritage, Porter became involved with the Hamilton Regional Indian Center, where she gained more exposure to resources and other Indigenous community members. She began beading in November 2019 to rekindle the traditional art form within her family, entirely through self-teaching and her own devices. 

“Beading is usually a tradition passed down generations and generations, but in my case, my family was never taught beading. I wanted to become the first-generation leader in my family . . . It’s not only for myself, but also so I can pass it down to my family and my grandkids — I can be that grandma that teaches them how to do it,”

Paige Porter

Porter began learning to bead through online resources and imitating designs, before beginning to create original designs of her own. The learning process has provided her with a sense of resilience and pride in her heritage.

Initially, Porter never saw herself as a business owner. Along her self-teaching journey, she began posting her work on Instagram. She started to amass a following and it was her mother who first had the idea to sell the art Porter had created. Her mother’s encouragement incited the transformation of her passion into a business, now with over 1,500 followers on her combined social media platforms.

Porter fondly recalled memories from the Together in Dance Festival at Mohawk College, which she attended as a vendor in February 2020. The celebration of diversity and multiculturalism was one of Porter’s first times presenting her work to the public. After the festival, Porter went on to collaborate with Sweet Peas Baby Company, a seasonal subscription box for parents of young children, where her bead art was featured.

“My products are handmade and take time. You're getting something that is authentic and handmade by an actual Indigenous person rather than Indigenous-inspired and when you support an Indigenous business, then you're also supporting the Indigenous community. When you go and shop in Canada, those proceeds go into Canada,” said Porter.

Beyond her bead art, Porter stressed the importance of bringing awareness to injustices committed against Indigenous peoples in Canada. She called students to action to educate themselves on Orange Shirt Day, Truth and Reconciliation Day and the missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls and two spirit.

Porter’s small business has helped her to build a bridge back to the Indigenous culture that was stolen from her and her family and her art is a reminder of the importance of Indigenous culture and legacies. 

Local artist explores Indigenous identity and resurgence with her beadwork

Art has long been a way for artists to create a space for themselves in a world where they feel one doesn't exist. It’s a way of carving out a tangible space to explore and reclaim who you are. For several Indigenous artists, including Kanien'kehá:ka beadwork artist Darien Bardy, art is an act of expression as much as it is an act of resurgence.

Bardy was born and raised in Hamilton. Growing up, she struggled with her Indigenous identity and history. She regularly faced racism and often had to act as if she didn’t know much about her culture in an attempt to avoid such encounters.

As she got older, Bardy became involved with a number of groups for Indigenous peoples, including the Hamilton Regional Indian Centre, the Aboriginal Health Centre and the Native Women’s Centre. It was through this work that she was first introduced to and became interested in beadwork.

Beading is a traditional Indigenous art form with a long history. The final pieces are considered a manifestation of the artist's good intentions. It’s also an art form that has gained a lot of attention recently for its prominence in projects supporting Indigenous resurgence.

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For Bardy, beading served as an important connection to her history and she didn’t expect it to grow into something more. People began to ask her where they could purchase her pieces, she made her Instagram page Beads in the Trap and things really took off. 

“It really just took on a different shape because at first I was like, “this is going to be my page for just documenting my beadwork journey and see how I'm improving over the months”. . . But then it just kind of turned into something bigger,” said Bardy.

“It really just took on a different shape because at first I was like, “this is going to be my page for just documenting my beadwork journey and see how I'm improving over the months”. . . But then it just kind of turned into something bigger,” said Bardy.

Now Beads in the Trap has almost 4000 followers and Bardy’s products sell incredibly quickly, often on the day she posts them. But even as her business continues to grow, Bardy’s personal connection to beading has not diminished. If anything it has grown and taken on a larger meaning. It is no longer solely about helping her connect to her own history and understand her identity, but it is also a way for her to help other Indigenous youth do the same.

“I describe it as Indigenous resurgence in contemporary colonialism because my stuff is not very traditional but I think it represents a lot of urban Native youth or Native youth in younger generations that don't necessarily conform to the traditional ways, but still are influenced by traditional ways,” explained Bardy.

This is seen even in the name of Bardy’s business, which is a reference to the Nicki Minaj song Beez in the Trap. For Bardy, these pieces are another way in which she reconciles the different aspects of her identity. 

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“In our culture, it's like when you're touching the beads…the good thoughts that are happening in your mind come out through your fingertips and into the beads. So while you're beading, you're literally creating a physical piece of your good thoughts and your good intentions. Those intentions and those good words and thinking good thoughts and wanting good things for whoever wears them – that’s in every single piece that I put out. So, even though my pieces aren't traditional looking . . . the intentions and the good mind is still behind it,” explained Bardy.

Bardy also sees her business as a starting point for conversation about Indigenous histories and resurgence. Especially because many of her pieces can be worn, people often ask her — or her friends and family — about them, creating an opportunity and an opening for these important conversations. 

“What I want people to get out of it is just a symbol of like, we're still here, you can be an ally to us by supporting Indigenous artists . . . [I want people to] walk away with a sense of we're still here. Indigenous people are still here and we’re still trying to figure out where to go from here. We're still trying to figure out what it means to be Indigenous in the world now. Now that we're not a targeted people all the time. Now that we actually have space to breathe and be who we are, who are we?” said Bardy.

"[I want people to] walk away with a sense of we're still here. Indigenous people are still here and we’re still trying to figure out where to go from here," said Bardy.

Brady’s art, the histories and traditions it merges as well as the conversation it encourages are very much an act of expression and resurgence on both a personal and a community level.