Kathleen Sawdo helps run a family business called Sister Bear Designs at Goods and Co. in Thunder Bay. They sell items such as beaded earrings and kokum scarves. Photo supplied by Kathleen Sawdo

By Jasmine Kabatay · CBC News · Thunder Bay - December 14, 2021

The holidays are here and that means spending time with loved ones, eating as much food that can be handled, and enjoying the lights and greatness that this time of year brings.

But one of the most important things about this time of year are presents. They can range from the latest tech or even luxurious makeup and bags.

But for beadwork or a handmade pair of moccasins would be just as nice. 

Handmade items from First Nation artists are something that many know of and admire, but are also items non-Indigenous people might be apprehensive to buy.

CBC Thunder Bay spoke with three First Nation artists about their perspectives of some of the best practices when buying from First Nations artists all year round, including the holiday season.

Kathleen Sawdo is from Sister Bear Designs, a family-owned business that has a storefront at Goods and Co. Market in Thunder Bay, Ont.

It's a family business, with items in her shop such as jewlery, mugs, kokum scarves, and even dried bison jerky.

Sawdo said her journey to get where she is now began when she was just a kid, learning from her grandparents how to make items. She was allowed to touch the beads and play with them carefully, and then slowly she was allowed to start creating things.

"We had to get to a certain level of beading before she would let us try to make earrings. So we always started with daisy chains and we had to make sure we got our attention [to detail] right."

It progressed from there, to the point where there is now a storefront for the business.

Sawdo says it was a huge decision to launch at Goods and Co. after doing craft shows and pow-wows, but Sawdo and her family decided to give it a try.

While the journey to get to their own storefront has been great, they still get questions about the pricing of their products.

What Sawdo wants people to know about the work they do, it's that a lot of time and work goes into making a handmade product, whether it be beaded earrings or a lanyard.

"If you're doing a peyote stitch lanyard you can be really fast, but that's going to take a few days. At a minimum, and for us, it typically takes a whole week to make that and if you're doing it well," said Sawdo.

"Yet they still want it for $60.  A week's worth of work for $60 is not a sustainable way," she said. 

Sawdo says if she's having a bad day or if something is going on, she will stop working on that piece until she's feeling better because they don't want that energy to be in it, which can also impact timelines and deadlines.

When it comes to the questions she gets from non-Indigenous people about purchasing her work for themselves, Sawdo said she confirms it's authentically made and that it's okay for them to purchase it.

"I've had some people who weren't sure [and asked] 'Is it OK for me to wear this?' I said it is jewelry, it is made to be beautiful. And if you're not Indigenous, it's okay to wear it. You're appreciating."

For as long as Joshua LeClair remembers, he's been working with his hands. With his grandmother and godmother, LeClair would be working on crafts and art as often as they could.

He creates woodland style paintings, and has created other items such as little birch bark canoes and Christmas ornaments. He says some might call it a business, but he doesn't really see it that way because he's been doing it for so long. 

In LeClair's work, he says whatever item he makes tends to have a piece of him included in the item.

"It's a lot more than just like painting but also talks about your spirit being included in whatever you're making," said LeClair.

Like Sawdo, LeClair said when people buy art from Indigenous people they get a piece of their spirit from whatever item is made. And because of that, he says the transaction for buying these items is different from a big box store.

"You're supporting a way of life. You're supporting even the 3,000 year-old worldview and 2021 going into 2022, this old ancient way is still here. Sure we live in this modern way of life, but these things are very important to us, my family, me," LeClair, said. 

When Cathy Rodger was a little girl, she remembers her grandmother having a store on the mountain where she would sell gauntlets, mukluks, and moccasins. She remembers seeing her grandmother make her income, and said she was always in awe of what her grandmother would make.

"When you walked into her house, the first thing that you smelt was hide. I thought she was amazing, she could make absolutely anything, and that's how she made all her money," said Rodger.

"But I was just in awe that she could trap animals, that she could prepare them and what she could create with her hands."

When Rodger got her first teaching job she moved to Nunavut, and said she was desperate to learn how to create handmade clothing and other items like they did in the North, so she did.

From learning the different ways of preparing hide in the North and the South and actually going out and getting the animal herself for her work, Rodger has become an expert when it comes to working with land-based materials.

When it comes to what people should know when buying Indigenous, she says the most important thing is to actually talk with the artist and find out more about them and what they used to make the item. She also feels that women's work is often undervalued, and for people to understand the work that goes into creating beautiful items.

"Not only are they making less than minimum wage, they are literally making dollars per hour. Anyone who is a professional artist who does not have another job at supplementing their life, they're not getting benefits, they're not paying into a pension," said Rodger.

"I feel that you have to factor that in when somebody picks something up and says, 'well, that's way too expensive.'"

And for non-Indigenous people that might be apprehensive, Rodger said to please purchase these items.

"If somebody is producing something. And they're selling it. That's an expression of their creativity, and it comes from their soul. You're honouring that artist and their work by purchasing it"

A lot of these handmade items aren't available in big box stores like Wal-Mart or Michaels craft stores.  

Many artists sell their work at pow-wows or at craft sales, much like the Aboriginal Fine Arts and Craft Sale which took place in Thunder Bay in November. 

Social media is another place where artists will sell their work, and LeClair even mentions a Facebook page called Thunder Bay and Area Indigenous Virtual Market where artists will post their work for sale.

Other places, such as Sister Bear Designs, will have their own website where they sell their items.

To see the original article and read related reporting, follow this link to the CBC Thunder Bay website. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/thunder-bay/first-nations-holiday-gift-guide-1.6284172