Cradleboard Beadwork Summer Crane Canvas Print

This is one of four beadwork pieces made for The Four Seasons Cradleboards. This piece will be inlaid into the top of a Cradleboard. Red represents summer. This is a Blue Crane. A 3 year old boy told me he had a dream about a Blue Crane and he insisted that I make the Crane Blue. I have completed two other pieces. The fall Cradleboard beadwork is black with an orange Maple Leaf. The spring Cradleboard beadwork is yellow with a Monarch Butterfly. The winter Cradleboard beadwork is white with a Cardinal. Each piece is ten inches in diameter.

I am an enrolled member of "the" Oneida Nation and a descendent of the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe. My mother taught me how to bead on a loom at the age of five. She taught me to include an intentional flaw in my beadwork to symbolize that we are all human beings and we all make mistakes. All my work includes an intentional flaw. I eventually taught myself the appliqué style of beading. I take thousands of tiny glass beads and sew them onto a variety of materials to make a statement not only as art but to preserve the history and culture of my ancestors. I make traditional and contemporary Native American beadwork. My beadwork is a story of beliefs, of art, of commerce. You can enjoy the beadwork as art but behind the art is a story....