Celebrating Indigenous Artists & Makers
Ramsey Kunkel - Artist/Photographer
Ramsey Kunkel is a Metis artist and photographer based in Alberta, Canada. He specializes in portrait photography and has taken photos for various local, national, and international clients.
Ramsey's work is on display and for sale at the library September & October.
Before Time - By Ramsey Kunkel
This piece was created for song "Mountain Song" by Sandra Sutter
Lisa L'Hirondelle-Gross - Maker
Moon Beadz
Okimawapiw Iskwew nitisiyihkâson . My Cree name is Boss Lady Sitting Woman. My birth name is Lisa L'Hirondelle-Gross.
I am Metis Cree/French. My father's family is from Buffalo Lake Metis Settlement and my mother's family is from the Lac La Nonne area and Papaschase Band. I was born in Treaty 6 territory and now reside in Treaty 7 territory. I am a wife, a mother and a kokum. I am also a Social Worker, Indigenous Birth Support Worker with Indigenous Birth of Alberta and a Kairos Blanket Exercise Facilitator with Kairos Canada and administrative support at Miskanwah.
Beading is medicine to me, as it was beading that helped me heal after experiencing grief and loss in my life. I get so much joy from beading and crafting and I would like to share that with you!
I create jewelry using the 2 needle technique for my embroidered pieces, as well as brick stitch and herringbone stitch. I have a variety of earrings that are beaded, wooden, and 3D printed. I also create vinyl crafts, shirts and bags. I also make wrapped wristlets, lanyards, hand sewn headbands and scrunchies. I have recently added resin pendants to my inventory filled with traditional medicines and flowers.
Miigwetch!
Email: MoonBeadz99@gmail.com
Laurisa Irwin - Maker
Eagle Spirit Creations
Laurisa sells various styles of beaded earrings from fringe to hoop.
Email: eaglespiritcreations@outlook.com
Francine Cunningham - Artist/Maker/Author
DemarcationLines
Francine Cunningham is an award-winning Indigenous writer, artist and educator. A graduate of the UBC Creative Writing MFA program, Cunningham’s work was shortlisted for the 2018 Edna Staebler Personal Essay, won the 2019 Indigenous Voices Award for unpublished prose, won the 2018 Short Grain Writing Contest, and she won the 2019 Lina Chartrand Award winner from Cv2 Magazine. She is a recipient of a Telus StoryHive Web-Series grant, and one of the 2018 Jenni House Artists in Residence in Whitehorse, YT. Her fiction has appeared on The Malahat Review’s Far Horizon’s Prose shortlist, in Joyland Magazine, The Puritan Magazine and more.
Her creative non-fiction has appeared in The Malahat review, and The Best Canadian Essays 2017 from Tight Rope Books. Her poetry has appeared in Poetry is Dead Magazine, Room Magazine, Hamilton Arts and Letters and more. On/Me is her first book of poetry and has been nominated for the inaugural BC and Yukon Book Award Jim Deva Prize for Writing that Provokes and the 2020 Indigenous Voices Award in Poetry. Francine has a book of short fiction forthcoming with Invisible Press in 2021.