A group of Walpole Island youth are learning the art of ‘beading.’
They are also set to have their creations put on display.
Rhonda Longboat was successful in applying for an aboriginal community educators grant through the Ontario Arts Council. This has allowed her to bring her idea to the First Nation reserve.
“I’m teaching a total of 32 youth at the Walpole Island school ‘beading.’ I’m teaching them a specific stitch, it’s a universal stitch called the peyote stitch. The reason I’m teaching that stitch is because it can be used to do basically anything from your pow wow outfits, or your ceremonial regalia, to something that you want to bead and sell. It could have an economic base as well.”
Longboat has been teaching the kids since the beginning of February at Walpole Island Elementary School twice a week during the after school program.
“Each youth is going to be making a healing stick,” Longboat said.
“This healing stick is something that I developed in 2009. You can think of it as an ‘Indian stress ball.’ It’s a stick beaded… you roll it between your hands and it massages the pressure points in your palms, which in turn effects the organs in your body. It helps with a lot of things from arthritis to ADD. This stick is now all around the world.”
Longboat said once the kids bead the stick they are planning on taking individual photos of them to be included in an art exhibit.
Longboat said she is planning for the exhibit to run for two weeks at Walpole Island Elementary School and two weeks at Wallaceburg District Secondary School through the native studies program.
Longboat said this is the first grant she has received, but she is hoping to run other similar programs in the future.
Watch for more on this story in the coming weeks.
