Whitehorse gallery exhibit shows off beauty and artistry of beaded earrings

Nine.

That's the number of times the word "bougie" was used in the Yukon Legislature on Wednesday, as MLAs from all three parties paid tribute to Teagyn Vallevand's first show as curator of the Hudę Njú Kú gallery in Whitehorse's Kwanlin Dün Cultural Centre.

The show, which opened on March 14, is titled My Big Bougie Beaded* Earrings.

"I put … an asterisk because we didn't always use beads," Vallevand said. "We utilized other resources that are Yukon First Nations-specific."

Those Yukon-specific resources included home tanned hide, fish leather, porcupine quills, shells, foxtails, whale baleen, and at least five different kinds of fur, which were all found in the earrings at the gallery — along with modern seed beads, copper cones, commercial hide, sapphires, rubies, vinyl and rhinestones.

"I just love being able to learn and work with our traditional art styles," Vallevand said. "And then also, as an artist, playing with, 'What does contemporary Indigenous artwork mean?'"

Vallevand is a Kwanlin Dun citizen. In addition to being a curator, she is a beader, weaver and carver. She said she was was blown away by the interest in her first exhibit. Expecting to receive around 20 sets of earrings, she ended up getting 53 submissions from artists across the North.

"Yukon First Nations artisans went hard," she said.

Twenty-one pieces ended up on the gallery walls, but Vallevand didn't want to leave the others out. 

Instead, she added a retail element to the show. The earrings that didn't make it to the main exhibit are displayed in glass cases, and are available for sale.

"I feel like as an Indigenous artist, so many of us have made earrings," Vallevand says. "I know for myself as an artist, a couple of times I would sell earrings to make a couple extra dollars here and there to help support myself."

Many placards in the gallery shared stories of how beadwork connected the artists with their communities, their cultures and their ancestors. Many of the artists learned to bead from their grandmothers, great-grandmothers or uncles, and are now passing the skill on to future generations. 

Vallevand said beadwork can also be a survival skill, with women selling their work to help provide for their families. 

"I wanted to honour that," she said.