Your skin protects and houses the most vital parts of your body, it is your shelter and home.
I am inspired by how birch bark, the skin of a tree, is used as a material by First Nations and how crucial it was to their livelihood. My aim with these jewellery pieces is to explore and learn more about my own indigenous identity as a Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in First Nation while also bringing First Nation craft into a more contemporary space.
Through their resourcefulness, First Nations transform ordinary things into useful materials, functional objects, and beautiful ornaments. I identify with this evolution of materials as a jeweller, as we also take rough materials and transform them into something precious. The use of birch bark in my work symbolizes an historical exchange between nature and people, and the subjectivity of preciousness.
