Small Things: Beading Stories

Small Things: Beading Stories Artist Catherine Blackburn offers a hands-on beading workshop based on her very own Aboriginal Classics art series which explores themes of identity, language, and story. Participants will learn to bead on an unconventional medium, using teabags as story-holder. A tactile, meditative experience. This workshop will be offered on Sept 10, and Oct 8. Limited spaces, please register in advance. Workshop facilitated by artist-designer Catherine Blackburn. Catherine Blackburn, member of the English River First Nation (Dënesųłinë́), is a multidisciplinary artist and jeweller, whose common themes address Canada's colonial past that are often prompted by personal narratives. Her work grounds itself in the Indigenous feminine and is bound through the ancestral love that stitching suggests. Through stitchwork, she explores Indigenous sovereignty, decolonization and representation. Catherine Blackburn has exhibited in notable exhibitions including: Santa Fe Haute Couture Fashion Show, Vancouver Indigenous Fashion Week, Radical Stitch and Àbadakone. She has received numerous awards for her work, including an Eitlejorg 2021 Fellowship, a 2022 Forge Residency Fellowship, and the Sobey Art Award longlist 2023. Small Things: Tea, Teachings & Being Together is a series of creative workshops led by Indigenous and settler artists presented by Scadding Court Community Centre and Laboratory for Artistic Intelligence with the support of the Toronto Arts Council. Small Things explores the connections and relationships that emerge when people make something together, when communities gather in shared space, when we slow down enough to connect and journey together. Check out our calendar for other events! Subscribe to our newsletter to find out more about events like these in the future.