Traditional Beadwork Designs Transferred to Fabric

Delina White is an enrolled member of the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe, Minnesota Chippewa Tribal Nation. An award-winning artist, Delina learned to create functional art — apparel and accessories such as moccasins, bags, and garments — using the traditional methods and designs reflective of the natural surroundings of the woodlands. She specializes in creating her own fabrics from her original beadwork designs. Her work mixes traditionally Indigenous materials with contemporary fabrics.

Delina is a 2020 First Peoples Fund Artist in Business Leadership fellow, residing in Walker, Minnesota.

Birchbark, wampum, shells, pearls, gemstones — Delina makes her material selections carefully. Indigenous materials that touch the heart. Blends of old and new, traditional and contemporary. The materials not only go into making a unique piece of jewelry; they serve a secondary purpose ever since Delina expanded her beadwork by using those beaded designs to create her own fabrics.

When her mother passed some years ago, Delina was left with the task of sewing regalia for the family. Sewing wasn’t something she had focused on, but circumstances forced her to learn. She started with ribbon skirts, bringing what she made into the everyday lives of her family. It led her down a new path that morphed into fashion shows and education.

“My work re-tells stories of the people who live on the great fresh waters, within its forests among the once bountiful fur-bearing animals,"

“My work re-tells stories of the people who live on the great fresh waters, within its forests among the once bountiful fur-bearing animals,” she says.

Delina enjoys doing beadwork for medicine bags, pipe bags, handbags, and bandolier bags, but had gotten away from those pieces for a time. She began looking at ways to bring her beadwork and sewing together.

“I wanted to do something contemporary, and to incorporate our traditional materials because I have an affinity for textures,”

“I wanted to do something contemporary, and to incorporate our traditional materials because I have an affinity for textures,” she says. “I use digital printing to create fabrics from photographs of my handmade beadwork on traditional velvets of the Great Lakes, and hand-tanned smoke hide. I use the fabrics to make apparel that is worn in today’s environment.”

Delina is using her First Peoples Fund Artist in Business Leadership funds to expand her art business, “I Am Anishinaabe.”

“I can either create a garment that is a replica showing this is how we dressed, or I can make it in contemporary clothing using my beadwork, which is the cultural foundation piece,” she says. “There has to be that foundation of my culture. I am inspired by the ancestral arts of my people, and contemporary works of all Indigenous people.”