Instructor: Elizabeth James-Perry
Friday, April 25
10am - 4pm
1 session

Join Aquinnah Wampanoag Jewelry and Textile specialist Elizabeth James-Perry for a day of natural bead-making and fiber processing. Learn to spin deer sinew into cordage -once an everyday skill used to fashion bow-strings, fishing line and ropes. We will also craft soapstone and antler beads in different shapes and hand drill the beads using a pump drill. Soapstone is a dense soft stone that is gray, green or tan; the raw material was harvested by Native communities for generations locally and is useful for making everything from large cooking pans to adornment. 

2023 NEA Heritage award recipient Elizabeth James-Perry (enrolled Aquinnah Wampanoag) engages with Northeastern Woodlands Native cultural expressions, primarily in sculptural forms of wampum shell-carving from the Atlantic Quahog and beadmaking with its connection to identity and sovereignty, maritime traditions. The artist both wild-harvests and grows milkweed plant and shrub fibers for spinning and cultivates dye plants. She also designs Native Gardens including a Blue Shark Garden in Franklin Park. Following the 2020 traveling exhibit Another Crossing, the artist collaborated with Dutch designer Christien Meindertsma on a film looks at the beadmaking of Wampanoag shell carvers and Czech glass bead factories. Her artwork has been commissioned at institutions including the Museum of Fine Arts, Rhode Island School of Design Museum, and Allard Pierson Museum.