Second Life: Taking Apart: To Bead Again
Three-part Workshop: June 17, 18 & 19
1-4 PM
Free!
Beads have been used for thousands of years by cultures around the world, carrying social, spiritual, and aesthetic significance. Today, global trade and contemporary manufacturing allow beads to be produced cheaply, in vast quantities, and in a huge variety. These conditions differ greatly from the historical contexts of bead making and exchange.
Vanessa Dion Fletcher looks to historic practices to deepen her relationship with materials.
Before contemporary manufacturing and long‑distance shipping, beads were often precious, carefully reused, and layered with meaning. Drawing from these histories, Dion Fletcher examines how reuse functions both out of necessity and as a symbolic act. In this workshop, Dion Fletcher will guide a discussion on the reuse of wampum beads and seed beads, addressing both their material value and their cultural significance. Participants will then engage in a hands‑on process, deconstructing a piece of beadwork, either provided or brought from home, and repurposing the beads into a new work. No experience is necessary. Dion Fletchers has the most experience with seed beads; reuse of all beads is welcome.
For this workshop participants will be working with an existing beaded piece to deconstruct and reconstruct from participants own collection. Please bring in the pieces you wish to upcycle for the workshop.
Registration is free and prioritizes access-seeking, disabled, and underserved communities who are looking to build community and grow within the arts. The Textile Museum is committed to making this workshop accessible and barrier-free as possible. If you have already attended a Second Life Workshop, please consider opening space for new community members to access these free workshops.
About Second Life: Sustainable Textile Workshops
‘Second Life: Sustainable Textile Workshops’ is a series of free; sustainability focused workshops developed with the Textile Museum of Canada and contemporary local artists. The series converges ecological thinking with art-making opportunities for our community. Starting in January, each month, the Museum will bring in an artist who confronts the climate crisis by rethinking materials and reimagining textile processes, decolonial methodologies, and sustainable craft traditions. Together, artist and participants will reform reused materials to create new works of art through a variety of techniques. These textile-focused artistic mediums will include weaving, embroidery, crocheting, quilting, natural dyeing, felting, upcycled fashion, or mixed-media fiber practices.
Facilitator Bio:
Vanessa Dion Fletcher is a Lunáapew and Potawatomi nuro divers artist. Her family is from Eelūnaapèewii Lahkèewiitt (displaced from Lenapawking) and European settlers. Reflecting on an Indigenous and gendered body with a neurodiverse mind, Dion Fletcher looks for knowledge in materials and techniques. Since 2017, Dion Fletcher has used porcupine quills as a primary medium, creating two-dimensional quillwork pieces and expanding the medium through photography, sculpture and performance. Dion Fletcher teaches community workshops in quillwork, beading, and creative writing. Highlights include the Aanikoobijiganag Beading Symposium 2025, and with the Kinoomaadziwin Education Body. She has been working with classes grade 1 – 12 in the Toronto District School Board. She is a lecturer in Indigenous Visual Culture at OCAD University and has taught at McMaster University, and Toronto Metropolitan University.
She graduated from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2016 with an MFA in performance and a Bachelor of Fine Arts from York University in 2009. She has exhibited across Canada and the USA at Art Mur Montreal, Eastern Edge Gallery, Newfoundland, The Queer Arts Festival, Vancouver and the Satellite Art Show, Miami. Her work is in the Indigenous Art Centre, Joan Flasch Artist Book Collection, Vtape, Seneca College, Global Affairs Canada and the Archives of American Art.
In 2024, Dion Fletcher completed her first public art commission for the city of Peterborough’s Miskin Law Community Complex. Resonant Harmony is composed of three hanging rings painted with the visual texture and patterns of quillwork. Dion Fletcher worked with Matt Walker of Sculptural Trades Inc. on fabrication and design. The rings evoke balls, tracks, hoop dancing, and the earth as abstract forms that invite the viewer to see their experience with sport.
This program is generously funded by Canada Council for the Arts.
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