A Thread that Binds: The Story of Proud Wednesday

The first piece of beadwork that Jaymie Brygidyr made was a pair of earrings.

It was early in the pandemic, and her sister Keri had gifted her siblings beading kits by an Indigenous artist from Ontario. Their great-grandmother had been a beader, and while they didn’t have the opportunity to learn directly from her, they’d always been curious about the art form. The kit was a way to, for the first time, try it for themselves.

“They were just really, really simple earrings,” Brygidyr recalls. “I went rogue—I created my own pattern. I’m kind of like that.”

That might’ve been the first sign of a creative homecoming, because Brygidyr and Keri found that the kit sparked a deeper passion for the craft of beadwork.

“We started doing it and just fed our soul,” she says. “It was something that connected with us inside that I can't really articulate. It was just something that I knew I had to keep doing.”

So they have: as Proud Wednesday Beading Co., the sisters create beadwork inspired by their Métis and Dene heritage, honouring their roots in the works they make.

“Both Keri and I are inspired by [our great grandmother’s] pattern work,” she says. “We try to create our own, but we also try to continue on with family patterns. … The Métis side and the Dene side create really unique pattern work, but it's not printed and accessible through pattern books and that sort of thing. So we're really trying to draw from pieces that we have of hers or that other family members have. And learning more about, specifically, the group of people in the north and what kind of beads they were drawn to, what kind of colours they were drawn to. Learning all of that has been really, really interesting.”

And as they delved deeper into learning the craft—amassing more and more finished pieces as they went—the business side of it took off almost by accident.

“We were creating and learning at the same time, and gathering a collection of things,” Brygidyr explains. “We gifted many of our first works to family and friends, but we had what seemed like an insatiable need to keep creating and beading. So Keri suggested just trying to put some stuff up for sale on our Instagram page. And it blew up! We were totally blown away by the reception and support (an ongoing theme in our experience) and it just continued to grow from there.”

Now they have a webstore, and their works can be found in various retail spots in Canada, as well as at events like the Edmonton and Calgary Folk Music Festivals.

“Culturally, we refer to beading as medicine,” Brygidyr explains. “That has very much been my experience. It has helped me through some very difficult times and reconnected me with my ancestors.”

More information about Proud Wednesday can be found at proudwednesday.com.

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