Breathe

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Lisa Shepherd wears her mask “Wâhkôhtowin,” a Cree word that embodies relationship not just to family but to everything, including plants, animals, the earth and the sky. (photo by Martin Shepherd)

West Coast artist Lisa Shepherd felt compelled to bead as the coronavirus pandemic spread through Canada and the world.

“I can speak as a Métis woman,” says Shepherd. “Beading is our medicine. It’s what we do to connect. As a Métis person, it’s very natural to unpack all the feelings and emotions and sort through things by putting beads down on hide or fabric.”

Toronto-area Métis artist Nathalie Bertin felt the same way. And so, the two friends decided in April to launch an online project. They started a Facebook page inviting artists and craftspeople to create masks to help tell the story of the pandemic. The project, known as Breathe, took off like a rocket.

Initially, Breathe was to involve only Indigenous people. But many others wanted to participate so soon everyone was invited to join, providing they made masks from materials considered traditional to their respective cultural backgrounds.

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Nathalie Bertin, “Pandemic Vogue,” 2020, 12” x 8” x 2” (image courtesy Nathalie Bertin)

Within two weeks, the Facebook group had 1,200 members from Canada, the United States, Europe and elsewhere. Hundreds of the members created elaborately decorated masks from fabric, animal hide, birch bark, wool and other materials. 

Sheryl Boivin, an Indigenous health care worker in Sudbury, Ont., made a mask out of turtle shell. “I chose the turtle because it represents Turtle Island as well as the turtle is known to be the protector of women,” she wrote on Facebook.

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Howard Lafortune, “Wildman,” 2020, 4” x 6” x 3” (image courtesy of Nathalie Bertin)

The imagination of the mask-makers knows no bounds. Some masks are beaded or embroidered. Others feature attached objects, drawings or words to tell stories. Many include Indigenous iconography, such as animals that would look at home on a totem pole. 

A touring exhibition of 45 masks made by people living in Canada opens Sept. 24 for a four-month run at the Whyte Museum of the Canadian Rockies in Banff. An independent jury of curators and artists selected the masks, which Whyte curator Anne Ewen calls “artifacts” of the pandemic. The photos the artists posted on Facebook, alongside short texts, will be part of the show. 

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Teresa Burrows, “Cease & Desist: the Bearded Lady Mask,” 2020, 70” x 50” x 10” (image courtesy Nathalie Bertin)

Other venues and dates for Breathe are being negotiated, including a summer exhibition at  Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ont. A separate U.S. tour for masks made by Americans is being discussed. 

Some masks have been sold privately to individuals or to American museums such as the Smithsonian and the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture in Seattle. Shepherd would love to see Canadian institutions acquire some of the beaded masks. In Toronto, the Royal Ontario Museum has been collecting masks and may launch a virtual exhibition later this year.

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Towanna Miller-Johnson, “Corona Covid,” 2020, 15” x 6” x 7” (image courtesy Nathalie Bertin)

The beaded masks are not meant to provide protection from the coronavirus. But they do offer a blank canvas, so to speak, to tell pandemic stories in an artful way. The masks, says Ewen, are “a true record of human life in the pandemic.”

Shepherd says artists initially created masks reflecting the sense of isolation. Then came masks riffing on the stillness of nature caused by the decline in automobile traffic and other activities. Later, masks were created to honour friends and relatives who had died or recovered from the infection.

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Lisa Shepherd, “Be Well,” 2020, 10” x 9” x 3” (image courtesy Nathalie Bertin)

Three of Shepherd’s beaded masks will be on display. One is in a traditional Métis floral design. Another flashes the words Be Well. A third, on animal hide that Shepherd tans herself, carries the words How Much, implicitly asking how much more we must endure.

Celina Loyer, a Métis artist from the Edmonton area, created a mask from finger-woven acrylic yarn. It resembles a traditional Métis sash.

“Our people have faced pandemic before: smallpox, influenza, TB,” Loyer wrote on Facebook. “Yet we persevere. The means to survival can feel heavy or stifling, yet we will continue to do what is necessary to ensure our culture thrives. Just breathe.”

Yes, just breathe. And maybe bead. ■ 

Breathe is on view at the Whyte Museum of the Canadian Rockies from Sept. 24, 2020 to Jan. 17, 2021.

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