Awanigiizhik Bruce

Our ancestors were master artisans with birchbark. I have been taught birchbark artforms and quillworking from Anishinaabe intergenerational teachers from an unbroken chain. This art piece pays homage to their collective value of knowledge by adding gold gilding. I wanted to know why our important material art culture does not have gold or other precious materials added. This idea of gilding birch was born from that question. This is how I envision birch bark basketry to metamorphize within our modern Anishinaabe contemporary times.