Beading Together: Radical Stitch Symposium – Panel: Cross-Border Beading Influences
About
As part of the Beading Together: Radical Stitch Symposium, join the MacKenzie art Gallery, hosted in partnership with Shushkitew Collective, for a virtually streamed Artist Conversation: Cross-Border Beading Influences with Elias Not Afraid, Teri Greeves, and Dyani White Hawk!
Moderated by Lara Evans, experience the richness of Radical Stitch through inspiring dialogue and community. In this conversation, moderated by Dr. Lara Evans (Institute of American Indian Arts), artists Dyani White Hawk, Elias Not Afraid and Teri Greeves discuss ethics, emotions, and care in their beading practices.
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Featured Artists
Elias Not Afraid
Elias Not Afraid is an Apsaalooké beader, fashion and graphic designer. I’m a self taught bead artist, I been beading since i was 12 years old. I learned multiple beading techniques and mediums over the years. I been a full time artist since 2016. In the same year i participated in Santa Fe Indian Art Market for the first time and both entries won. I been doing SFIAM and the Heard art market from 2016 to this day and in that time frame, I collaborated with companies such as Crate & Barrel, Teton Trade Cloth and Wells Fargo to name a few, i been published in multiple magazines and online articles such as Native Arts Magazine, Powwows.com, Upper Case, Instyle and was featured in the February 2021 issue of Vogue magazine and the book “ Vogue: The United States of Fashion” and many others. I was 1 of 5 artist picked nation wide (USA) to design a bank card for Wells Fargo Bank based off my beadwork.
My beadwork was featured in the The Field Museum exhibition: Apsaalooke Women and Warriors in 2020. Also my beadwork is in the permanent collections of multiple museums such as the Smithsonian.
In July 2021, i launched my first ready to wear fashion line. When i design or create an item, I usually come up with the design (floral or geometric) ill most likely come up with the design on the spot or ill blend both my style and design with my great grandmothers designs together or will bead one of her designs but i just change the colors to my liking. I use the same materials she did as well such as old glass seed beads, smoked deer hide, elk ivories, trade beads but also other items like metal spikes, bones, exotic leathers and bullet shells. I keep the foundation of my work rooted in my traditional elements but also like to branch but and challenge myself to see what else i could do with what was left for us by our ancestors.”


Teri Greeves
Teri Greeves is beadwork artist and an enrolled member of the Kiowa Tribe of Oklahoma who lives and works in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Teri’s beadwork follows and updates the Kiowa tradition of beadwork, to tell the story of the American Indian, both contemporary and historical. Her works includes, but is not limited to, beaded books, jewelry, and high-top sneakers. Teri’s works can be found in public collections such as the Heard Museum, the Museum of Arts and Design, the Brooklyn Museum, the Denver Art Museum, the National Museum of the American Indian, the New Mexico Museum of Art, and the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture.
Dyani White Hawk
Dyani White Hawk (Sičáŋǧu Lakota) is a visual artist based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Recent support for White Hawk’s work has included 2021 Anonymous Was a Woman Award, Academy of Arts and Letters Award in Art, and McKnight Visual Art Fellowship, 2019 United States Artists Fellowship in Visual Art, Eiteljorg Fellowship for Contemporary Art, Jerome Hill Artists Fellowship, and Forecast for Public Art Grants, and 2018 Nancy Graves Grant for Visual Artists.
White Hawk’s work is featured in the 2022 Whitney Biennial and in recent solo exhibitions, Dyani White Hawk: Speaking to Relatives, at the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver and Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art. Her work is among many public and private collections such as the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Denver Art Museum, Minneapolis Institute of Art, Museum of Modern Art, Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian and Walker Art Center. She is represented by Bockley Gallery in Minneapolis.
