Indigenous artist to receive recognition for handcrafted masks

An Indigenous artist from Manitoba will be getting various recognitions for the two masks that she handcrafted during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Cynthia Boehm has been working as a beadwork artist for over four years, mainly making beaded mukluks and moccasins for sale. She was born and raised in Norway House.

One of the masks will be showcased in the Breathe. collection at the Whyte Museum of the Canadian Rockies this month while the other has been commissioned by the Glasgow Museums Resource Centre in Scotland.

Breathe. is a project co-created by Métis artists, Nathalie Bertin and Lisa Shepherd through a Facebook group, inviting various artists to create masks that would reflect emotions felt during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“It started from seeing the posting on the Breathe. page. I saw that post in March, and I decided to make a mask to help me cope through the lockdown. I was thankful seeing that post because it got me beading again as I haven’t beaded since December,” said Boehm on Thursday.

Boehm’s first mask is called “Resilience,” because of what the word meant, which is the capacity to recover from difficulty. She wanted to make a mask that was traditional to the beadwork style in the late 1800s and early 1900s.

Beforehand, Boehm was gifted with some rare antique beads which she decided to use on this mask. The mask is made with black wool which is common during the 1800s. She used a red fox braid cloth as the tie, which is also very common at that time.

The Resilience mask has been curated by the Glasgow Museum Resource Centre. Boehm said she is very happy that the mask will end up in Scotland where her great-grandfather, Donald McLeod, was originally from.

Each mask took Boehm around two weeks to complete. Together, it took her about a month as she started making her second mask shortly after her first one was done.

Her second mask, “Optimism,” was selected to be featured at the national exhibit in Banff. The exhibition will run from September 24 to January 17, 2021.

“In doing my second mask, I wanted to have positive energy while beading and the word optimism came to mind, being that optimism is a mental attitude reflecting a belief or hope that an outcome will be positive,” said Boehm.

“The inspiration for the mask came from the mukluks and moccasins that were created in my home community of Norway House in the 60s and 70s. I remember as a young girl, a lot of people wore beautifully handcrafted mukluks made by their family members. The mask is my interpretation of the beautiful mukluks that were created in Norway House. ”

This mask is made with smoked home tan deer hide accented with decorative red lace and rabbit fur pom poms that were common in Norway House mukluk designs.

Boehm said as an artist, she is excited for her work to be displayed in several exhibitions

“Beadwork is more than just beading, thru beadwork I celebrate my Cree and Métis Culture and I’m grateful for the precious gift that was passed down to me and the opportunity to practice my ancestors’ art form and share it with others,” she said.