Today, we are excited to speak with Wendy Roy, a beader and entrepreneur from the White Earth Nation. She mentors other artists and also teaches at White Earth Tribal and Community College.
Wendy learned beading from her grandmother, who shared the trick to knowing which bead colors go together. Her grandma would pour beads on a tray to see which beads grouped together and wanted to be friends with each other. She also taught her granddaughter that every bead you sew is a prayer for the person who will wear the object.
For Wendy, beading is not just a way to share her culture and make a living but also a form of healing. She talks about dealing with depression and coming back from a recent wrist injury that kept her from her beadwork. In her free time, Wendy likes to read books, spend time with family and ride Harley Davidsons.
Transcript:
[sound element: Native Lights theme music]
Wendy Roy: I still bead with that every bead is a prayer, a thought that you want them to be happy. You want them to be fulfilled in their life. Successful? That’s a word that it can mean so many things. I think success is being happy. To be successful is where you feel fulfilled.
Cole Premo: Boozhoo aaniin, and welcome to Native Lights, where Indigenous Voices Shine. I’m your host Cole Premo.
Leah Lemm: And I’m your other host Leah Lemm. Thank you for joining us. Native Lights is more than a podcast and radio show. At its core, it’s a place for Native folks to tell their stories. Every week, we have captivating conversations with great guests from a bunch of different backgrounds, musicians, community leaders, healthcare advocates, language warriors, you name it. We have a great mixture of passions on the program, and we talk with our guests about their gifts and how they share those gifts with their community. And it all centers around the big point of purpose in our lives. And it’s another day, Cole, another week, another opportunity to amplify Native Voices. How are you doing?
Cole Premo: I’m doing great. I’m doing great. I don’t have a really amazing thing to say right now, but I’m doing great. How are you doing?
Leah Lemm: I’m doing pretty good. You know, it’s just here we are. It feels like the world is changing a bunch. So I just try to, like, remember what I can control and move from there. But I tell you…
Cole Premo: Which ain’t much, that’s how I feel. I’m not putting words in your mouth or anything.
Leah Lemm: Well, with you expecting a kid.
Cole Premo: Oh yeah.
Leah Lemm: I’m going to Japan this summer. I’ve never been.
Cole Premo: No big deal.
Leah Lemm: And I know you have been.
Cole Premo: Oh yeah, it’s great.
Leah Lemm: So I’m excited, but I’m also, like, nervous.
Cole Premo: How long did it take before you started traveling after having a kid? I can envision not traveling for a good couple of years.
Leah Lemm: Ah, it was probably like two years. Maybe, yeah, then we, we stayed domestic, you know, domestic flights.
Cole Premo: What was it? The first significant travel? And was it a thing to experience?
Leah Lemm: There were a bunch kind of happening all at once, around, like, two years old for Marvin, and it was like for a funeral, I think, in Arizona. And, I think, a family trip in Florida. And there was one, I don’t remember when, but he cried the entire flight, yeah, and I felt awful, and I was just like, I wanted to cry too, but not as loud, obviously. But I remember the flight attendant was so kind. She’s like “You’re doing everything you can. Nobody’s mad. Just do what you need to do. And you know the flight will be over, and carry on.” But I tell you, it can be tough. And then, ooh, one of my favorite stories, actually, about flying with a kid was when I think Marvin was like four, I want to say. Yeah, and it was Mother’s Day weekend. It was Santa Fe. We flew out of Albuquerque, and he got sick on the plane. But I wasn’t sitting with him. Daniel was. I was sitting in a different seat, but, yeah, he got sick on the plane. So you also have to contend with that.
Cole Premo: Yeah, great. That little wild card there.
Leah Lemm: So good luck to you. Don’t let it slow down too much. But you know, also, be mindful.
Cole Premo: I’m fidgety as it is right now, getting through a plane ride without just getting up all the time, and it’s hard enough for just myself. Anyways, thank you for that little anecdote.
Leah Lemm: Yeah, you never know. A kid could be easy. A kid could be tough. Really it’s unknown.
Cole Premo: I’m just basing it on how I handled things, so it’s not looking good if that’s the case. But I’m sure it’ll be better than I think. Anyways, who knows? All right, well, let’s get on to today’s guest. Eh?
Leah Lemm: Yes, I’m super excited for our guest today, Wendy Roy. Wendy’s from the White Earth Nation. She’s a beader and an entrepreneur, and she mentors other artists. And Wendy also teaches at White Earth Tribal and Community College.
Cole Premo: Awesome.
Leah Lemm: So really happy to welcome Wendy Roy to the program. Boozhoo, Wendy.
Wendy Roy: Hello.
Cole Premo: All right. Boozhoo, Wendy, could you start out by introducing yourself, letting us know where you’re from, quick little background, all that?
Wendy Roy: I was born in Mahnomen, Minnesota, which is the seat of the county of Mahnomen County, the biggest city or village in the reservation of White Earth, Minnesota. So I was born there, and then my parents moved around a lot when I was younger, but we moved back when I was in like seventh grade, between seventh and eighth grade, and that’s where I graduated from high school. I learned beadwork from my grandma. My mother’s mother, they’re French and Native American. My dad is almost full-blood Native American. She was actually the librarian in a school on the reservation, a little village school. When they found out she could bead, they had her start teaching cultural classes. And so she started beading, showing the kids how to do beadwork. She wrote this little booklet in the 70s, typewriter, manuscript-type with hand-drawn illustrations on different beadwork patterns. She called it, gosh, what was it? Modern American Indian Neck Pieces, and she dedicated it to her 11 children. My mom is one of the 11. She taught most of us kids. We were usually about 6, 7 or 8, around in that age group, when she would start teaching us, and I think I was eight when she taught me to do a few beadwork patterns. You know, as a kid, every color goes with every color, I was always just fascinated that her designs and her beadwork was so pretty, and I just was like, how do you know what colors to put together? You know what colors look good together? And she had this old metal TV tray, and all of her beads were in baby food jars, and they were all in hanks. So she took them, and she dumped a bunch of them out on this TV tray, and she shut her eyes, and she just mixed them up, and she said, “Well, now I can see who wants to be friends with who, and who really doesn’t like who. So the ones that are really good friends, those are the ones I’ll put over here, and those are the ones that I’ll pick for my design.” She talked like they were kids and like they were human. I find that when I have a beader’s block, or I’m not sure what to be next, or something, that I’ll kind of do that. I’ll put my beads, even though I have them in bags. I don’t use hanks. I use bigger quantities, so wholesale quantities, so they usually come in bags, and even instead of tubes. And so I’ll just put the bags on the TV tray, on my tray, and just kind of figure out who wants to be friends. So that was my big introduction to beadwork. Like I said, she talked like they were human. They had souls. She taught me that when you’re beading for someone, every bead that you place is a prayer for that person. So you should bead with a good heart, a good soul, a good mind, and if you’re not in a good place, that maybe you shouldn’t be, I have found that beading is very meditative for me. So sometimes when I’m troubled about something, I can be because I’ve got to concentrate on the beadwork and I can forget about my troubles. And so I have maybe not followed that directive of hers of not to be when I’m not in a good place mentally. I’ve suffered from depression my entire life, since I was a child, so this was my way to get out of that space. So it was my way to heal myself.
Cole Premo: You’re listening to Native Lights, where Indigenous Voices Shine. Native Lights is produced by Minnesota Native News and AMPERS, with support from Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund. Today we’re speaking with Wendy Roy, White Earth Nation citizen who is a beader and entrepreneur. She mentors other artists and also teaches at White Earth Tribal and Community College. We also like to ask, you know, just how are you doing? How’s your family doing?
Wendy Roy: I’m doing okay. I was assaulted and robbed the end of February, and they broke my left arm badly. I had to have three surgeries on because it kept collapsing, and so I was in a really bad headspace. I was really depressed. I would say I had a really bad month to six weeks where I could barely get out of bed. I was afraid to leave my house. Couldn’t sleep. Every noise I heard, I thought it was that person coming. PTSD was really bad, and I just recently started beading again, Like about a week, week and a half ago, I started beading just a little bit. I was so happy that I was able to do it that was a fear of mine, that I wouldn’t be able to do the thing that I love doing. Most of all, I was just so happy to find it, that I could do it and that it brought me joy. It takes me longer now to bead just because my hand gets tired. My last surgery was in March, towards the end of March, so it’s not that long ago. I’m learning how to be forgiving and accepting of where I am and not going to get frustrated. I’m not going to get depressed about it. I’m not going to get upset about it. I’m just going to keep working and it’ll be where it needs to be, to trust that.
Leah Lemm: Yeah, thanks for sharing, Wendy. I think even in just the first couple minutes here of talking, it sounds like beading is healing, very healing. And you know, you talked about it with respect to depression or working through healing even your body. Physically. Is there a way you want to expand on that, on the healing of doing beadwork?
Wendy Roy: If you’re beading for a specific person, you know, you think about them and what it is you’re doing for them, and you want to do it in a good light. I am a commercial beader. I have a vendor booth at powwows and things. So often I don’t know who’s going to buy my beadwork, so I don’t have a specific person in mind when I’m beading now, because I bead for you know the customer, and you don’t know what the customer is going to want. But I still bead with that every bead is a prayer, thought, that you want them to be happy. You want them to be fulfilled in their life. Successful? That’s a word that it can mean so many things. And to some people, it means financial success or career success. I think success is being happy to be successful is where you feel fulfilled. I feel that even if I end up not being able to be the same as I did before, that I am already fulfilled in that I teach classes. I decided to start to teach when my grandmother died. It was way out of my comfort zone. It wasn’t anything that I thought I could do. But when my grandma died. She had taught her kids, grandkids, great grandkids, students in the schools. For years, she had taught so many people how to bead. But in her immediate family, there was only three of us that still beaded. And I thought, boy, if I don’t start sharing this, it’s going to die out. And I was afraid that it would just not be as prevalent as it is. And so I started teaching. And when I first started teaching. I taught for youth that had been, oh, either incarcerated juvenile detention center or were out of the home, like in a foster home. They had this program on the reservation that I went once a week and would teach them beadwork, a way to connect to their culture a way for kids to feel like if they weren’t out running around with their friends all night long. They didn’t feel like they were missing out on anything because they were sitting home and beading. I did that for a long time. I still do that sometimes. I teach for our tribal college in White Earth, which is in Mahnomen, Minnesota. I also teach for area Indian Education Departments. I’ve helped some schools get started an Indian Education Department, because a lot of times they don’t know that if they have a dozen kids that identify as Native American. They don’t necessarily have to be enrolled. They can be a descendant, but as long as they identify as being Native American, they can have an Indian Education Department. And there’s a lot of federal funding for—or there was. I don’t know how it is turning out right now, a lot of budget cuts and everything. But there was a lot of funding out there available for culture classes and stuff, and it was just really important for me to try to share that.
Leah Lemm: Well, how does one get started with beading? I would take it a teacher is necessary.
Wendy Roy: We’re often taught , traditionally taught, by your grandparent or parent. My parents both worked full-time jobs and my dad had never beaded. I taught him how to loom bead when he was 80 years old, and he had never beaded in his life. Now, because we, most parents are working, or if they’re not working, they’re so busy trying to survive that they don’t feel like they have the ability to teach or to show their kids, a lot of kids have missed out on that. And so that’s what I’ve taught a lot of kids in different school settings and things. I just taught at a school in Wadena, and there were younger kids than normally I accept as students. I usually say they have to be at least eight years old, but this was a newly formed Indian Education Department, and they had, like, five and six year olds in there too. And I thought, well, we’ll try, you know, and I’ll have them sit close to me, and the other kids can sit there. And there was this one little girl who was, I think, between five and six. I said, you sit next to me, honey. And you know, I’ll, I’ll kind of help you. And she took to it like she’d been doing it all her life. And I thought, oh my gosh, her parents must be, you know, she must watch them bead, or she must bead with them. So later, when her parents came, I said, “I want to show you the bracelet she made.” She made the lazy Daisy stitch bracelet. And I said, “You guys must bead, huh?” And they said, “No, we don’t.” And I was like, “Well, does she bead with her grandma, her aunties or something?” And they said no. And I said, “Oh, my God, she took to it like she’s been beading forever.” I said, “This is something you have to keep up on.” So on YouTube now, when I started beading, you know, when I first started, there was not any, really anything on YouTube. Or if there was, I had no knowledge of it. But over the years, there has gotten to be such good information on YouTube that I actually use YouTube videos in my classes when I’m teaching students. Different people learn different ways, some by watching, some by listening, some by reading a pattern or reading the instructions. So I like to have like three or sometimes even four videos, different people teaching the same thing because their styles are different. One of them might speak to a student more than the other, but then for the students that that doesn’t resonate with at all, the YouTube stuff, then I’m there to show them one on one. This is how you start. Usually, the first stitch is different than all the other continuing stitches. But the first stitch is different just to get you started. And then after that, once you get going, then it’s just repeat, repeat, repeat. So I let each student know that they are not competing with the students sitting next to them, because the students sitting next to them maybe has been beading their whole life. So what you are being graded on is your ability from not even knowing how to know what type of needle and thread to look for, to buy, what kind of beads to buy that there are different kinds of beads. You know, the beads that you buy at Walmart or Hobby Lobby are not the most quality beads. They’re good for starters, or they’re good for, you know, maybe kids to make a simple bracelet with. It’s just a simple, strong bracelet.
Leah Lemm: So do you teach multiple levels of class, or is everybody in the same class?
Wendy Roy: I teach three basic classes. One is loom beading. Everything is done on the loom. First project is a barrette, and then we’ll do a bracelet, and then we’ll do a headband or a hat band or a choker. We’ll also do a fully beaded neck lanyard, where it’ll be like 40 inches of beadwork, you know, but smaller. So when they first start out, a lot of them have never had any experience on a loom at all. Then another class that I teach is off loom where I teach, like the peyote stitch, which is one of my favorite stitches. There are two things that are predominantly Native American in their invention. Loom work is one and peyote stitch is the other. The other types of beadwork have been done in other countries, the Ukraine, Czechoslovakia, which is where beads first came from, has a long history with beadwork and very beautiful beadwork. And they do a lot of floral work, which, if I need inspiration for something, I’ll go look at their stuff. But loom work was started from people that used to weave rugs or mats for their teepees or their wigwams. And they use that same knowledge to do beadwork on it. And then the peyote stitch is just, you know where you do one bead at a time. So we start out that class by doing a peyote stitch ring, the flat even count peyote stitch, and then the ring shows how to zip two pieces together when you’re doing peyote stitch. From there, we’ll do a bracelet. Then we’ll do like the tubular peyote stitch, which is what keychains, pens, that type of thing, where you’re beading around something. And that’s a different style of peyote stitch from there. Then I teach like the different chains, the spiral stitch, or the chenille stitch, or Saint Peter stitch, just different chains. Because I believe that everyone kind of has their own way of doing a medallion. And I could show you how to make the medallion. A lot of people kind of already have an idea, but they don’t know how to do the different chains. So that’s kind of where I decided to focus on that. Instead of doing a medallion. And then a third class that I do, and I have only so far done this one in the summertime, where we do the 3D stars and they’re peyote stitched.
Leah Lemm: You’re listening to Native Lights, where Indigenous Voices Shine. Native Lights is produced by Minnesota Native News and AMPERS, with support from the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund. Today we’re speaking with Wendy Roy. Wendy is from the White Earth Nation. She’s a beader and entrepreneur. She mentors other artists. Wendy also teaches at the White Earth Tribal and Community College.
Cole Premo: You’re also a mentor to artists. Could you talk about that?
Wendy Roy: When I first started beading, I was homeless and living in a camper, and I was actually going through my stuff in the storage unit, trying to figure out how to consolidate this. What can I get rid of to have a smaller storage unit so it wouldn’t cost so much? And I found my book that my grandma had made and my Tupperware little box of beads, and decided to make beadwork for my siblings for Christmas, because I wasn’t going to have the money to buy any presents. So I thought I will just make everybody a necklace out of Grandma’s book. I was going to my psychiatrist office early because it was warm, and I would sit there and bead a half hour before my appointment, and a woman that had been always in the office right before me saw me beading and said, “Wow, have you ever sold your stuff?” And I said, “No, I usually just give it to family members or something, you know, I haven’t really sold anything.” And she’s like, “Well, we’re having a church bazaar this weekend, and you should come and try to sell this.” I had never thought of selling my beadwork, so it went from not knowing anything about selling my beadwork, because the first show I did, I think I had, like, 23 necklaces made up. I sold all of them but one. It probably took me five years before I actually started making money. I’ve showed a lot of people how to start. I’ve showed them how to get a sales tax certificate so that they can buy their supplies without paying sales tax, you know, kind of show them how to figure out which powwows to do, you know, which events. Someone showed me. And so I feel it’s only right that I share that knowledge on with other people when they want to know. I know I get a little bit of flack from some fellow vendors that say, “Why would you teach beadwork? You’re teaching your competition.” And I don’t see it that way at all. I think that the more of us that are out there, I might attract customers that the next person wouldn’t. I have a customer base, kind of a following already, and they’ll come and look at my stuff, but they’ll bring people with them who maybe aren’t interested in my stuff, but they might be interested in what the next person has to sell.
Leah Lemm: Yeah, well, it’s having an abundance mindset. More people beading, more people might see the beadwork, and there might be more interest in it, right?
Wendy Roy: I don’t feel like there’s only a slice of the pie for each particular person. I think there’s enough room for everyone. We’re going to put our own little spin onto it. So I just don’t see it as competition. I really don’t. I just feel like I’ve learned things, and if I can share some of that knowledge with other people, especially people that are starting out and aren’t sure there’s grants that are available. You can get a hold of the Indian Education Departments in different schools, and maybe you can go in and teach. You know, that’s a way to get yourself out there. I also try to tell people to get business cards. This is the cheapest advertising you can do. Give your business card out. When someone buys something, give them two. They’ll give one to someone else, you know. And social media is another very good tool. I remember one niece telling me that I needed an Instagram, and I’m like, oh, no, why? What do I have to do? You know? How do I do it? Since then, I’ve been found through Instagram a number of times for different things. I’ve been in the Minneapolis Star Tribune newspaper, an article on beadwork, that it wasn’t just an ancient art, that it’s something that’s contemporary and living. And I also got a contract with Starbucks to make some beadwork for a local Starbucks office that’s being built. I did not realize that Starbucks had an arts foundation. So whenever they build a new Starbucks, they try to find local artists from that area to do some artwork to include in it. And what they’ve done, 90% of the time, is artists will paint a mural. And this one, they decided that, since they were in the middle of a reservation, that they wanted to do something to honor the Ojibwe people. And so they picked three Ojibwe artists for the artwork for their new building. I’m very honored to be one of the three.
Cole Premo: So I got to ask, beading being such a massive part of your life, you take so much enjoyment from doing it. What else do you do in your free time?
Wendy Roy: I read. I spend a lot of time with my family. Those are things that bring me joy. I ride motorcycle. I have two Harley Davidsons. My dad had a motorcycle as well. I now own his motorcycle. We used to go to Beartooth Pass every year between Cody, Wyoming and Red Lodge, Montana. And you go up in through Beartooth Pass and to the other side, and it’s in July, and when you get to the top of the mountain, there’s usually snow up there. So you go from like 80-90 degree weather to 30. It’s an experience. I go to Sturgis on my motorcycle. I set up a booth there once, but it was really hard to be sitting in my booth all day and not being able to ride when there’s 500,000 motorcycles out there. I just really wanted to be part of it.
[sound element: Native Lights theme music]
Cole Premo: Wendy Roy, so great. The passion just oozing from her words. That might not be the greatest way to say it. So passionate about what she does, and hopefully she enjoys a nice ride out on the Harley here soon. But yeah, thank you to Wendy Roy, beader, entrepreneur, teacher, mentor, all these good things. So miigwech. I’m Cole Premo.
Leah Lemm: And I’m Leah Lemm. Miigwetch for listening. Gigawaabamin.
Cole Premo: Gigawaabamin.
Leah Lemm: You’re listening to Native Lights, where Indigenous Voices Shine. Native Lights is produced by Minnesota Native News and AMPERS, with support from the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund.
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