Today we’d like to introduce you to Renee Belanger
Hi Renee, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
Growing up as an only child, I tended to have a pretty vivid imagination. I believe that fueled my ongoing creative endeavors. I have always had major right-brain instincts; I played violin for 10 years, was highly involved in theatre, both behind the scenes and onstage, and was always drawn to the arts. I also always had a knack for color and pattern matching. When I was young, Friday nights with my mom and aunts were spent at the fabric store, where they would find a pattern print they wanted to use, hand me that print, and let me go pick out all of the coordinating colors, textures and complimentary prints.
I also always knew that I was Native, but we weren’t connected to the culture. I didn’t learn any traditional teachings and was never enrolled as a tribal member. When I was younger, it didn’t seem important to me. But around 2015, I started to really feel a call to start connecting. I worked on getting enrolled as a tribal member with the Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Ojibwe in northern Wisconsin. I wanted to learn and connect, but I still didn’t really know what that meant, or how to do it.
In 2021, the opportunity to learn how to start beading came to fruition. I have a friend that makes beautiful jewelry and she had been offering to teach me. We finally made it happen, and from that Saturday in June of 2021, that was it; I was hooked. I feel like I caught on pretty quickly and I felt like I was good at it. Despite LOVING all of those other art endeavors growing up, I was always mediocre. I say that with no negativity towards that word. Those things brought me great joy, but I was always looking for the thing that I was great at. And I found it.
I started beading like crazy and have rarely gone a day without sitting down to my bead mat. I love using bright colors and enjoy making earrings and accessories with a modern and contemporary flair!
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
My journey with Creative Native Beading, as a business, has been pretty smooth, and I count my lucky stars every day that I found what I truly love. I do work a full-time job outside of my beadwork. I can say with full certainty that if I were making Creative Native Beading a full-time endeavor, my answer would be completely different. When I first started beading, I was in a job space that was so terrible for my mental health, so beading was a huge escape and I DID want to make it my full-time work. But fast-forward a couple of years, and I moved into a company and role that I love, so having both my day job and my art that fulfills me creatively has put me in such a good place. I have a day job that I truly enjoy going to, with people that I love, that in turn financially allows me the freedom to do my beadwork. Now that I’m finally in a great space, mental health-wise, I can look at it with the lens of NOT wanting to do beadwork full-time. And by that, I mean, if I tried to do it full-time, then I know it would become WORK, and not just something that is fulfilling. If it became work, I think it would completely take the joy out of it. I like being able to take the time that is required of it and I do notice that when I find myself saying ‘yes’ to too many events or markets, then it does start to feel like work, and I need to be very conscious of that.
Now, that’s not to say that there aren’t certain challenges that do come up, even as I’m doing this part-time. It’s hard to tell what events and markets may be fruitful. And even when I think I have the equation figured out, it changes. When I first started out, I was saying yes to any market that I could. I had to tweak that, as a lot of the markets I participated in weren’t necessarily the demographic that was going to purchase my work. It was great for exposure, but I then started focusing on participating just in markets that were Indigenous run. There is such a vibrant Native community here in the Twin Cities with so many opportunities and I feel so lucky to have a community that I didn’t have growing up, now backing me up.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
My job that pays the bills is in a totally unrelated line of work. I work in the health insurance industry, training agents in Medicare. Health insurance is definitely a bit of a ‘dry’ industry, but I love what I do and training and putting on presentations still allows me to be creative, in a sense, in how I convey my message.
But the work that truly fills me right up is my beadwork. I’ve always been attracted to bright, vibrant and bold colors and patterns. When I got into beadwork, I was able to make those vibrant visions come to life. There are no rules with art, so I make what makes me happy, and that often tends to be bright neons! I primarily make fringe earrings, but have branched out into beading on baseball and fedora-type hats. I’ve had plenty of people come up to me at markets, and after looking at my earrings, they tell me that they’ve never seen earrings that look like mine. I’m definitely not saying that my work is anything earth shattering, but I think when we think about Native beadwork and earrings, we do have an idea of what “traditional” colors or patterns are tied to that. I like to think I’m taking a traditional skill, but making it contemporary and new.
Since immersing myself in beadwork and the local Native community, there have been some really cool opportunities that have come out of that. In 2023, Maggie Thompson, who runs Makwa Studio, reached out to me to see if I’d be interested in working on one of her art pieces. I was one of the sets of hands that worked on a large-scale loomwork piece called “I Get Mad Because I Love You”. It was a 4 foot x 6 foot loom-beaded textile. Although the creation itself wasn’t mine, the work that went into it, the learning opportunity that came with it, and the community that was created around it is one of the coolest things I’ve been a part of so far. After completion, it was displayed at the Smithsonian Renwick Gallery in Washington, D.C. How could I pass up an opportunity to work on a piece that has been at a Smithsonian?!
My work has been displayed at shops throughout the Twin Cities, Duluth and I’ve even got hats for sale in Relative Arts NYC in New York City, which is just a total dream of mine!
I’ve also just put myself out there when it comes to my work. I’ve made earrings for Broadway actors and gifted them, I’ve made earrings for one of my favorite authors (Rebecca Campbell) and made some earrings for one of my favorite singers (Marketa Irglova). These have lead to connections and experiences that would never have happened if I hadn’t found beading. And I have people ask how those experiences have happened, and it’s literally because I’ve just asked. I reached out to Marketa through Instagram and just offered to make her some earrings, and she said yes. We connected and with that, I was able to meet her and hang out with her for a bit after her show at Radio City Music Hall. A true ‘pinch-me’ moment!
What makes you happy?
In my art practice and the way I present myself to the world in the way that I dress, colors make me happy! Bright pinks, purples, teals and just rainbows as a color-combo make me happy. As to why, I couldn’t begin to tell you! Maybe it’s because they’re so unserious. We’re living in such a chaotic world with such dark undertones running through the events that are happening that if we can add just a sliver of brightness through it, then why wouldn’t we?
Pricing:
- $30-$110 earrings
- $250-$350 beaded fedora hats
- $125-$175 beaded baseball hats
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.creativenativebeading.com
- Instagram: @creativenativebeading
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/creativenativebeading
- Other: @creativenativebead.bsky.social
