Beading Together – Past, and Future

We meet Karen Ann from her studio in rural central Wisconsin. Karen Ann is a Haudenosaunee raised beadwork artist and citizen of the Oneida Nation of Wisconsin.

Raised beadwork is a rare and elegant style whose forms and designs reach back over fourteen thousand years. It is a cultural hallmark for those of the Six Nations, linking the lessons of their past with the celebration of their today and the joyful anticipation of their future. It is this long and deep cultural connection that beckons and inspires her. “As a beader,” she says, “it is my privilege and responsibility to peer through that cultural lens, reflect on contemporary Indigenous experiences, and describe what I see on a field of velvet using glass beads and a steel needle.”

A slow and thoughtful beader, Hoffman often spends a year or more in the creation of one of her legacy pieces. crafted to be exquisitely culturally connected, these pieces are brought to life slowly and gently. They speak, she says, not for her as an individual, but for her People — past, present and future. They sing the lessons of their Ancestors in voices strong and clear.