Christine Toulouse remembers holding a warm cup of tea as her mother and grandmother first taught her how to pluck a porcupine.
The trio sat on the front porch of her mother’s home in Sagamok Anishnawbek, in northern Ontario, where Toulouse watched as they skilfully removed the quills without pulling out clumps of fur from the dead animal.
A neighbour had picked it up from the side of the road for them after Toulouse’s mother made requests for materials in the First Nations community.
“I’ve always been a little bit messier of an artist, so when I harvest quills I get everything and then I’ll sort it later,” said Toulouse, recalling how impressed she was by their neatness as the women first introduced her to quillwork.
“My grandma and my mom, particularly my mom, were really excited for me to get started.”
A summer of porcupines and birches
Toulouse said she wasn’t taught quillwork growing up; she decided to learn the traditional Indigenous craft, which involves weaving porcupine quills through birchbark, during the difficult summer of 2016.
At the time she was struggling with chronic back pain, which made working and socializing difficult.
When she learned about her mother’s colon cancer diagnosis, she decided to move from Ottawa to Sagamok to care for her mom and to heal.
Her grandmother lived across the street and had always made a small amount of money from her quillwork, which she sold across North America and even displayed at the nearby Ojibwe Cultural Foundation.
Toulouse said her grandmother told her that if she needed to, she could sell the quill boxes she had gifted her.
But Toulouse had a different idea and asked her grandmother to teach her.
“I decided that’s what I really needed for my life, because I was spending a lot of time inside to take care of my mom and I needed something that fed my soul and connected me to community,” she said.
Generations of quillworkers
That passing down of skills between generations of Indigenous families has always been a part of quillwork, according to the Ojibwe Cultural Foundation’s archivist, who learned the craft thanks to her own grandmother, aunts and uncles.
“There’s a lot of collective community effort that goes into collecting the materials themselves, and I think that’s one of my favourite parts,” shared Naomi Recollet.
“I know when I look at a box there’s a lot more to it than just what’s in front of my eyes.”
The birch bark is harvested in the summer or “strawberry season” and sometimes formed into a round box. Quills are gathered throughout the year. Artists often dye the quills different colours before embroidering to make different patterns.
“Porcupine quillwork is the mother of beadwork,” University of Toronto art historian Mikinaak Migwans explained about the history of the art form.
“That was what we were using to embroider and beautify our materials prior the introduction of beads through trade,” said Migwans, a member of Wiikwemkoong Unceded Territory.
Migwans said they’re seeing growing interest in quillwork from contemporary art spaces and academic institutions where the art form is being taken more seriously, but quillwork really thrives because of grassroots community interest.
Recollet agrees, pointing to the role social media is playing in helping artists like Toulouse showcase their work.
“I think it’s a good way and a complementary way to keep that tradition current and present and alive not just in our communities but in the broader society,” said Recollet.
Healing through quillwork
After a summer of dyeing quills, harvesting bark and selling her first framed pieces, Toulouse returned to Ottawa to find work. She didn’t open her box of quill supplies for six years.
During that time, her mother underwent chemotherapy and surgeries in her fight against cancer. She died during the fall of 2019.
As Toulouse grieved her mother, she pulled out the materials stored in her closet.
“Everything she had touched, I wanted to take all those materials and make it into something beautiful and tangible. And that’s what I did,” she said.
Toulouse said what started as a healing practice to feel closer with her mother quickly grew. In 2020, she started selling her work at events, meeting people who had never seen quillwork before but who had a genuine curiosity about it.
That led her to begin hosting community workshops, which grew thanks to a grant from the Ontario Art Council to teach Indigenous youth.
Toulouse credits her grandmother Ida, who died last year, with giving her the confidence to teach.
“I feel like [quillwork has] definitely landed on my shoulders to pass on, and I’ve thankfully been given that knowledge from my family and my grandma,” she said.
“I’m excited to share it and people seem to be excited to learn.”