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Jennifer Fain - Medicine Bear Pouch
Category: Body Adornment.
The body of the piece is done in flat peyote and brick stitch is used to attach the body to the strap. The first set of beaded beads are made with circular peyote and closed with right angle weave, and the second set with netting.
I live in a suburb outside of Atlanta, Georgia. I started beading at the age of 14, when my mom bought me a $5.00 loom. The first thing I loomed was a pair of triangle earrings I saw in a store, but couldn't afford to buy. Then I got interested in boys and beading took a backseat for a few years. Many years later, when I became a stay at home mom, I began to bead again. My mother was beading and had started to do shows, and I needed a hobby. Now my beading has become a full time "hobby". If The Creator is willing I will bead until I am so old I can't see the table anymore. I also threaten my mom that when she gets old I am not going to beat her, I am going to BEAD her, from head to toe no less.
I am currently teaching at Beadazzles in Atlanta. My mom and I, (Jacque' Owens), teach and do several shows together each year, and are working on several new books together. My first book, Animal Spirits: A Book Of Flat Peyote, is due to be released in late November or early December of 2000. I am most inspired by things in nature. So animal patterns seemed a good place to start.
My entry The Medicine Bear was inspired both by a painted feather that Barbara Heindel painted, and an old Native American myth. I have a great love and appreciation for bears, and the blue bear or spirit bear felt really right. The myth that inspired The Medicine Bear, is one that I have heard several versions of, all very similiar but with different endings. You can find one version in the book, Favorite North American Indian Legends. I believe it is published by Dover. The version of the story I choose to use is one I have only heard told, I have never seen it in print, as most Native American stories are passed down generation to generation by family members.
The Medicine Bear told me from the beginning he was a permenant part of my family. I did make a second Medicine Bear. Not quite the same as mine, that bear now belongs to the artist who inspired the first. (I have the older male, she the younger female.) I will have to see how many different bears I can come up with. :)
Jennifer Fain's Beaded Artwork
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A man was hunting in the mountains when he came across a large bear. He shot the bear hitting it with his arrow. The bear turned and started to run the other way, and the hunter followed, shooting one arrow after another. Again and again his arrows struck the bear but all of them failed to bring the bear down. This was a medicine bear and he could talk and read the thoughts of people without their saying a word.
At last the bear stopped, pulling the arrows out of his side, he handed them back to the man, saying, “It is of no use for you to shoot at me, for you can not kill me. Come to my house and let us live together in peace.” The hunter thought to himself, “He will kill me”; but the bear read his thoughts and said, “No, I won't hurt you.” The man thought again, “How will I get anything to eat?” The bear knew his thoughts and said, “There shall be plenty to eat.” So the hunter went with the bear.
Soon they came to a big hole in the side of the mountain. The bear said, “This is not where I live, but there is a council to be held here and we will see what they do.” They went inside and as the cave widened, the man could see the cave was full of bears. There were old bears, young bears, white bears, black bears, and brown bears. Food was getting scarce in the mountains, and the council was meeting to decide what to do. While they were talking two bears came in and said that they had found a valley where there were so many chestnuts and acorns that no one would ever be hungry. When they were all pleased, they danced. After the dance the bears noticed the hunters bow. They decided to try the bow to see if they could fight the men with their own weapons, when again the men came to hunt. The bears took turns fitting the arrows to the string but when they would release the arrow their long claws would become tangled in the string. They saw that they could not use the bow and arrows and gave them back to the man. At last the dance was over and the bears all went home.
The bear and the hunter walked for a while until they came to a hole in the side of the mountain. There the bear and the man lived together all winter, until long hair like that of the bear began to grow all over the man. One day the bear turned to the man and said,”The spring is here and the people from your village will come and kill me and take these clothes from me”- he meant his skin - "but they will not hurt you." The bear said, "When the men come and kill me, you must cover the blood with leaves and when you have gone a fair piece from the cave, turn and look back and you shall see something."
When the hunters came back and killed the bear, the man did as the bear had asked. When he looked back, he saw the bear rise from the leaves and shake himself before he ran back into the woods. The man returned to his village. Micmac Legend