“Ma Taant” (my aunt) is an acrylic and glass bead on 18X24 inch canvas piece. The piece features Marie Tourand, a Mètis woman who lived through the fish creek and Batoche battles, where she lost brothers, her home, and would go on to pass away at 25 from Tuberculosis. Marie did not have children of her own, but loved kids and was a school teacher and an aunt, though she passed before her nieces and nephews were born. I am a descendant of Marie’s sister, Elise. Aunts are a vital role in Mètis families and a role I take on with pride, and I wanted this piece to celebrate that role as well as the life of an aunt who otherwise is beginning to be forgotten to time. This is my most heavily beaded pieces with a detailed floral frame that contains over 10,000 glass seed beads! The sides of the canvas are painted with a simulated sash pattern and the colour scheme was chosen to focus on the dark period of cultural suppression that began at the end of my aunts life, as well as spirituality, which I believe her spirit is strong and lives on through her many great grand nieces and nephews. Many of us have been given her name as a middle name and carry on her legacy.