Voice of Jennifer Neptune: Growing up I was really a quiet, shy person, and kind of bookish, and so I spent a lot of time in the library. I would go to the library over here at the University – because my mother works at the University of Maine – so, I would go to that library there as a teenager and pour through all the books. And I started to see, you know, photographs of peaked caps and collars and was just, really kind of awestruck by them and how beautiful they were, and how powerful, and, just, you know, that whole tradition. And I hadn’t seen them in person ever.

This style of bead work I started, I was probably, like, 18 or 19, and just had this, like, overwhelming urge one day: you have to make bag, you have to make a bag! And I was like “I don’t know how to make a bag. I’ve never done that kind of beadwork before!” because, you know, jewelry and, it’s similar and a lot of the techniques are similar, but that applique is really different.

If you’re quiet enough and respectful enough, I think, the spirits, the ancestors, they’re still there. It’s still there, you know, if you can just settle down and have some patience it will come through and you will figure it out. And I did.