by Angela Gzowski
I love jewelry designer Caroline Blechert’s work because she uses traditional materials, such as porcupine quills, in creative ways rarely seen in northern pieces. And after years developing her art, she’s now working full-time at her business, Creations for Continuity, and selling pieces on Beyond Buckskin, a popular site dedicated to promoting modern Native American fashion and design.
“I really want to start carving baleen and incorporating my beadwork and quillwork into carving and joining those two things together because baleen is very attached to my roots,” she says of the next step in her development. “The Inuvialuit hunted whale quite often and traditionally, they would exchange the baleen with Europeans, and they would use it for corsets.”
Along with interviewing her for the EDGEYK.com video below, I’m also proud to have her as a client of my photo business. Locally, you can find her work at Old Town’s Down to Earth Gallery and Gallery of the Midnight Sun, as well as Northern Images and the Tlicho Online store. She also accepts custom orders.
