ARTIST BIO
✷ Hi / Bonjour / Kuei lovelies! I’m Aly, the artist behind Magic In Making. I am a full-time beadwork artist/maker/small business owner. I love to work with different art mediums to experiment and create magical art. I love everything shiny & bold, but also delicate dainty pieces. I would describe my art style as whimsical, soft eclectic and always fun! I love working with charlotte cuts & true cuts 11/0 as well as with picasso czech seed beads, crystals, freshwater pearls and natural gemstones. I inspire a lot of my work from my various interests & collections from bratz dolls, drag queens, pop culture, to kawaii stuff, sanrio & ghibli, to nature & even my own dreams sometimes. Magic in Making is all over the place sometimes but it's unapologetically me ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ This art project has helped me connect to my inner child and it's been amazing. I've been able to explore my interests freely and create and to have others enjoy it is so magical. Every piece is poured with love and magic.
✷ Being chronically ill & disabled as well as neurodivergent, creating art as a living has helped me tremendously feel more humanized and enjoy life to a whole new level. Being unable to have a 'regular' job due to my health conditions, Magic In Making has given me the freedom to work for myself and explore my creativity for a living. I want to thank everyone who has supported me on this art journey from the bottom of my heart. I am so excited to share this journey with you and to continue to grow & learn with you!
✷ Since I do beadwork, I'd also love to talk to you about my beadwork journey! I started beading with my mom as one of the many ways to learn and connect in some way to my Indigenous Innu ancestors. My grandfather has always, and still does, teach me everything he knows about the land, and cultural practices that he was taught by his Innu friends, but being himself a descendant of a forced adoption, it has been a hard journey for all of us to feel connected enough to our roots. Being disconnected in many ways, I am not an enrolled member of the Innu community that my roots are from, but I strive every day to connect more, learn, and be the best descendant I can be and connect with my ancestors and my kin. I grew up on the Nitassinan and even though I am disconnected in many ways, I feel so extremely connected to the land. I am actively, slowly but surely, learning the language as much as I can, I listen to kin and educate myself and I connect by honoring the land as well as learning about the history of my ancestors. As a mixed white person with Innu roots/heritage, I do not in any way want to take up a space that isn't meant to be mine and thus my decision to now keep traditional materials out of the work I sell. I keep this part for gifts and myself which makes it so much more special to me. I just want to share my reconnecting journey to my roots authentically and with transparency but I do not want to profit off of them. I am continuously learning about how to do that in a honourable way. I am proud of my roots and feel connected to them even in the disconnection and it is my duty to reconnect and honour them but it is also my duty to know my place in the beadwork community! Beadwork for me is medicine, and no matter what kind of beadwork I create, traditional or not, I feel connected with my ancestors and the land and mostly, with myself. I hope through my beadwork, you will feel all that love that is that journey. I hope to make my ancestors proud. Reconnecting is a life-long process, hard work, that I am dedicated to every single day. Reconnecting comes with lots of learning & growth. I truly believe I will be reconnecting my whole life, there is so much to learn but I come with the best of intentions, to connect to the ones who came before me. Thank you, merci, tshinashkumitin for taking the time to read, for supporting me in this journey, and for being here!! ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ
If you got to the end WOW! Haha thank you for being here!
- Aly ✷