About ✨

Tânisi ekwa tawow: My name is Alexis, and at the moment I make and sell beadwork and other artwork under the business name taapway (Northern Michif), which loosely translates to "good job" in English.

My mom began teaching me what she knew about art and textiles when I was able to hold a pencil, and she was my mentor for 42 years until February 2026 when she left us.

I learned how to bead in 2012 from another Metis woman (Carole Frechette, who is Michif from St. Malo) who has taught me what she learned from her mom about our ways of making clothing and beadwork.

I made moccasins and mitts for family, friends, and community for a decade before illness (severe autistic burnout and breast cancer) put me in the position of needing to support myself from home and I decided that selling beadwork was something that I might be able to do. 

Since 2021 I've translated what I know about beadwork and other art forms into jewelry and- occasionally- larger pieces like wall pockets and purses.

My designs are my own. I do occasionally use some of the Metis/Ininew/Anishinaabe/Nakawe motifs that show up across Nations (eg. certain flower, bud, fruit, and leaf patterns) but I don't believe in copying patterns and colours wholesale from old beadwork. 

I'm really passionate about the history of seed beads and different cultures' styles of beadwork, and I love old seed beads and playing with colour combinations. I also think and occasionally write about art and the intersectional politics behind it, specifically (lately) who succeeds and who struggles and how poverty and intergenerational trauma play into this. 

Finally: The internet puts us in a strange too-big space where we can't always ask the usual questions about family and so on.

I'm Metis on my mom's side (see below for family ties) and a bunch of unknowns on my father's. 

My mom's mom (my grandma) was Hazel Allarais MacDonald (Adair/O'Dair/Cook) from Kinosota, MB.

Her mom (my ggrandma) was Laura Annie Cook from Kinosota/Ste Rose.

My grandma's legal (not birth) father was Irish and named Matthew Adair; he wasn't around much.

My grandma's grandparents raised her from four years old: They were Alfred Cook and Jemima Cook (Murray) from St. Peters and Kildonan, respectively.

Before them my family "tree" is a thicket of Cooks (Cree-Saulteaux), Bruces (Metis), Murrays (Metis), Chalifoux (Metis), Sinclairs (Cree-Saulteaux), McNabs (Cree), and Herons (Metis) from Red River, St. Peters, northern Alberta, and Moose Factory (Cree).