Michelle Pichette

Michelle Pichette has been a maker for as long as she can remember.  When she was around the age of 10, she received a McCall’s Make-It Book from a neighbour, and made everything in the large book.  “They were all simple things from scraps around the house – paper dolls, string art, paper baskets, and games made out of thread spools, and things like that,” Pichette said.

The following year, when her great-aunt saw a Donald Duck drawing she had copied from a book, she enrolled her in painting lessons for the next four years.  “After that, I got a bursary from the WAG (Winnipeg Art Gallery) Women’s Committee when I was about 15 for supplies and painting lessons, and there I also had my first introduction to making things with clay,” she said.

Later on in life, after she got married and had kids, Pichette spent years making handmade tiles – a hobby that turned into a small studio business. Pichette has had the ability to work in various mediums, and in spring 2021, she decided to diversify even further to make a pair of mukluks.

While she is primarily self-taught, Pichette picked beadwork up quickly. She attended an online beading circle organized by Mentoring Artists for Women’s Art (MAWA), which included a two-hour beaded earring class and a stuffed strawberry class.

“Learning how resilient and adaptable my Ancestors were really drew me in to feel close to them. It was like I felt them near, and hundreds of years of history were just like yesterday, like they were alive,” she said. “I also had a very vivid dream about my grandmother, and that’s what propelled me to (want) to know more about the Indigenous women who had basically walked the path leading to me.”

Pichette said finding out about her heritage helped her feel more grounded. “It has helped me to understand my grandmother and father better, and that their silences and at times seeming distant was not indifference but more likely a learned behaviour of survival and self-protection of their lived experiences.”

“I want to do my best to celebrate all the joy the Métis people created around themselves in both music and art, for they worked very hard and sacrificed much,” she said, “to celebrate their resilience, endurance, strength, adaptability, and finding beauty where sometimes that would have been very difficult.”