By Suzanne Waring
David Mahalic, superintendent of Glacier National Park from 1994-1999, wrote, “As with many artists, I am aware of light. The incredible morning light of Glacier that casts giant shadows of mountains on one another or slices through the crisp morning air to sparkle the dew….and the sunsets that last for hours and glow late into the north—not the west—remind you: this is a special place.”*
Jackie Bread knows too of the morning light, shadows, and sunsets in and around the peaks of GlacierNational Park. She grew up on the Blackfeet reservation adjacent to the park. Her father, a Blackfeet cowboy on a ranch outside of Browning, worked out in the weather when it was harsh, cold, or excessively hot, but he always had a positive attitude and a love for the countryside—personality traits that continue with Jackie. Her father did most of his own veterinarian work, so Jackie grew up thinking she wanted to be trained in that line of work.
During her teenage years, she also did quite a bit of painting which led to an interest in carrying on the tradition of documenting the Blackfeet heritage through art. Her parents helped her financially so she could attend the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico where she studied in both the Two-Dimensional Art and the Museum Study programs. From there she never looked back. To her, art can have profound cultural and symbolic meaning in addition to creating beautiful objects. With the background of her heritage, education, and the incredible landscapes of her youth, beading became Jackie’s foremost art form.
Beads used in ceremonial clothing and on accessories were at first handmade by Indigenous People from shells, stones, bones, and seeds. Then “pony beads,” which were made of glass, became available via pack teams into the West. Lewis and Clark carried and distributed thirty-three pounds of various glass beads—including the blue and white colored beads that were sought after. Later, in the 1840s, “seed” beads that were smaller than pony beads, of various colors were introduced. When Japanese beads became available after World War II, as many as five hundred different hues of color could be used in beadwork. Using the Japanese beads, Jackiestrings them with what is called the appliqué stitch that calls for one needle of beading thread to carry the beads and another needle and thread to sew the beads into place on what is usually brain-tanned buckskin or deerhide. She can also choose to use cotton or a soft wool for the foundation of art pieces. The special beading thread has to be fine enough to go through the bead’s small hole but also durable.
Jackie works from old photographs given to her of Blackfeet people to do portraits in beading. Her parents, as well as others, preserved these photographs of friends and relatives and passed them on to Jackie. The people she portrays in her work often have a serious composure. “Since they were an extremely reserved people and were confronted with photography that was new to them, they often had a serious look on their faces. Regardless of their countenances, don’t be mistaken in thinking they lacked a sense of humor. They have always been a people who could see the amusement in a situation,” said Jackie.
She relies on the photograph for poses, whether they are facial, full length, half length, a bust view, or a profile. “Because of the nature of beading, I especially like doing the facial views of the person,” said Jackie. “How I draw it and then bead it depends on how this person makes me feel.”
When creating pieces that do not include portraits, Jackie will bead designs of her heritage, nature on the reservation, and animals that are and have been part of Blackfeet lives. The most important components to her work are positive and negative space. She considers her work to be hyper-realistic. She likes bold colors that draw attention to the art pieces. When doing beadwork on an object, she makes everything herself, even the structural part of a beaded box, the panels of an umbrella, or the components of a cradleboard.
Jackie lives in Great Falls but is known far beyond northcentral Montana for this intricate and time-consuming work. If she has a good day when she can concentrate solely on beading, she can do approximately a two-inch square of work. One piece of art can take many hours to complete. “I have to be careful. If one bead of a certain color is out of place, it will ruin the whole piece,” she said.
Yes, Jackie has experienced the mountains that create light and shadows as well as the glow of sunsets within and near Glacier National Park, and you will sense them in her art.
*Taken from the “Introduction” in The Call of the Mountains: The Artists of Glacier National Park by Larry Len Peterson.