Nellie (Dickson) MatthewsNellie is an Ojibwa/Cree woman, originally from Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug First Nation, known as Big Trout Lake, a fly-in community north of Thunder Bay Ontario, Canada.Nellie is the daughter of Joyce (Childforever) Boyce and George Fox. Her grandparents are John and Eliza Childforever and John and Georgina Fox.She is a self-taught artist and has been doing beadwork for 22 years.At the age of five years old, her mother Joyce and her grandmother Georgina gave her a needle and thread.She remembers the red and green beads they placed in front of her to make a bracelet.This was the first time she made something out of beads. This bracelet she still has today.A year or so after that, she began making tiny mittens for her dolls. But as a child she mainly watched her grandmother and her mother make moccasins, gloves, hats, birch baskets, jewellery and hide. “I was always there asking questions and helping and sometimes doing my own projects” But as she got older she started to get ideas of her own. She would tell others, but they never understood what she was talking about.To many people, her ideas were time consuming, impossible and complicated.It was then she started to bring about her own creativity.For as long as she could remember, beadwork has always been a passion. She loves what she does and takes pride in it.It is a fine art that many cannot do.She must tell you that when she beads, it relaxes her body and mind.She loves the time she puts into her work, especially how it makes her feel when she finishes a piece.The beads in each project are stitched in two at a time.The hours she puts into her projects go from 9 – 30 hours, depending on size.Her work is time consuming but worth every second.“What inspires me is plain and simple, I get my creativity through the land WE walk on, it’s the richness of our environment, the beauty of the animals, the simple lives of our ancestors, the stories we have heard as children and all the little things that go un-noticed every day. These are the things that inspire me.”Finally, she has realized over these last few years, beadwork is becoming a forgotten art. She hopes her art pieces encourages or inspires others to pursue this type of ability.She hopes in the near future she can teach others this art.
Artists Bios 
