Meet the maker

behind

“the lady buck”

Hi there,

MY NAME IS SHIVANI,

MY FRIENDS CALL ME SHIVA.

i’m so glad you’re here~

The Lady Buck was born from a desire to create modern handwoven goods for the modern outdoors women. These pieces are meant to evoke the natural world and call to the inner badass in you! Hence the Lady Buck.

(Why should boys be the only ones to have antlers, besides biologically and evolutionarily)

I spent the majority of the last decade living in Alaska, dog mushing, teaching, and working as a photographer. The Alaskan landscape is unparalleled and leaves its indelible mark on a person no matter the length of time one spends there.

While I had learned non-traditional beading as a crafting skill in my youth, it wasn’t until my graduate studies in 2016, while I was on Rural Practicum for my Alaska Teaching Certification that I rediscovered the skill. It was in the small village of Galena, where I shadowed an incredible Koyukon Studies teacher. She taught everything from collecting berries and making jam, to tanning moose hides and making your own mukluks, she also taught beadwork as part of the curriculum. It was there that I rediscovered a skill from childhood and began teaching beadwork within my own History Classes. I integrated similar traditional skills into my Alaskan Studies class and taught non-ceremonial loom work in Bristol Bay.

Surrounded + inspired by the Alaskan wild and the quiet strength of my fellow outdoors women, women who split their own wood, catch their own fish, haul their own water, fix their own machines, and craft their own beauty amongst the hard landscape of remote living, that I became inspired to begin making small modern non-ceremonial earrings. I began selling them at winter bazaars in our village and in 2019 began selling on Instagram, and in 2020 created this site to house my work. I have large hopes for this space. While I no longer reside in Alaska, no matter where one goes, the community of badass women is endless, and my hope is to showcase more stories my fellow lady’s doing incredible things across the world.

As always thank you for being here. Please drop me a line and share your story!

Photos by: Shivaka Photo Co.