The Lady Buck Story

The story behind the Lady Buck.

It was a cold winter’s day…hold up, it was actually summer.

It was the late 90’s, The Fresh Prince was my favorite show, Clinton was president, + I was at a sleep away camp trying to fit in. We were encouraged to sign up for activities that ran the gamut of outdoor activities to indoor crafting. Cool kids chose tennis, I chose crafting. One of the first in many lessons was beading small animals. I still have the miniature beaded crocodile I made 20+ years later. I grew to learn the loom, and make friendship bracelets and all the things a young 90’s girl does while listening to Gettin Jiggy Wit it. I left my crafting days behind in middle school and traded them for horses.

My beading skills would stay camouflaged in my past until my second year of Grad School. While shadowing a Veteran Koyukon Studies Teacher in Galena, AK, I was observing students beading bracelets or making bead patches. By the middle of the week I had joined in, relearning how to thread a needle and loom and started weaving beads again. I brought the rediscovered skill into my own Alaska History Class and taught students basic loom skills as part of historic cultural piece within their own Athabaskan, Yupik, Aleut, and Alutiiq heritage.

It was the funnest part of the History class for me personally and I began making non-ceremonial modern earrings for folks around the community. While many women weaved beads, it was often for ocean baubles, moccasins, or larger pieces. I branched into earrings and began selling small batches at the local bazaar, then growing to do custom pieces for folx around town.

After a couple years, we moved to the Midwest and I put my beads away. They made me miss Alaska too much and our life on the tundra and along the coastal waters of Bristol Bay. In 2019, I pulled my beads out, almost in ominous preparation that foreshadowed the coming pandemic. In truth it was solely to reconnect with a part of me I had put away.

I began making in earnest and creating batches of earrings and wondering if I could do more.

In November of 2019 I attended a creative retreat in Idaho full of women from around the US who were passionate about connecting with their deeper artist. It was there that I met jewelry makers who inspired me to go forth and try my hand.

Back to the beginning, on a cold winter day, coming in from a ski-jore with our huskies, I found some white tail deer sheds. Bringing them into our shop/garage I held them up above my head to show the matching pair to my father-in-law and he exclaimed, “What are you a Lady Buck?”

My eyes widened and in that moment the name for my small bead weaving company was born.