“Aanii, ndinaawamagaanadog! Maygabow Ogidajew Kwe, nindizhinikaaz. Gaa-waabaabiganikaag ndoonjibaa, Migizi ndoodem. Hello, my relatives! My name is Woman Standing on the Mountaintop; Valerie St.Pierre Smith is my English name. A proud descendant of White Earth Nation, I am Eagle clan.”

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A wonderer and wanderer, I am also an interdisciplinary artist, designer, educator, and scholar. Fascinated from a very young age with fashion, identity, and the healing power of beauty, I see creation as an act of care. Using material, texture, color, line, shape, pattern, and linguistics as language, I explore the deep stories held within our bodies, our relationships, and our histories. Weaving these elements together through textiles, fashion, traditional fine art mediums, and digital technologies, I integrate my lived experience as a mixed-race urban Anishnaabe kwe into contemporary representation.

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Rooted in the 7 Grandfather teachings, Wisdom, Love, Respect, Bravery, Honesty, Humility, and Truth all guide my way of creating, working, seeing, and knowing.

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Ultimately aiming to foster kinship and dialogue, my work invites you into relationship: with learning, with remembering, with self, with one another, and above all, with the connections that unite us. Underpinning all that I do is the deep knowing that beauty is medicine.

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Interested in working together? Drop me a note, vsmithdesign@gmail.com, or follow me @valeriestpierresmith on Instagram!​​