Destiny Seymour, an Anishinaabe interior designer and textile designer, has been working her way towards her dream job her whole life — whether she realized it at the time or not. Growing up, her hardworking mother would keep her entertained in the back of her hair salon with myriad art supplies while her mother tended to clients. Destiny would transform the materials into fantastic creative works, and her little hands became increasingly fascinated by constructing dollhouses — she wasn’t interested in the dolls themselves, rather she was most curious about conceptualizing and making their structures.
She’d later work for an architecture firm, channeling this early love for designing into her work. But running deeper in her veins than any passion is Destiny’s Anishinaabe heritage. “My family is from the Peguis First Nation in the Treaty 1 territory of Manitoba, [Canada], which is about two hours north of the city of Winnipeg where I currently live and work,” she shares. With her culture providing her guidance and support, Destiny followed her intuition to take the next step in her career. In both her professional and personal world, it was clear to her that her voice and talent were needed elsewhere.
“It was very challenging to find interior finishes and materials that respectfully reflected local Indigenous people in Manitoba to put into the design projects I was working on,” Destiny recalls. “Nothing existed. I decided to learn how to create these textiles on my own.” Two years ago, she left her day job to chase down her dream job, but not before she took several night classes on perfecting her craft, hours of research, and countless museum visits to learn from artifacts left behind by her ancestors. Now Destiny runs Indigo Arrows, a beautiful line of pillows, table runners, napkins, placemats, and tea towels inspired by her Anishinaabe heritage.
Today Destiny is sharing her path to starting her own creative business, how her Indigenous heritage and the unimaginable struggles of her family have informed her work, how consumers can inform themselves and not contribute to appropriation, and more. —Kelli
Photography by Alan Greyeyes
from Design*Sponge https://www.designsponge.com/2018/10/destiny-seymours-textiles-picking-up-where-her-ancestors-left-off.html
from Home Improvment http://notelocreesnitu.tumblr.com/post/178949403979
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