Shelley Niro

Oh My Aching Breaking Beading Heart

Shelley Niro Transcript

April 20, 2026

Participants: Shelley Niro (SN), Artist; Sarah Myers (SM), Associate Curator, Interpretation; Ibby Ouweleen (IO), Curatorial Associate

SM: We’d like to start off by asking you to introduce yourself and share a little bit about your practice.

SN: My name is Shelley Niro. I'm Mohawk from Six Nations, Turtle Clan. I live in Brantford, Ontario. I'm an artist. I'm a filmmaker. I’m a photographer, a sculptor, and a bead worker.

IO: It's an honor for us to have Oh MyAching Breaking Beading Heart in the collection.I wanted to ask you broadly about beadwork in your practice... the way you incorporate it into your sculptural work and how you nod to it in painted pieces like the one in the Art Bridges Collection.

SN: I've always done beadwork. At home, as a child, I did beadwork. It wasn't the big fancy beadwork you see now, mostly edge beading and making things to sell at powwows and fairs. It was just a really simple kind of beadwork. I'm attached to making beadwork, even now. It’s so much a part of my life, part of my creative life. I won’t ever ignore it or give it up. It's something that I am satisfied doing. My beadwork is kind of simple compared to other people's beadwork. The medium has really exploded into this creative showcase of what people can do with beads. But I've always done beadwork.

There was a time when beadwork was looked at like trinkets—something not serious. I always found that insulting: the idea that beadwork wasn't considered a format capable of serving as a platform for artistic expression. But I believe we are now seeing that.

Historically, beadwork was attached to that kind of narrative: “Oh, don't look at beadwork. It’s bland. It's boring. It's a commodified tradesman tool.” But I find that as time goes on, it has turned into this fantastic element of Native creativity. You can never stop with beadwork. It's not like one day we’re going to say, “Okay, we can't go any further. This is it.” It just keeps developing.

When I started that painting, OhMyAchingBreaking BeadingHeart , I really wanted to express those sentiments toward beadwork. So, I used a heart as a symbol of passion, and it stems from something really fundamental in a lot of these cultures that use beadwork.  The title of beadwork has sort of suffered. I wanted to make a statement that beadwork has so much further to go, so much more to give. That's all I have to say.

IO:  You really exemplify that idea of beadwork having so much to give and how it can just go on endlessly in different directions by referencing it across all your different media... the way you use beadwork as a framing device for some of your photographs, how you use it sculpturally, and then how you paint it as well. So, thank you for talking about that.

SM: You kind of just answered this in a sense, but we were wondering about the specific symbology or motif of the anatomical heart, which appears in some of your works. You mentioned passion in relation to this. For this particular work, is it a passion for beadwork and beadwork artistry? Passion in general? Tell us a bit about the anatomical heart.

SN: For a few years, I was involved with a beading circle. Beading circles are really great because people come together and bring their own project. Sometimes, instructors come to these circles as well. We had a really great instructor, Sam Thomas, in this area, who would give beadwork lessons. He passed away about two years ago, but his beadwork was so perfect, you know? He really studied beadwork. He would buy old beadwork pieces to learn how they were put together. Some of the designs are so intricate. He would take it apart, and he would count the number of beads to make that particular flower or leaf, anything like that, and then he would have lessons. He would tell people, “This is how we're going to make this leaf, and you need three beads here. You need four beads there.” That sort of thing. People do come together, and they do want to learn, and they get excited about it. So, I was expressing excitement about beadwork when I used that big heart, kind of exploding with beadwork all over the place. I wanted it to be way over the top.

IO: Can you tell us about the title? You have such a wry humor in a lot of your work. Every time I say the title, I think of that Billy Ray Cyrus song, “Achy Breaky Heart.” I don't know if that was what you were going for...

SN: Well, I was thinking about that song's title, “Oh, My Aching, Breaking Heart.” Is that his title? So, I kind of picked up on his passion. I don't think he does beadwork.

[Laughing]

SN: I just wanted it to be joyous, and, you know, fun.

And people who use beadwork in different things... they're dedicated to doing this. There’s a certain amount of dedication and passion, and it creates culture. It pushes culture forward. It's like a big hug, you know? A big hug to culture.

SM: This work is from 2014. Do you remember how this fit into your practice at that time?  Things you were thinking about in that moment in your career, or if you were focusing on one specific medium. Where does it fit into your story and your journey?

SN: In 2014, I was doing a lot of painting, and some of the paintings had figures wearing clothes with beadwork designs. I've always been really married to the idea of promoting design, promoting Iroquois culture, and promoting our aesthetics to the world. At that time, that was a hard line for me—something I really wanted to push, showing where I was coming from. I think that aspect is still there, but for some reason, it's changed a little. It's changed its course. [It used to come] straight at you. I'm now going around a bend, but it’s there.

SM: And do you think that bend, or that different way you get at the same message... is it because of the particular mediums you're working with? Or something else?

SN: Well, I think it depends on what I'm researching. At the time, I was doing a lot of research on Pocahontas and Joseph Brant. In fact, I still am. That project seems to take over every once in a while. Thinking about Pocahontas and her story, and Joseph Brant and his story, they're a couple hundred years apart from each other.

But again, it's about what the dominant culture has squished down and erased, what they considered not important. I find that when I'm studying characters like that, I really want the aesthetics of those cultures to be prominent and important.

SM: When you're going through that process, do you usually come up with an idea first, and then the medium you choose comes second? Or is it that you're in a painting moment, and you want to paint, and then the image comes to you? How would you describe that process?

SN: Especially when I'm painting, I go in with the idea. Of course, by the time I finish, it's not nearly what I thought of in the beginning. It changes throughout the work. I always think that if you want an idea, and if you want it to be exactly the way you're thinking about it, then you should just take a photograph of something. Photos won't change too much. But painting always changes. The color scheme changes. The composition changes. What's in that composition doesn't always change—the intent of the painting is kind of there but not exactly how it started out.

SM: Are there any artists or practitioners you would say you're inspired by?

SN: That's a very hard question because I like looking at other people's work and appreciating what they've done. I love the energy that's put into the work. And then sometimes, I look at a work and think, “Oh my god, that's so amazing that somebody could actually think that up and finish making something like that.” As far as artists go, I mentioned Sam. He's an influence on a lot of people because they would come to him and go through the process of trying to learn what he wanted to show them. But I don’t know. That’s such a hard one.

IO: When writing labels for the works, I always want to make sure that if there's anything the artist wants viewers to think about or know when they are looking at a piece, that we communicate that. So, is there anything about this piece that you really want to make sure people understand or know?

SN: When I think about my artwork, I feel like I am really creating our ancestral artifacts for future generations to look at. Hopefully, they can learn from it by looking at it and saying, “Oh, this is made by somebody who's traveled so many years and brings with them the ancestors that came before.” So, it's a continuum of artistry, thought, and philosophy.

SM: We love to wrap up our interviews by asking artists what they're thinking about today and what they're working through in their artistic practice at the moment.

SN: Well, I'm working on a script.

IO: Oh! Okay, like a movie? Like a feature film?

SN: Yeah, but this particular script has been rejected a few times because I think it's too crazy and too wild, so I have to simmer it down and make it not so abstract. It's about Norval Morrisseau. Do you know who he is? He was basically the first artist in North America or maybe Canada who had this tremendous impact on all Native artists in Canada. His style has been hugely influential. It’s known as the Woodland School of Art. So, people have embraced that style, and they've created their own work. He's so multilayered, so complicated. His life was also sad. He had all this success, great success. It's such a hard script to write.

SM: Wow. That's really exciting. I just thought of another question that I want to ask: Is there anything you feel is misconstrued about your work? Have you ever seen or heard an analysis of your work that you felt was off?

SN: I don't know. The only thing I can think of was years ago. Sometimes, my work is sort of humorous, and I'm not the most humorous person in the room. I was at a conference, and this young art student came up to me, and she said, “I thought you would be funnier!”

[Laughing]

SM: That is a great story.

SN: I'm not a stand-up comedian.

SM: Do you remember how you responded?

SN: I just said, “Oh, sorry to disappoint. You're going to have to pay the big bucks for that one.”

SM: Well, you certainly made me laugh today. Thank you so much.

IO: It was lovely to hear more about the work and get to meet with you face-to-face, or screen-to-screen, whatever this is. We’re really honored to share Oh MyAchingBreaking BeadingHeart with so many people around the country.

SN: Well, I'm glad you guys have it, and you can look at it.

SM: Thank you so much.

SN: Nice meeting you.