Moosehide Slippers with Sealskin Tongue and Rabbit Fur Trim

Vanessa Flowers is an Inuit artist from Hopedale, Nunatsiavut. She began crafting 12 years ago when she attended a local sewing circle in her hometown. There, with the help of her grandmother Andrea Flowers and local seamstress and mentor Sarah Jensen, she made her first pair of moosehide slippers with beaded tongues. She continued to make slippers along with dolls and small scale items such as seal earrings, keychains and brooches. She later began creating more elaborate beaded pieces such as poppy pins and orange shirt pins. She primarily works with moosehide, sealskin, rabbit fur, antler and beads.

Today, she and her sister Veronica continue to craft and sell art through our Instagram page: V & V crafts. They have held workshops for slipper making and beadwork, for adults and youth, both in person and virtually. They have attended various art markets such as Northern Lights 2023, Atlantic Indigenous Tourism Summit Art Market 2023, and various local craft fairs. A pair of Vanessa’s baby slippers were also featured in the nationally touring exhibition “SakKijâjuk: Art and Craft from Nunatsiavut”. Before her grandmothers passing, Vanessa and her siblings were fortunate to learn her skill of blackbottom sealskin boot making (kamek), and they continue to make these boots today. I Vanessa currently lives in Corner Brook and is an online Inuktut instructor with the Nunatsiavut Government Language, Culture and Tourism Department.