Feathers. They’re soft, they’re pretty — but are they wearable art? Ruby Feathers
creator Sigourney Burrell thinks so. So much so, she quit her day job and made feathers her lifeblood. What
started as a makeshift earring, which Burrell refashioned from a broken necklace pendant, has
become somewhat of an enterprise, finding its
way into stores — in Canada, Europe and Japan — onto blogs and onto the streets of
Paris.
“I never thought of this as an opportunity to make money… It just evolved. I sold
five pairs of earrings… I sold another 10 pairs, 20 pairs — suddenly I thought, this could be something big.
I quit my day job and put all of my energy into finding the feathers,” Burrell tells
Lifestyler
from Paris.
With items entirely handmade by Burrell herself, using only locally sourced
feathers, fur and leather, this 26-year-old Winnipegger is not only conscious of the ethics behind using
feathers — she uses only those that fall off naturally — but also of the aboriginal associations her designs
may create.
“An artist is completely inspired by their surroundings — completely. So whether
it was intentional, or whether it was just because of my native connections to my friends, going to powwows —
it is a part of Manitoba culture.”
With her feathers taking flight and taking her around the world, will Winnipeg
always be home? “Yeah, absolutely. I’m a prairie girl. I can’t live anywhere
else.”
» rubyfeathers.com
Lifestyler chats with Burrell
about her designs, her inspiration and of course, her feathers.
Ruby Feathers — this is entirely your
creation?
Everything is handmade by me. All the metal pieces
I hand-pound, all the silver wire and all of my feathers I’ve sourced out from farmers and hunters from
Manitoba. All of my feathers are recuperated with sort of a sustainable, environmental thoughtfulness towards
the animal; it lives a wild life, the hunter was going to shoot it anyway. I made friends with all these
hunters because they were just throwing out the feathers, and to save the feathers was just ridiculous to
them. They laughed at me when I first asked them about it, but afterwards they realized how excited I was,
and I’d show them the finished product — I’d give them earrings and show them what I was doing, so they
started being more into it, and taking more care about even how
they hunt, so it’s [become] a really interesting
process.
Even my exotic feathers are from a local Winnipeg farm
that raises parrots and different exotic birds, and [the feathers] all fall off naturally. So the exotic
birds aren’t being injured. The ones that are being killed were being killed anyway, because they were [being
killed by] hunters and farmers — that’s how they make their living, that’s how they feed their families is by
doing this, so there were feathers that were being wasted that now I’m recuperating and
recycling.
How did this all start? How did you end up making
creations with feathers?
Like anything magical and anything like destiny
starts, you barely remember the beginning, or the moment when you really had the idea. I’ve been an artist my
entire life; I’ve always been creating. I played guitar in an all-girls surf rock band called The
Ex-Girlfriends from Winnipeg for about six years, and we were actually in Montreal on a tour, and I bought a
feather necklace with a pendant. It was a beautiful blue and yellow feather — it was so gorgeous. I wore it
every day that whole summer until it sadly fell off the necklace, so I turned it into an earring and all of
my five best girlfriends asked me to make them feather earrings, so I just bought a bag of feathers from a
craft store in Winnipeg and made all my girlfriends earrings and the next thing I knew a local Winnipeg store
was interested in carrying them. I never thought of this an opportunity to make money, but why not try to
sell them at a store? It can’t hurt. And, it just evolved; I sold five pairs of earrings through the store, I
sold another 10 pairs, 20 pairs — suddenly I thought, this could be something big. I quit my day job and put
all of my energy into finding the feathers, sourcing them out, and it became more about the art of it and not
just making feather earrings, but what can I make out of these materials? And because I’m an artist, it was
such a challenge, such an interesting thing for me to go from painting this huge canvas to making wearable
art that I would see — people would want to buy my stuff. I would make a necklace and it would sell and I
would get to see it. It was this new art world. Now I get to decorate people with these beautiful canvases or
so, but the way that I make them the way that I create — they’re still art to me, individual and creative.
It’s a totally different world and now I absolutely love fashion! (laughs)Designing, wardrobe and styling… I often go
to shoots with photographers and I style their shoots for them because they love my work and they love my
aesthetic. It’s something I grew into; it totally just happened. It’s become really important to me. It’s my
business now; it is my baby, it’s something I hope I can continue doing and I’m sure I will in any form it
takes. Right now, it’s just [about] how can I grow even more, what can I do to spread the news about Ruby
Feathers!
Where did you get the
name?
‘Ruby’ is back to my music. I have a cherry red
hollow body electric guitar that I named Ruby. Ruby Feathers started in 2009. After I was selling these
earrings, the store said I need business cards, so I just thought of Ruby Feathers — it just sounds so
pretty.
Do your creations have any connection or any link
to the aboriginal history of Canada or Manitoba?
An artist is completely inspired by their
surroundings — completely. So whether it was intentional, or whether it was just because of my native
connections to my friends, going to powwows, seeing feathers — in downtown Winnipeg and at The Forks too,
there are aboriginal stores where they sell aboriginal art, there’s always paintings with dream catchers and
feathers — it is a part of Manitoba culture. When I first started making feather earrings, people would say,
“Are you native?” Other than having aboriginal friends and going to a couple of powwows in my life, I’ve
never studied their culture, so I don’t want to pretend I’m an expert. This is purely contemporary. It is
something we associate [with]. I worked with Daryl Murdock who is a Winnipeg First Nations artist who makes
headdresses for chiefs across Canada, especially in Manitoba, and he showed me how to make headdresses. I saw
a headdress and thought, “I want to make this.” But I didn’t want to make a horrible replica. If I’m going to
make one, I want to do it right, I want to learn how; I want to talk to an aboriginal crafter or artist, and
ask, is this ok? Can I make these? Am I going to be infringing on your culture? My work has a commercial
value and it sells commercially, and I don’t want to be doing something and get in trouble because it’s not
correct.
Most of the significance of the headdress comes from the
feathers that are used. They have very specific meaning. I’m using exotic McCaw parrot tail feathers, I’m
using peacock feathers, and I’m using wild turkey feathers, so I’m not using traditional native feathers. He
gave me the full “go ahead.” These aren’t traditional, they’re contemporary and they’re sculptures. Even my
headdresses that are more traditional in their form are still contemporary; for me [they’re] more [like]
sculptures. I’ve only sold one, and I only sell them on a custom-order basis, so I make them specifically for
that one person, which gives them a spiritual nature, and it changes them from being something mass-produced.
If a store wanted 20 headdresses I’d say no. There’s no way. That’s not how they sell, that’s not how it
works. If they want one for their window display, I’d be happy to send one. It’s not for sale; it’s just for
show. Even though I find them contemporary they’re not something that I feel should be
mass-produced.
What are all the types of feathers you
use?
The exotic ones I use quite a bit of in my work. I
love the colour and I love that they’re all natural. All different types of parrot — Amazon, McCaw, African
and then there’s Cockatoo feathers that I use… I use a lot of pheasant feathers and a lot of turkey feathers
and a lot of chicken feathers. I use peacocks, but peacocks are not as popular, though. They are on necklaces
and headpieces, but I used to make so many different styles of peacock earrings, and I’ve narrowed it down to
one style. They don’t sell. In different religions, they’re superstitious — the peacock is a bad omen; it
brings bad luck.
Where do you source your peacock
feathers?
[In Winnipeg the farmers] have peacocks, parrots —
they’ve been raising and breeding birds for the last 12 years. They’re the nicest couple. I met them at the
Winnipeg folk fest. The husband picks up every single feather that falls off every bird. I wouldn’t want to
go online and “click, click,” buy […] amazon parrot feathers. There are parrots going extinct in the
rainforest. The more that my jewelry picked up, the more I was conscious of my materials. I’m buying this bag
of feathers from this craft store — where did they come from? From China? Why am I buying feathers from
China? We have so many farms in Manitoba. We have so many hunters. What kind of life did this chicken have?
It’s animals. I love nature, and I love that I’m making jewelry out of something that nature has provided.
They’re all natural feathers. I don’t like using dyed feathers. I’ll dye a feather for a client if they need
a specific style or colour, but I love using things that nature has provided and I’m so lucky to be able to
use these feathers, that originally were just being wasted. The farmers and the hunters were just doing their
thing, and not even thinking about how beautiful and how gorgeous the bird
was.
Does the fact that you source from only Winnipeg
farmers and hunters render your work distinctly "Winnipeg"?
Absolutely. It’s all made in Manitoba. The only
thing that isn’t is the metal. I love this silver wire that I buy in France. I started using it when I was
[in Paris] on vacation last summer — it’s done by an artist here in Paris. He coats copper wire in silver.
It’s the most beautiful thing. That’s the only thing that isn’t made in Manitoba. But all of my feathers, all
of my leather, too. My leather comes from a reupholster in Winnipeg — it’s all his
scraps.
What about the
fur?
The fur is all from Manitoba as well, up north in
Churchill. There’s a man who sells fur up north. I ask him a lot of questions. I make sure that I’m not
buying fur [from an animal] that was just killed [for the sake of killing]. The families up north have to
kill the animals to feed their dogs and then they sell the pelts to make money. It’s all part of how they
survive. That’s been their way of life for centuries, and they just continue to do
it.
What type of fur?
Mostly rabbit. I mostly use rabbit. I have used fox
in the past — I’ve made fox tail bag clips. I like using rabbit mostly because we eat rabbit, so it’s more
justifiable to me. Whereas fox we don’t eat. If I can justify eating it, like a chicken — I love turkey.
Turkey feathers are the most beautiful feathers. You wouldn’t know it. They’re so beautiful. They have
orange, purple, brown, beige and black [feathers].
Do you make everything by yourself? Or do you have
people helping you?
I make everything by myself. My sister helps me
immensely with putting stuff in stores, so when a store does order something, I don’t have to worry about the
taxes or the numbers — I’m all “thumbs” when it comes to numbers!
How is Ruby Feathers sold?
Distributed?
I come from a family of farmers, and my step-dad
makes farm equipment and my sister works for [him] as [his] sales representative, so she drives all across
Canada. I hopped in the car with her, and she took me to Toronto, Calgary, British Columbia — we went all
over Canada —and in 2010 I basically went door-to-door saying, this is my work, do you want to put it in your
store? Do you want to do consignment? I did consignment in Toronto, Red Deer, Woodstock, Ontario — all over
the map. I managed to sell my work through consignment. At the beginning of September I had a trade show — my
first trade show I’ve ever done — in Paris at Port Versailles, and I’ve managed to now do wholesale. There’s
10 stores across France, there’s a couple in Belgium, there’s a couple in Sweden, two in Spain, one in Italy
and one in Japan.
Was it successful?
Yeah, I think there are 16 new stores in total. And
it’s wholesale, so now I’m not interested in the consignment anymore; I’m taking my business to the next
level. It’s not somebody making a craft. I want to be throughout the world, in different stores and it’s
still just going to be me creating it.
Who are your best
clients?
There are still the Winnipeggers. The Winnipeggers
are definitely my best, continual purchasers. I have a store that sells my work in Calgary, and they sell out
of my things so fast. B.C. too, in the summer. This was my first summer selling in B.C. and I had to send her
stock three times — she sold everything over four months. It sells really well. I think it’s picking up more,
because I don’t make really small earrings — most of my earrings are quite large. The more that the feather
trend has picked up, the more people will think, oh, I’ve seen these little earrings, but nobody’s seen the
big ones.
If you ask me where my best customers are, it’s [got to]
be Winnipeg; it’ll be Winnipeg forever. It’s support like that that has gotten me to where I am, and it’s all
from Winnipeg. I couldn’t be doing this if it weren’t for them.
Will your home always be
Winnipeg?
Yeah, absolutely. I’m a prairie girl. I can’t live
anywhere else. •
Photo Courtesy: Travis
Tait
