When Erica Donovan found out she won the Simons-Fabrique 1840 $10,000 Indigenous Award, she “literally woke up screaming.”
“Honestly, I was shaking,” she said. “It’s just so nice to have your work validated, because I’ve been going for a lot of years.”
Her Tuktoyaktuk Skies earrings secured her the prize, recognizing her talent and creativity.
Since 2017, Donovan has been making jewellery under the trade name She Was a Free Spirit, in honour of her mother.
Drawing on her Inuvialuit culture, Donovan says she takes inspiration from the smaller things — the trim on a parka during the drum dance, or the colours of a sunset.
It was this eye for detail that led to her creation of the Tuktoyaktuk Skies earrings. Donovan said she got the idea from a photograph of a sunset taken by former RCMP officer Chris Kelly.
“He took the most beautiful photos and I came across this one photo, which is where the inspiration of that design came from,” she said. “I was on him like, I gotta bead this.”
Her biggest challenge is getting material in and products out, with the exorbitant cost of shipping to the Arctic coast.
With the five-digit boost, Donovan says she can now stock her studio with all the beads and materials she could ever want.
“We’re renovating the house and so I can complete my creative space. Now I can get all the things that I dreamed of getting, like storage space and more equipment to do other things. So it’ll only get better from here.
“Huge thanks to my local support. I mean, that’s always been the roots to what I do.”
Donovan has big ambitions for her work. One day she hopes superstar Jennifer Lopez will wear her earrings.
With that goal in mind, she says she keeps busy improving her work and finding new ways to get it in front of more eyes.
“I focus on the grind of levelling up,” she said. “The greatest pleasure I get from this honestly are the messages I receive from the women who go out with my earrings.
“I get messages often about the compliments they receive and it feels good to make people feel good.
“That’s the best feeling.”
Visit her store at https://www.simons.ca/en/canadian-artisans/makers-a-z/she-was-a-free-spirit—9572 to purchase a pair of the award winning earrings or like She Was a Free Spirit on Facebook to follow her work.