Andrea Flowers

Andrea Flowers is a seamstress and craftswoman from Hopedale, Nunatsiavut. She was born and raised in Makkovik, NL, and moved to Hopedale after getting married in 1952. As a child in Makkovik, she learned many basic sewing and knitting skills from her mother and her aunt Bertha. Once in Hopedale, she learned how to clean sealskin with the help of her mother-in-law. Flowers would use sealskins to make sealskin boots and mitts for her children. She also did a lot of sewing and knitting. After her children grew up, she started to make crafts to sell, which began to attract the attention of people from other communities. 

Today, Flowers continues to clean sealskins and make mitts, black-bottom sealskin boots, moosehide slippers with beadwork and silapâks (parkas). She is actively involved in her community craft group and often has the opportunity to teach others. In 2017 she helped her nephew sew his traditional sealskin kayak. Flowers is especially proud of her grandchildren who have taken an interest in Inuit craft, as she feels it is important to teach the next generation these skills so they are not forgotten.

Recently, a pair of Flowers's kamiks (skin boots) were included in the travelling exhibition SakKijâjuk: Art and Craft from Nunatsiavut at the Rooms in St. Johns and the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia in Halifax. The exhibition's next stop is the Winnipeg Art Gallery from May to September 2018.

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Accomplishments

November 12, 2010: Flowers represented the Nunatsiavut Government in hosting the 2010 Olympic torch as Elder Firekeeper in Hopedale.