"Her Quilts Combine Beauty and Culture"

OHSWEKEN - Sun, moon and stars are splashed together in the sky. Lightning strikes, rain falls and fire burns.

Vines and flowers flourish on the earth. The world is created.

On a quilt.

It's called The Legend and it shows the traditional native story of creation. It's worth at least $500, probably more.

The Legend is one of Marion Martin's favorite quilts among the more than 50 she makes in a year, combining her culture and her craft.

The 54-year-old woman owns White Feather Quilts in her home on the Six Nations Reserve.

Her grandmother taught her the craft when she was six.

"I used to trace the patterns for my grandmother and she let me cut them. I would watch her. She let me start my own. She taught me how to sew the seams."

Mrs. Martin didn't finish her first quilt. Her mother-in-law did it for her.

She learned to sew again with other women in her church. She made her first quilt when she was 29. "It took six months and I thought, 'I'll never do this again.'"

She did - for her children's birthdays and weddings, the births of her grandchildren, friends' anniversaries and to donate to local organizations and teams for draws to earn money.

Mrs. Martin gave most of them as gifts. She charged up to $75 sometimes just to pay for material.

When some of them were appraised at up to $3,000, it was time to earn some money for herself.

So she started her business, naming it after what a fortuneteller told her: "You have faced danger many times, but you have been saved," she was told. "You have a spirit protecting you. He was a warrior. His name was White Feather,"

And, of course, she made a quilt called White Feather. The feather rests on a background of red surrounded by bands of white, grey and black. Red, white and black are the colors of the Mohawks. A floral design from a moccasin is stitched on the bands of colors.

The same design dominates another quilt called Iroquois Moccasin. "I saw it on the toe of a moccasin somewhere and I sketched it and colored it," Mrs. Martin said.

The design on a moccasin, even the shape of the soft shoe, used to reveal the owners tribe. Mrs. Martin, who is just learning about much of her culture, can't identify which tribe used this design. "I need to do more research." she said.

Mrs. Martin's grandmother made quilts with classic patterns like the Dresden Plate but her granddaughter wanted to make something different.

"If it was a design like this, it wouldn't hold any significance because everybody makes these, I thought, 'Why can't I put anything I want on them?'"

Her choices are often stories and symbols from her culture. "I think a lot about culture. There is such beauty in our culture.

"I don't like to have people just look at it and say, 'It's nice.' I like to take them on a personal tour."

There is also a significant and growing market for native arts and crafts, she said.

Personal orders still comprise the biggest percentage of Mrs. Martin's work. Quilts for children - with bears wearing beaded headbands and carrying balloons, with cartoon characters, with the children's names - are popular.

She plans to hire an employee with the help of an employment program and open a store in her home. "It's too much. I can't do it all."

But she doesn't want to become too commercial. A businessman from Toronto asked her last year to create one design for a quilt for babies and make 1,000 of them. He offered her employees, sewing machines and $35 per quilt. "The money you could make," he told her. She rejected the idea.

"I didn't want anyone to have control over me or my designs. I think I'd go crazy if I had to look at one design. There wouldn't be any feeling in it."