Lally Partridge

Lally Partridge is a multidisciplinary artist from Kuujjuaq, Nunavik, QC, whose practice encompasses beading, fish skin tanning, sewing, painting, drawing and more. She shares her work online through the handle @arpikdesigns.

Partridge began her artistic journey with beading lessons from her sister, Pasha L. Partridge, at the age of fourteen. Family and friends have played a large role in Partridge’s artistic development, and continue to inspire her to create today: Pasha also taught Lally to work with clay, while sister-in-law Julie Grenier and mother-in-law Annie Grenier have been vital to Lally’s artistic development. “I learn a lot from them and we exchange ideas,” says Partridge. [1] She has a similar open exchange with twin sister Louisa, taking turns teaching one another new skills as they develop them. Close friend Hannah Tooktoo taught Partridge to paint and draw, while local seamstress Eva Angnatuk taught her to handsew pualuks. 

Partridge’s jewellery mixes sealskin in both natural and dyed forms with beads. Unlike many other Inuit beaders who create vertical tassels and fringe, Partridge’s work concentrates instead on an ulu-shaped design, wrapping hemispheres of seal with a dangling line of beads that connect on either end but still swing with free motion, evoking fringe in a different form. Her painting and drawing style has taken on aspects of pointillism, with Partridge creating and shading shapes using only different concentrations of dots in monochrome. While her favourite thing to make currently is earrings, Partridge stresses that her practice is multidisciplinary at its core. “It’s hard to stick to one [medium],” she says “I wish I could do everything all at once…one of my goals is a piece where I can draw, paint, add beads, add all the materials I know.”

In 2024 Partridge incorporated another medium, fish skin tanning and dying, through a series of local workshops held by Kativik Ilisarniliriniq. “I want to try all the different types of leather, because they are all different textures, different thicknesses,” she says, hoping to one day be able to make a headband from the material if she can create something thick and strong enough. For now, her focus is on growing her presence online so she can sell more earrings. “I want people to feel amazing when they wear my earrings, to receive lots of compliments and to have the experience uplift their day,” she says.