Noella Moore has been exploring her creative talents for as long as she can remember. As a young child, she channeled her artistic talents through drawings and as a teenager through oil painting. Today, the multi-disciplinary Mi’kmaw artist from Lennox Island First Nation expresses her creativity through a variety of mediums, including basket weaving, Quill Art, and painting.  

The arts have served as more than an outlet for Noella’s many talents, they also helped her recover a part of her lost heritage. In 2003, Noella was invited to a basket weaving workshop offered by Mi’kmaq Elders. As she began to bend and weave the wood, it felt entirely natural and healing. Her very first basket was a difficult pattern that required a high level of skill. As she and her teachers would quickly discover, Noella had a natural gift for weaving. Her hands contained knowledge of her ancestors. She continued to learn from the Elders and now teaches basket weaving.  

Her interest in Quill Art was sparked in 2015 when she had the opportunity to learn this heritage Mi’kmaq art form from Cheryl Simon, a Nova Scotia artist. Noella was immediately taken with the intricacies involved in creating unique, complex works of art from porcupine quills, birch bark, and sweet grass.  

For Noella, her art serves as an integral expression of who she is and a means of healing. Through her creative pursuits, Noella has been able to break the cycle of trauma created in her family by the legacy of residential schools. Her art has also helped her discover her heritage and come to understand herself more deeply.