“A spiritual practice is something you do regularly, consistently, and persistently.”
-Michael Mulberry
The Nay behind the crochet:
Hi y’all! I’m Nadine Smith, and I was the owner and creator of Nay Crochet. I’m no longer in business, but I probably still know fiber artists who can assist you if you need to commission a piece. You can reach me on Instagram @nay._.crochet. I miss doing what I love as a occupation, but I’ll leave the information on this page as a memorial to a very special time in my life.
I have over 25 years experience with crochet and love sharing joy with my community through my art. I identify as two-spirit and use the pronouns she/they interchangeably. I’m an enrolled member of the Peoria Tribal Nation and was born in Apsáalooke territory, just outside of Billings. Everything I do is for the friends and loved ones who didn’t have my privilege, and, because they didn’t, aren’t here today. It is in their name that I create art and tell stories, sing and dance whenever I’m able, and breathe deeply on long walks in nature.
Born a lover who had their heart broken by society, I’ve kicked, bit, and clawed my way back from that dark night of the soul to carve out a place for myself. Creativity, joy, and adventure have become a ritual in memorial of my lost childhood friends. Resistance and resilience in the face of the systems and traditions that deemed them expendable have become my mantra. I demand change not just for my lost loves, but for the loves and relatives who have yet to be born. Toni Cade Bambara said, “The role of the artist is to make revolution irresistible,” and I think some of us lovers who have had to become fighters were born in this historical moment to do just that.
Crochet is good medicine
In the treatment of PTSD, harnessing meditative states is becoming increasingly popular in the medical field. Therapeutic practices use alternating bilateral physical stimulation or EMDR (eye movement desensitization and reprocessing) to desensitize patients in order to reprocess trauma and forge new, healthy neural pathways for thought routines. When I crochet, I make a stitch with my right hand, and I adjust the tension and feed more thread to my hook with my left. The alternating bilateral physical stimulation just naturally occurs: right, left, right, left- over, and over, and over again. I wonder if that is, in part, responsible for the “Zen” state or meditative effect. As someone who experiences reality viscerally and exists in it intentionally, crochet has become a vital spiritual practice of mine, allowing my brain to curiously observe myself moving through this wild, beautiful world.
The Nay Crochet way
Vision
I have struggled with illness and disability since I was very young, and to this day it prevents me from working for consecutive months out the year. I hope Nay Crochet becomes a sustainable way for me to provide my community with high-end goods while enabling me to support and care for myself.
I have partnered with a local, woman-owned business to distribute my art. My items will be available at Confetti Heart Studio in downtown Billings and at select events hosted at the gallery. The owner is carving out space for connection, expression, and celebration in Billings, and she couldn’t have been more welcoming and supportive of me and my art.
Philosophy
In my culture, water is life, all creatures of earth are my siblings, and caring for our animal bodies is a sacred act of resistance. I understand each of us to be a descendant of the universe. Each piece I chose for my first collection reminds me that we are from and of this beautiful planet that is made out of star stuff.
I believe in :
• sustainability through localization,
• connection through community, and, above all,
• (ad)ventures that celebrate the joy of existence.
These values often come into direct conflict with the fast-paced, profit-oriented mandate of our current moment. I’m just radical enough to think that they will be the way through it.
Practice
We all pay into SSDI if we receive a paycheck, but for those of us who access disability insurance, it often means endless social services paperwork on top of our normal medical treatment for life-long disabilities. Interacting with social services can be dehumanizing and more stressful than it’s worth, so the day I got my first disability insurance payout, I began brain-storming occupations that would allow me to set my own schedule to accommodate health flares and hospitalizations, afford healthcare, and achieve financial self-sufficiency.
If you’d told me in 2022 that I’d get to do what I love as a career in 2024, I wouldn’t have believed you. Existence in the midst of the slowpocalypse can be hectic as a passionate being made out of star stuff, but as the resistance’s residence hype person, I commit to regularly, consistently, and persistently making the revolution irresistible.
WOSB Certified
(Woman-owned Small Business)
~Pending~
MBE Certified
(Minority Business Enterprise)
~Pending~
DOBE Certified
(Disability-owned Business Enterprise)
~Pending~