Harmony Star Straub is Oglala Lakota and Northern Cheyenne, enrolled in Pine Ridge, South Dakota, and currently residing in western Nebraska.She has been sewing and beading for over 36 years, a tradition she learned from her grandmother.
Straub was born with weak lungs, which meant she couldn’t play outside or do many of the things her siblings did. Instead, her grandmother sat her at her table and taught Harmony Star how to sew and bead—her way. She never used patterns, only her hands, fingers, and keen eye for measurement. She has continued this tradition, working without patterns and measuring with the same intuitive methods her grandmother passed down to her
She vividly remembers her grandmother telling her “I am teaching you this because someday I will be gone, and if I don’t teach you, no one else will.” That stayed with her—and it hit hard when her grandmother passed away. The weight of her words became even clearer when Harmony Star battled COVID a few years ago. It became clear to her that she carries her knowledge, and now it’s her turn to share it.
Today, Harmony Star is an educator, a mentor, an artist, a seamstress, and an international fashion designer. She works with a suicide prevention program for Native American youth, where they use cultural preservation as a tool to combat the epidemic of suicide on reservations and within Native communities.
As a fashion designer, she has had the privilege of showcasing her work across the country and internationally.
