WHAT DO I THINK ART IS ABOUT? Everyone, no matter how much favoured by Creator will experience the cornucopia of the human experience, solid friendship, betrayal, love found and lost, the cold stillness of the abyss and joyful redemption back into the light. And finally rolled back into the sweet embrace of Creators grace, taking us back home.
ART GIVES US A VISUAL LANGUAGE TO RESPOND TO ALL THIS - ESPECIALLY IF ONE IS NOT A MEMBER OF A DOMINATE CULTURE OR THE RULING CLASS. THAT IS WHAT ART IS ABOUT.
Am I an 'indigenous Artist?' - NO, I am a treaty Indian, member of the
Sandy Bay Ojibway First Nation, who makes great art and who 'happens
to be Indigenous' - ain't nobody's token . . . ART IS A VOICE
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(Coast Salish: Hummingbird painted with ink & gouache on hand made paper)
Click here for more on the 60% TRIPTYCH. --> 'We are becalmed, we cry out for winds of hope to fill our sails and take us home.
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The Guardian Painting
(Sgrafitto technique - 410 x 510 mm on Baltic Birch Wood Panel)
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LADIES
(NOTE: the red image is one of a set of wood blocks, which was also used to create a Card )
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'A DRAGONFLY'
‘A Dragonfly’ is an art narrative about Mothers and Sons - across the history of humans, the Mother/Son relationship has been one of the pillars that sustained ‘the people’, has been the basis for great art, grand noble feats and above all - strength, hope and love as shelter against assaults of all that ‘living a life’ brings us. [click for 'the dragonfly owners manual']
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GRANDFATHER BEAR (sgraffito* on wood panel)
enhanced picture of forehead of GrandFather Bear Painting
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COVID - 19 ART
Link to Colour Page of Kittens with Covid-19 Masks
We are born with innate fears, all there to promote survival. In the course of human evolution, fear the right thing, and you pass on your genes. Key fears of the dark, loud noises, falling and big hairy things • big loud hairy things coming at us out of the dark!
Covid-19 seems to cause people to project rational, irrational and innate fears onto this pandemic, like the monsters that hid under our beds when we were innocent children. The personification of those things that go bump in the night.
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This is one of the colour pages out of my forthcoming ART JOURNAL BOOK (will be available for download and hard copy): Text and Colour pages based on colour studies done for the 60% Triptych Project.
This image of mothers, many who watched as their children were taken away by Government People.
DOWNLOAD A HIGH RESOLUTION PDF OF THIS IMAGE FOR COLOURING ON THE FREE STUFF PAGE. ENJOY
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Aagask 8 (Sharp-tailed Grouse), this is a Hen.
Why the boots? Juxtaposition of nature and human attempts to control the environment. It is one of the three stories • man v nature • man v man • man v self.
Plus gum boots have a ridiculous quirky lovable humanness to them. It’s hard to express in words, but I hope they illicit a sense of childlike hope and joy, meshed with innocent sweetness and humour. I seek to have these aagask lift our collective soul, and individual souls. There is no defense against the medicine of laughter.
The Grouse is a key player in the life of the bush, and has saved many a hunter and lost soul as grouse are easy to harvest (kill), and share their substance. Flowers because we live in so much beauty and grace from Creator, which oftimes is difficult to always see as while 'the bad times' don't always last, neither do the 'good times', it is called 'living a life'. So beauty in the visual, spiritual, physical and intelluctual. (To share on how some of the process, I have also included the pencil sketches of this piece)
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SELFIE
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SHADOW DANCER
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Bison with Calf
White Buffalo Calf Woman (Ptesáŋwiŋ)
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b R U C E b A R R Y - Artist “Ideologies separate us. Dreams and anguish bring us together.” ― Eugène Ionesco
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I see the law, in a way, part elephant mixed with an element of eagle.The metaphorical eagle looks out about over the people, a symbol asserting that ‘the law’ protects what is "right and just", and also protects the weak and powerless, concerns itself with searching for "the truth", it guides 'the way' with the light to the world.When it turns, the law is an elephant, long in memory but not aware of how much weight it stomps around with, and thus has the capacity for ‘not good’, yet like an elephant bound by a political chain, that isn’t really capable of holding it, the elephant stays restrained. |
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NOTE: if you go to 'free stuff', you can print a card out with each of these paintings with envelope - FREE.
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DIPTYCHS for couple - concept is interwoven lives and shared growth.
(Gouache, acrylic, wasp nest on hand made paper)
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Red Necklace
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New 'Art Echo' added to Silhouette Project
This art echo came from discussions with adults who had 'aged out of care' and mentioned in passing, like it was normal, about having to wear a swim suit when having a bath in some of their foster homes on the theory it would discourage molestation . . . .
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GIZHE-MANIDOO
This is a commission I did for the University of Calgary for their 2018 holiday card. A deconstruction of it is on the Gizhe-Manidoo page here.
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This is my response to the SIXTIES SCOOP (Nov2018)
"The Sixties Scoop refers to a practice that occurred in Canada of taking, or "scooping up", Indigenous children from their families and communities for placement in foster homes or adoption. Despite the reference to one decade, the Sixties Scoop began in the late 1950s and persisted into the 1980s."
This is a 'colour sketch', which are used to show the concept for a larger painting/sculpture, as opposed to going to the expense of stretching a canvas of the final size (approx $300.00), spending the month or so of doing the painting and then marketing it . . . this sketch is 7 x 9 inches.
(NOTE: I have been commissioned to take this colour sketch to a canvas 4 feet across. [Dec2018]): I am also going to add (at the suggestion of a friend), a 'discount bin' for 'special needs Indigenous kids' . . . . why? If you have ever dealt with 'Child Welfare' directly or via a family member, that will make a lot of sense to you.
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This short 30 second film was done as a break in the studio where I have been working on owls. An owl is a night bird, nocturnal in behaviour and temperament. The European Settlers brought with them their beliefs that owls were witches - more colonization of Indigenous culture.
Owls are for us Indigenous people, bringers of prophecy, wisdom and helpfulness. They are also keepers of secrets, as they fly silent and even the deepest secrets surrender themselves to this night witness. They see much of the real world, the imperfections in humans, yet they remain nonjudgmental creatures these - they are part of the face of Creator present.
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TEEPEE Paintings are Canvas mounted on wood panel
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This is a piece I did in Woodland Style - note on this style and how to 'read' a painting done in woodland style can be read by clicking here.
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