Honouring Doodlers Everywhere!

At the Honouring Indigenous Women event, something stopped me in my tracks as I was walking into the Rotundra. Someone, perhaps one of the girls that was taking care of registration, sketched this on a scrap piece of paper. I call it a doodle only because it was obviously freehand, off the cuff and on a scrap piece of paper. Something inspired this artist to draw this at that moment. Really, it's a beautiful piece of art and this person has real talent. Perhaps it was their way of honouring indigenous women through the arts. I think it is beautiful and it made me smile when I saw it. I wonder if anyone else noticed it.

Honouring Indigenous Women in the Arts

I am so glad I made the time in an otherwise busy and chaotic life to go to this event. Dolores told me she was receiving an award at the "Honouring Indigenous Women" show because of her work at home with her language and drumming. I am so happy she invited me to go because I'm not sure I would have made the time otherwise. It was a great way to relax and celebrate the many talents of indigenous women. I displayed some of the art at the show above and in case you can't read the "Bear Woman" piece it says "Legendary Medicine Woman. could tranform into a Bear. became lovers with a Bear Mate. Birthed and Raised Many Children. She gives us Courage. to Shape Shift as we need. to Love who we Choose. and to Defend our Young."
There were several pieces of beautiful art displayed at this event but the main event was the best part of this show. One of Fyre Jean's (First Nations Studies professor) First Nations classes put on a play about the paradox of traditional and contemporary ideologies of women on their moon time (on their period). Whoa! Right! Did I just say that? Yep! We have been conditioned by social constructs to believe that being on our moon time or women on their moon time is gross, something to hide, something to be ashamed of. Traditionally, First Nations revered women on their moon time to have a lot of power, a power that was so powerful it would disrupt the natural powers of spiritual ceremonies. Women on their moon time were not allowed to attend sweats, attend a potlatch (for the first year) and prepare food or attend other sacred ceremonies. Women would gather together on their moon time to bead together, share stories and celebrate their womanhood. The play they did was amazing, there was a girl who wondered a lot, named Wonderwoman! Wonderwoman was trying to make sense of the traditional and contemporary ideologies about women on their moon time and so the play went on to tell the story of what I briefly and incompletely described above. There is much more to it than I have described here, but I would not be able to tell the story.
Thanks for reading...

Aesthetics of Events

The aesthetic appeal of an event can make or break an event. A large part of planning and logistics of any event is how the space will look. The theme must be omnipresent at the event so that people know what the event is about and that they are in the right place! It also sets the mood for an event. Could you imagine if there were no ribbons, no balloons, no poster, no leaves? The mood would have been quite different; stale and bland maybe. The mood set by design and aesthetics will set the tone for the whole event.Given the little resources and time we had to create the mood for this event, I was happy with the results.

Celebration of Art

Celebrating student's work is so important as it gives them a sense of pride in their work which transfers into confidence. Confident students allows for successful learning to occur because they have a positive outlook on learning. Although only a few students showed up to the art fair from my class, for those three students it was an amazing experience. They felt so proud that their work was being displayed for everyone to see. Parents were so proud and will no doubt praise their children for such great works of art! It was a great experience for me as well, it showed me that these events go a long way for students and are so important to build student's confidence in themselves as learners.
The top picture is myself and one of my students, a daughter of a colleague in our program. I will not mention names but I have permission to post this picture on my blog.

Headstone Potlach Ceremony

Drumming, singing, dancing, beautiful art that represents each clan in the background. 

Art is a way of life here, not something you just do.

Ski Pass Mask

It was about a week before my friend Rosco's birthday and I told him to "sit down and stay still, I'm making a plaster mask of your face." So he did, he let me put Vaseline on his face and put a plaster cast on his face, trusting friend! I didn't tell him why I was doing this. He had a shoelace in his room with about 20 different seasons passes from all the different mountains around the world that he had either worked at or had a pass to. I took it, got all of them copied in colour and cut them out. I pasted all the copies of his seasons passes on the plaster mask as well as a few magazine picture of snowboarding scenes. This was his birthday present. He LOVED it! It's kind of weird looking but it's really cool.
Plaster is a great tool for art, although quite messy! I think to use plaster successfully in the classroom it would be for intermediate grades only! 

Utility Art

Utility Art: Art doesn't not just have to be for please, it can also be for utility. I made this jewelry holder from shells, driftwood and a stone from the beaches of the west coast of Haida Gwaii. When I was roaming the beaches I started collecting and shells, I looked at the abalone and thought it would be cool to hang earings from the holes in the abalone shell. From there my jewelery holder took shape and I started collecting for this purpose. I used wood glue to glue the wood to the rock and shells to the wood. Wood glue works for EVERYTHING I have come to realize.
I love art that I can use because I appreciate it on a daily basis, not just when I pause for a moment to look at it. I often put my earings on in the morning and look at this piece and I remember where all the parts of it came from, it's nostalgic in a sense.
I think utility art can be a great thing for our students, because they can appreciate it every time they use it. It's not just something that gets put on the fridge or shelf for a couple of month and then in the garbage when the next great piece of artwork comes home and replaces it.