weaving place(s) together

Artist Statement

In this body of work, Weaving Place(s), I am studying subtleties and meaning of Nlaka’pamux and Mi’kmaq motifs, contemporary place, materials, and makings. By embedding mixed Ancestral aesthetic in handwoven and functional textiles I affirm worlds, ideals and, stories by merging my past and possible future ancestors practices, my practice, place and overlapping identities. The engagement between my body, materials and spirit comes into being in material objects come cultural objects, which serve day-to-day functions. I think that our material belongings must be infused with cultural relevance and coded meaning to reflect not only our selves and place but our responsibilities, our connection to kin, our stories and crucially, our significance within this architecture.

Through my practice, I move forward. My work allows me to vision adjacent potentialities: what’s possible, and how I can participate there. I find relevance, belonging, connection, and productive offerings through making. Artists and all day-to-day makers have that special ability to be working for the future, right now.

Technical Specs

Painting

Painting each motif allowed me time to study and understand the motifs I explored. I found that I used my painting time to decide which motifs were the most relevant for me, and which best represented my place in the world. I consider my making time, communing time with ancestors, with contemporary time, and with my place.

My home is surrounded by fir trees, I live in a valley bordered by the Long Range and Cape Anguille mountains - the territory of the People of the Dawn. While my matrilineal ancestry is Nlaka’pamux and Mi’kmaq, my patrilineal ancestry is Mi’kmaq and mixed settler. L’nu greet the sun and are members of the Wabanaki confederacy; we greet the morning star.

Each original painting is made with watercolour and gouache on 140 lb watercolour paper.

Weaving

Hand craft reaches across time in a way that our bodies physically cannot; hand making becomes cultural artifact; hand making, makes us as we make it. By creating blankets coded with motif, story and beliefs are activated, worlds are affirmed, bodies are made visible and adorned intergenerationally and meaningfully. I believe weavers and all makers of material objects communicate through time, engaging in both the present and deep time. Material object is always a message and way of meaning-making about us, to us.