Watch our Nov. 6 artist talk with George Littlechild. ‘George Littlechild: Here I am-can you see Me?’ is sponsored by Capital Power.Watch our Nov. 6 artist talk with George Littlechild. ‘George Littlechild: Here I am-can you see Me?’ is sponsored by Capital Power. …
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Intro
Intro
0:00
Intro
0:00
George Littlechild
George Littlechild
3:00
George Littlechild
3:00
Unidentified Children
Unidentified Children
10:30
Unidentified Children
10:30
Family History
Family History
13:45
Family History
13:45
Finding the Graves
Finding the Graves
16:18
Finding the Graves
16:18
Residential School
Residential School
16:46
Residential School
16:46
Symbolism
Symbolism
27:17
Symbolism
27:17
Number System
Number System
29:29
Number System
29:29
Use CTRL+F to find key words if it is a longer transcript.
Intro
0:00
fiance and welcome everyone to george little child uh his
0:06
his first nation name is cowassis and i’m not sure what does that mean
0:12
so there’s a wonderful little story so no it’s a story right so in 2001
0:19
i had the great privilege of going back to the ehrman skin first nation where my
0:24
family is from and my relatives said they wanted to honor me at the pow wow
0:31
and some of the people in the room were there some of my good friends that are right here i see that but anyway i was
0:38
told i was going to be honored and i had no idea that on that day i would be given my
0:44
great grandfather’s traditional first nations name
0:50
and so it’s a great surprise and the orator said in cree and then in english
0:56
today you will be known as nani colossus and
1:02
so from that day forward i carry my great grandfather’s name so my great-grandfather was a gifted
1:09
gifted hunter they say that my great grandfather could
1:14
run so fast that he could grab the rabbits by their ears
1:20
they say my great grandfather nani colossus could run so fast he could club
1:26
the deer they say that my great grandfather nani colossus
1:32
every time he went hunting would burn holes in his moccasins because he ran so
1:38
fast and who would have to fix his moccasins or make new ones his wife my
1:44
great-grandmother every time he went hunting so who do you think he would feed
1:50
when he brought the deer or whatever he hunted who would he feed first
1:55
anyone pardon me why would he feed the deer
2:02
yeah no people what people in his community would he feed first
2:09
no orphans and children who next
2:15
elders who who next the community
2:21
who would he feed last himself okay so he was a very revered hunter and he
2:29
was a very kind and giving man so i’m very honored to carry his name and that’s how he got his name okay thank
2:36
you you’re welcome now we know yes oh and it actually means swift child because he ran so fast it
2:43
shouldn’t be little child and that’s the indian agent that messed our name up
2:49
okay there you go thank you you’re welcome good to know yes okay so just before we move on and i’ll let you take
2:56
the floor right away here but we just need to thank our sponsors up for heart and soul fun and the canada council for
George Littlechild
3:01
the arts so hi hi and i’m gonna just pass it over to you george and let you
3:07
have the floor i’m not sure if you knew that mj is the curator of this show
3:12
and she’s also pre i am yes i’m pre-mohawk and french there you go yes fancy mix yes
3:19
[Laughter] well dante how are you i’m greeting you
3:24
in my pre language so it is with a great honor
3:29
but there’s one there that this is being shown and this is the inaugural exhibition of
3:35
this body of work so this is the first time the public
3:40
will see this work this is the first time i have seen this work displayed together
3:48
so i am an artist who’s been an artist for many many years
3:53
my career as a full-time artist began at the age of 30
3:58
and i’ve been creating art full time since that time i was born here in edmonton
4:05
august 16 1958 and i was born at the university of alberta hospital
4:12
and i always say that’s why i have too smart and
4:18
my life here in the city so the residential school was developed
4:24
by the canadian government and with certain religious groups the roman catholic
4:30
the anglican and the united and those were the primary suspects
4:36
of the residential school so the next experiment the government of
4:42
canada did after the residential schools was something called the 60s scoop
4:48
and why it was called that is it began in the 60s
4:54
where the government of canada started taking first nations children
4:59
away from their families and their parents were residential school
5:06
survivors so i am a product i and i don’t like to
5:12
refer to myself as a 60 scoop survivor but this is the term being used today
5:19
and i always say i’m a 60 scoop thriver but i did survive the 60s too
5:25
so i was raised in five different foster homes
5:31
the fourth home the woman almost killed me and she was very abusive
5:39
and threw me down flights of stairs and was very cruel but thank god for a doctor a physician a
5:47
physician who saw what she had done to me she had told him
5:54
that i had urinated the bed and it was an edmonton cold night
5:59
and she said she left the window open and i had turned black and blue and the
6:04
doctor said there’s no way this is a lie and he took me out of that foster home
6:10
thank god and he i went back to the children’s care center
6:15
and a dutch canadian couple as so i said to my mom well why did you choose me
6:22
like why me of all those children in the center and bless her soul she was very
6:28
religious very christian and her comment
6:33
was that we chose you because we wanted to help someone less fortunate not the answer i wanted
6:40
because they were christian they wanted to help people and so i went to their home and she was
6:46
a very loving understanding intuitive woman and she said when i arrived at their
6:52
home i was already drawing at the age of four so somehow i had developed that skill
6:59
which was quite amazing but i believe the creator gave me the gift of my art
7:06
to get me through the hell that i was going through as a child my mother with her loving intentions
7:14
and her christianity i mean that’s how
7:21
i mean she was a very a wonderful individual and so she sent me to art classes as a
7:27
young boy it was interesting and one of the places that i came to
7:33
was the edmonton art gallery i came to the institution the classes
7:38
were downstairs under this so part of this art gallery is the original art gallery which is quite cool
7:46
and i remember going to the classes and i remember at the end of the class i don’t know how long it ran for maybe a
7:52
month i went maybe once a week at the end of the class they kept one of
7:58
my drawings because they thought it showed a promise
8:03
so that’s my bit of history with the edmonton art gallery which is now the alberta art gallery
8:10
so my work that i have created over the course of my career
8:17
i have always felt it was my duty uh i was chosen i believe by the creator
8:24
not god the creator because i don’t believe in christianity
8:29
i believe in the first nations ways i was chosen by the creator to do the
8:35
work i do and what i believed and i my work is very intuitive
8:40
but what i believed is that as a first nations individual it was my duty and my responsibility to
8:47
speak for those who could not speak for themselves so i always did art about the underdog
8:54
i did art about my first nations history and culture
8:59
and so thus began the journey so i’ve actually been creating artwork
9:04
about the residential school for over the last 30 years
9:11
and in doing so i did a lot of research i spent many days at the archives here
9:20
on roper road where there were hundreds and hundreds of photographs of first
9:26
nations children who attended the residential school
9:31
and what i would do because i had lost my connection to my family so there’s a bit of information that i won’t go too
9:37
deeply into but it took me 11 years to find my family my i didn’t know that i was half
9:44
caucasian i’m half white and so i found one half sister one half brother a full
9:52
brother and two full sisters and then i found my aunts and uncles
9:57
and aunts and uncles on both sides and i began my
10:03
to learn about my history to discover who i am and in doing so that information
10:10
led me to create a lot of the work that i do today and so what i would do is i would go to
10:16
archives and i would search through the photographs and what i would do is i would pay to
10:23
order eight by ten photographs of these rows and rows of children
10:29
and there were no names on the photographs they were nameless beautiful little children with no names
Unidentified Children
10:36
no identification so what i did is i took this is one of
10:42
the photographs so i took the photographs back to muscotis or what was then called
10:48
hobima to the urban skin reserve and i asked different relatives or
10:55
different elders so i asked these individuals well who are these people so they’d say oh that’s
11:03
mary uh goodin that’s mary soto just so you know this is my
11:10
late mother rachel little child that’s my mom and this is dalio musso so
11:17
they would give me the names i would write the names on the back of the photographs and if it was a girl they’d
11:22
often say her maiden name and her married name and if it’s was a child that came from
11:29
another reserve to attend the residential school in in musketeers
11:35
they would say well this girl her name was so and so but she came from that reserve so they all seem to know
11:42
and then as so out of 10 elders if eight of them said that was mary and
11:48
two said it was susan that’s how i did the research so it was my intention
11:55
to bring or copy the names to give to the archives here
12:00
in edmonton the children’s names these beautiful unidentified children
12:07
and so just losing my train of thought there for a second so what happened was
12:13
that in these photographs there were always certain children
12:18
no one knew why didn’t they know they seemed very clear they would identify about
12:26
88 of the photograph they knew all the kids names but there were always these
12:31
children no one knew and i took it upon myself
12:38
and i thought about so often as an artist not every artist is the same
12:44
but often ideas live in my mind and i thought about these children and i
12:50
really felt it was my responsibility
12:56
of their story and this was long before finding the graves and kamloops just so you know
13:04
and so i started drawing each one of those children
13:10
no one knew who they were what happened to them
13:15
did they die at the school what happened to them why does no one know who they are
13:21
so that’s what this exhibition is all about right here i am
13:27
can you see me these children are unidentified
13:34
no one is connected to them it seems or appears so i wanted to give each and
13:39
every one of those children in those photographs a voice
Family History
13:45
but what i also did this is right here you see the young boy with the barbed wire
13:53
so my uncle willie little child and i didn’t know
13:58
this because i had never heard this before but he said that there was electric
14:03
barbed wire around the school so if you try to escape
14:09
you would get electrified what does that sound like in your minds does that sound like the holocaust
14:15
exactly so this i didn’t even know
14:21
i had two uncles so my grandmother bella also went to residential school
14:28
and my my grandfather edward also went to residential school my grandfather edward died at 53 and my
14:36
grandmother was 36 after 12 children nine of her children
14:42
went to the residential school out of 12.
14:48
and so i had no idea until my auntie my late auntie rosalie
14:55
she said i had an uncle he was an artist i said who auntie his name was louie
15:02
and he he died at the residential school and so this is louie
15:08
we don’t know how he died we have no idea where he’s buried
15:13
right he’s around the property and then i discovered in my research
15:18
that i had another uncle alfred my another brother to my mother late mother
15:24
and he also died so when you arrived at the residential
15:29
school you’re often five or six or seven sometimes children were three and four
15:35
and they arrived at the residential school and when you were 16 it was called timed out so that
15:42
represented the fact that you were now able to leave the school
15:48
you i guess in in a weird sense it was like a graduation and so alfred
15:55
did not live he either died there or right after so there was two of my
16:00
mother’s brothers that died at the ehrman skin indian residential school
16:06
so now let’s fast forward to finding the graves of 215 children
16:13
at the kamloops indian residential school
Finding the Graves
16:19
and in realizing the work that was created for this exhibition is talking about all those issues right
16:28
is speaking for those children who have didn’t go home didn’t they
16:33
didn’t return they were nameless no name
16:38
they have and can you imagine anyone in this room how many of you have children hands up
Residential School
16:47
okay can you imagine someone coming to your home and taking your children away
16:52
and you never saw them perhaps ever again because that’s what happened
16:58
losing the child’s connection to their language identity
17:03
losing the possibility of being loved so what was taught at the residential
17:10
school no one hugged you no one said geez bob you’re an amazing
17:16
boy boy you’re a good boy you never heard that
17:22
so i have lost five relatives in musketeers
17:28
to covet my beautiful last uncle in my family
17:34
uncle rainey and his wife auntie rachel my cousin allen and two second cousins
17:39
died of cobit and he was my last connection so there’s no more aunts and uncles left
17:45
and in thinking about what happened to them they really never
17:50
so people the elders never told me what happened to them at the schools
17:56
late auntie rachel i don’t know why she just gave started
18:02
talking a little bit so when we arrived at the school
18:09
they gave us a great big sick white roll of ribbon
18:14
and they gave us a grease pencil this is my friend john so if john when he arrived at the
18:20
residential school he’s no longer drawn he’s number
18:26
74. what john would have to do is cut a piece of that ribbon with the
18:33
grease pencil seven so he would have to sew it in his shirt
18:38
sew it in his pants his socks his undergarments his hat his coat his shoes
18:44
and for the rest of his time at the residential school he’s number 74. so if john lost his hat and another boy
18:52
who’s number 43 came and found 74 that he knew right
18:57
away he didn’t go up to john and say john i found your hat hey 74 i have your
19:03
hat so that’s what happened what does that sound like a
19:08
prison suddenly you were stripped of anything you had and that’s what orange shirt day is all
19:15
about when phyllis arrived at the school her beautiful orange shirt her mother
19:20
had given her was taken away in great orange shirt day
19:26
so my aunt goes on to tell another story she said
19:31
that she was responsible for ironing the nuns
19:37
this part the habit this is called a habit they would he would iron that
19:42
and it had to be starched and it was stiff and hard
19:48
and one day i don’t know how but because they never saw the nun
19:54
without this they always had this on and so one day
20:01
she came into the room because she was ironing and there was a nun and her head was shaved bald and she
20:07
screamed she you know that they didn’t know them as people they weren’t people they were
20:14
like a human really and she didn’t have her habit on so that’s
20:19
another story my aunt and uncle say when they woke up very early in the
20:26
morning they would have to pray for a couple hours on their knees then they would be given the same
20:32
breakfast every morning terrible porridge porridge every day
20:37
same meals meanwhile
20:42
they were fed and then they were given so they called it a school but it wasn’t really a school it was more a labor camp
20:50
because all the girls had to sew iron clean
20:56
the boys had to do yard work do the garden do everything outside the residential school
21:03
so they remember praying eating have a bit of education and all afternoon you
21:08
were doing your chores and i’ve heard this story from many different
21:14
angles and viewpoints of the fact that while the children were given the worst
21:20
food and there were residential schools across canada that literally were starving the children intentionally
21:27
the children were hungry every day they were hungry all the time they went to bed hungry they would cry
21:34
at night there was no none no priest that came and loved them and said i love you and
21:41
cherish them and hold them they never got held the only time they were held or
21:47
retouched was to get beaten or slapped or raped that was the only touch that they ever
21:54
experienced and i’ll get into that in a bit further
22:00
so knowing those just those few little stories that happened with my aunt and uncle my late aunt and
22:06
uncle so those are a couple stories but i haven’t heard about the abuse in my personal family
22:13
but my beautiful mother rachel late rachel
22:20
after residential school so at one point did you know that people who lived on a first nations
22:28
reserve had to get permission to leave so they had to ask the indian agent for
22:36
permission to leave so you would approach the indian agent
22:41
and let’s say you had to go to the hospital in the next town the white town
22:47
so you would say to the indian agent so it’s a um george little child
22:53
will go to watasquain and he’s allowed to leave and he has to
23:00
be home back to the reserve by 6 30 and if and it was a pass it was an
23:06
actually written thing and when if you didn’t come back on time the
23:11
rcmp were sent to get you and put in prison so
23:17
by the time my mother became a young lady that had changed so she was free to
23:24
leave the reserve and what happened if
23:30
if you’ve never been loved you’ve never been held can you imagine they say that babies who are in
23:36
orphanages that nobody touch they never get touched right and they grow up they’ve never been touched to
23:43
small children and the importance of being touched and loved and nurtured and and given the the great gift of love
23:51
well these children didn’t get that they got it when they were very small from their parents
23:57
but once they reached once they went to the residential school that was gone
24:02
everything they were and what they were was gone so when the residential school survivor
24:10
left at age 16 right they didn’t know what love was
24:16
and so traditionally what would have happened within my mother’s people there were planned marriages
24:23
you would look at your child and you would make an arrangement with this family
24:28
and you would say one day this girl and that boy will be married
24:34
and there was a celebration and sacred ceremonies
24:39
well now the priest would decide who would marry who and so the partner
24:46
that you were given right to be married to was also a residential school
24:52
survivor so this one didn’t was never loved
24:59
right except as a very small child and would have forgotten that this one didn’t know love so they got together
25:05
well how could they love each other they don’t know what love is so they had children when they had the children they didn’t
25:12
love them why because that’s what they were taught in residential school
25:17
so you have generations so you talk to someone who would have survived the holocaust
25:23
well the second generation is messed up because of what happened to their parents in the holocaust
25:31
it’s no different with first nations residential schools the children of those people are messed
25:38
up so it goes generationally until people say enough this has to stop we have to start
25:47
and teaching and healing and healing and healing and healing so when i look at my poor little mother
25:55
she actually died two blocks three blocks from here on skid row in 1965
26:01
she drank herself to death she was a residential school survivor
26:06
i have no she was 37 when she died i don’t know what happened to her no one’s ever told me i have no history of
26:12
whatever happened to my mother to make her become such an alcoholic
26:17
but this is part of it is that the government took her five children away
26:24
in the 60s scoop will anyone in this room if your children are taken away from you
26:29
it will kill your soul in a great way and you will never ever forget
26:36
what happened so my poor mother rachel
26:43
i don’t have no memory of her because of the crazy foster mother beating me up at the age of four
26:50
so 30 minutes have passed and the talk is done i guess but i’m just gonna do one more thing do we really have to
26:57
follow time okay ten more minutes
27:03
and how long is the q and a okay i might eat your time anyway
27:10
okay everybody to stand up and follow me [Laughter]
Symbolism
27:18
yeah so i’m just going to show you a few things in the drawings that you might not have noticed
27:26
so when you see the red so i’ve often had this gift of seeing
27:32
what is called an aura and i don’t see it on everyone not everybody zora shows up but often like
27:39
the other night my cousin it was all purple here on one side so these are the spirits like it’s a
27:45
spirit and so all the children and the priest also has the red around him and what it means is that
27:51
they were in these institutions and why because of christianity and who died for
27:57
their sins but christ and what is the symbols what is one of the symbols of christ dying is the blood the blood of
28:04
jesus so you see the red all around the children you see the three crosses jesus
28:11
and the two other individuals that died at gethsemane or golgotha
28:18
you’ll see the symbol of the window and the door is often in the drawings
28:23
and that represents looking out of the window but never being able to get out of the
28:29
window unless you were given permission i mean the doors and windows given permission to do so
28:36
so in essence they were in prison and so it was really symbolic because i’ve
28:42
heard of different stories where a girl talked about a survivor talked about looking out the window and
28:49
seeing her grandparents in the distance and not being able to talk to them and
28:54
not being able to run and to run after her grandparents but she herself was in prison behind this
29:00
glass and behind this door so you see doors and so some of the children are from the
29:06
air about 1920 and 30. so here’s a young lady’s first communion
29:12
right she was making a commitment to who jesus christ
29:17
she was had a marriage now with jesus christ so now she was confirmed a catholic a
29:24
christian catholic so she has now married into the face
Number System
29:29
and every child went for communion
29:34
[Music] from the photographs i don’t know his name but we
29:41
here’s the numbering system and when you see that in the drawings it represents the number of souls that
29:49
the priests and nuns would have converted right converted from their savage pagan
29:55
ways to become a christian so it’s a numbering system how many
30:02
souls did they save in the name of jesus christ
30:07
and often i’d like you to look at the title read the titles because they’re very important as well
30:14
another child you see the crosses so each drawing has a different interpretation of the symbol of the
30:20
cross so if you look in the background does anyone know what that might be
30:26
anyone no no there’s actually porridge
30:35
the oats right someone reminiscent so things like that wouldn’t have been part of it
30:41
because of christianity in the residential school so part of the grant so i received a
30:47
beautiful branch from the bc arts council to create this work so i grew up in edmonton and i left
30:53
when i was 18. i haven’t lived in alberta since i was 30 and i am now 63.
31:00
so anyway i came back to urban skin to the graveyard and i did a few drawings of these graves
31:08
that had no names on them just the mound was there i don’t know if the children are there or not
31:13
but they did a couple drawings and then sat there and reminisced talked about so everything in the first
31:20
nations reality is based on a circle the continuation
31:26
and i always say that our the circle has been broken it’s been tampered with our culture has
31:33
been tampered with so when my i have a beautiful story about my great grandparents that i was given
31:41
and he was a first nations chief leader and what happened is that
31:47
he would gather all his grandsons and they would all be in a circle right and
31:52
he would give them teach them how to be a boy and when you become a man so all the teachings they
31:59
needed in order to be a beautiful productive human being within the community
32:05
so my great-grandmother did the same thing with the girls so when
32:11
the settler nation arrived and this whole idea that you are in power and all these roads like the whole
32:18
thing about the school system it’s all these rows and rows of children you look at the back of someone’s head and you
32:24
see the teacher so in these traditional teachings nobody was above anyone else
32:31
and when the settler nation brought education right it was like the teacher had all
32:37
the power in the room the children didn’t so that all changed just an example
Time Limit
32:44
once again you see the doors the windows the child so i just have to say that
32:50
when creating this body of work there were days that i couldn’t do it
32:57
you know so every day except i so i treat my career so monday to friday i worked
33:03
and when i was younger i’d stay in the studio for hours and i have a time limit that’s three hours a day because i don’t
33:10
want to abuse my creativity it’s not an endless thing you have to
33:15
respect it so i honor it and so some days i couldn’t do this work
33:21
so i would do other paintings it was funny last night someone says why don’t they have an exhibition of your colorful
33:27
work and i said that’s not what this is about so if you know my art you know all the color right and this is really quite
33:34
devoid of color except the red and we talked about the symbolism of that
First Communion
33:40
so here again is another young girl first communion
33:46
so when drawing these from the photographs what started happening when i started
33:52
communicating in a very deep meaningful way often i would have to smudge i would go
33:59
for a walk sometimes i would cry with the subject matter that i was dealing with
34:05
so it’s very so here what’s behind this young man’s head
34:10
anyone want to guess can anyone does everybody see it
34:15
have a closer look if you can what might that be be very careful don’t fall
34:20
anyone know what that is life’s eggs thank you what’s this
34:27
yes so when the children arrived their heads were saved
34:33
they were thrown this horrible white powder all over their head and body and they didn’t wash it off right they
34:40
just threw it at these kids to kill the rice what does that sound like the holocaust
34:46
the same deal so why do first nations people in alberta especially wear braids
34:52
anyone braids anyone can answer that
34:59
so we believe when you have long beautiful hair and it was when you were born
35:06
traditionally your hair would not be cut unless somebody died
35:11
and if it was someone close your braids were cut off if it was a distant relative a handful
35:17
of hair was cut off but what hair is is power it’s an extension of all our energy
35:24
so the braids were to keep the hair nice and clean and neat it was also the strength and the power of the
35:30
individuals so referring back to those children they don’t have braids anymore
35:35
so all their beautiful beautiful black braids were cut and their power
35:42
in essence was stripped from them their identity and culture so this is actually the nun from that
35:48
photograph and i wish so now all the people that i had asked who the
35:54
individuals were in these photographs have all passed away so all those elders i worked with are gone now
36:00
so i’ll probably never know her name and i’m you’re gonna tell me that i have to stop right no oh thank you
36:06
okay so here’s the numbering system once again right and so here’s the cross of
Truth and Reconciliation
36:13
jesus and it’s turned like this right so it represents a symbol of what
36:19
what happened in the name of this i believe was totally wrong
36:24
and i think since the discovery of the children’s graves in
36:29
kamloops so truth and reconciliation has been around a while but it’s only once the graves were
36:36
discovered that i think as people of canada and and also the united states
36:43
that there’s been this huge awakening in this country even the cab driver we were
36:49
talking about it on the way here and you know working with his work
36:56
every time the news has been on for the last few months i cry but i don’t stop watching it
37:03
because if i stop watching i stop listening and i hide
37:08
and try and deny what’s going on or stop my feelings so it’s been
37:13
so as an artist this work is very cathartic not just for myself but for
37:19
you and for all people so i’m going to read the title
37:25
so it says did she turn the other way
37:31
while the priest abused the children and did she too abuse the innocent
37:40
and i just want to say something to you this information is disturbing
37:46
and when you go home today i want you to take care of yourselves right do something nice for yourself because it’s
37:52
heavy heavy stuff and what i’m going to say next is extremely heavy how did these children die
37:59
what happened to these children this is a tough one
38:06
so the priests would abuse girls and boys but the boy didn’t get pregnant but the
38:12
girl could it was always hidden and what they would do and i know this is terrible and it
38:18
sounds like the holocaust when the baby was born they threw it in the incinerator and burned it
38:26
when the nun abused a boy a young boy
38:32
right so these boys left when they were 16. they were capable of having sexual
38:38
relations she would rape them she might you know they had a child
38:44
where did it go the incinerator or in unmarked graves
38:50
so this is children of people i mean i mean people knew about these unmarked graves for
38:56
years and years children who went to these residential schools knew about them but nobody was listening
39:02
nobody did anything until they found this amazing ground penetrating tool
39:09
that discovered the graves and now as we know more schools have been searched
39:16
and they’re finding more and more bodies and so there’s thousands of bodies still
39:22
to be found so this man his name was
39:28
father pierre moulay so the order that was in uh muskratis on
39:34
the ehrman skin reserve was the oh blight they were french-canadian
39:39
so they spoke french learned how to speak english taught the children how to speak english in their french accent
39:47
so when you go to visit relatives is that you edie
39:53
oh you look like a cousin of mine from my dutch side sorry so anyway um
40:00
when you my aunt and uncle could you close the light could you open the light
40:06
it’s not like turn the light on and off so every time that they would refer
40:12
to this young lady they would call you him and he and i would be referred to as a she and
40:18
a her because in french right and so they had it was uh my auntie
40:24
would say that well we’ll go tell go tell him and i’m like well then no that’s a her
40:30
so it was humorous and you have to so the greatest gift is first nations people
40:35
is laughter is the best medicine if you have a first nations friend or no first nations or inuit or metis
40:42
people you’re gonna find they laugh a lot because we’ve been through hell and back and laughter is the best cure for any
40:49
human the best medicine to have and so i find when i’m with my first
40:54
nations family we laugh a lot even though we have this in our history so here’s father mullet so i have
41:01
photographs of him when he was younger when he arrived he was very thin and i
41:06
have this photograph of my great grandparents the little childs
41:11
and they’re very old and they’re here’s the buck board they’re standing
41:16
here and he’s standing on the side and his stomach was out to here
41:21
and i thought yeah the priests and nuns were having banquets while the kids were starving
Admission Discharge Book
41:27
and so behind him these are bones of the dead children
41:32
so before truth and reconciliation started and you know what i’m going to eat up
41:37
your question period i’m sorry because i know that everything’s timed here
41:44
um what happened was that when i was doing my research and gathering all these
41:50
photographs is i discovered the admission and discharge book
41:57
so i ordered a copy of the book and this is before truth and reconciliation
42:03
what happened with truth and reconciliation is that once
42:08
these archives um with all these religious orders um
42:14
archival material is they started shutting down all the records the records were closed down
42:20
so no longer could you look at them why because they were scared of being sued
42:26
that’s right so i have a copy of the the discharge
42:33
and the arrival so when you arrived it said your name how old you were your
42:39
mother and father’s name which reserve you came from when you
42:45
left the school you were discharged it also had your name and what grade you achieved and why you
42:52
left the school so i didn’t include anyone’s names because i didn’t want to offend
42:59
someone who might see this show and see their ancestors name so i didn’t include names
43:05
german skin roman catholic boarding school remarks on discharge reason for same
43:13
what does that mean i don’t know so basically this is not my handwriting this is the handwriting from the record
43:19
so the grade grade five needed at home and so it just says ditto diddle um this
43:25
person only had grade one they were sickly this person had grade eight time
43:30
over so that meant they were sixteen and then you start seeing stuff like this dead sick time over sickly time
43:37
over needed at home time over time over so then each page right so i only i only created three
43:44
pages from the record so it says time over time over someone
43:49
was of the age of marriage dead dead poor eyesight needed at home dead so i
43:55
started saying the word dead a lot and so here i’ve blown up one of those pages and then i’ve i’ve added the
44:02
teardrops sickly time over dead dead sick time over sickly dead needed at
44:07
home time over dead dead time over so they were not easy
44:14
doing all of this work um yeah sure i have a therapist because i had to get i had to talk to someone
44:21
about these things that i was experiencing while drawing this body of work
44:27
so once again my lady so he was so as i said my aunt said he was an artist and he was a good-looking
44:33
kid and he died at 11. so here you see so these are older
Old Drawings
44:38
drawings that were done before and so you see the none so it says
44:43
and so all my work is very important the title it says sister none the problem
44:50
you see the child the tears coming out of her eyes so all of this you know the direction of the nun
44:56
and then my uncle alfred and so then i just write a little bit about that information so
45:03
at this time and i just want to acknowledge the alberta art gallery and the staff and the curator mj and all the
45:09
staff that have dealt with over this time i want to thank the alberta art gallery for showing this important work
45:16
and this is the inaugural exhibition of this art the intention with time is to
45:21
have this travel and that’s something i have to something to look forward to that i want as many
45:28
canadians and as many people as possible to see this work because i feel that this work is very important i
45:35
also would like to ask you to tell others about this show tell others about what you learned today
45:41
let them know that this show is up for three months right that they can come by and look at the show
45:47
and once you do bringing friends and family have a dialogue about it you know and you could share some of
45:53
these symbols and i know there will be tours given and the docents have all the information that i talked about in
45:59
certain drawings so i just want to acknowledge the gallery again and say hi hi in a spoon now and i’m very
46:06
honored and privileged to in my hometown of edmonton albert
46:13
[Applause]
Thank you
46:20
well thank you again george for being here and for for your talk we really enjoyed that i
46:25
did for sure um i know there’s a few people that really have some sure some dying questions so maybe i know our time
46:32
is pretty limited but if we can just maybe be brief with our questions and and just to have a couple if there’s
46:38
some that really want to ask a few things so go ahead if you if you if you’re really
46:45
anxious to ask sure you can come closer
46:51
if you’d like
47:09
of alberta in native studies and art design i teach this and like how my students make work
47:15
on this which is so hard i can’t stay in the room
47:34
people who have generations of people residents and schools
47:41
um negotiate that space
47:46
where people who are you know intergenerational
Acknowledge
47:58
right and it’s true so you know to honor i think that’s the beginning
48:05
to honor each and every one of those individuals who survived the residential school to honor their
48:11
children to acknowledge to this is part of the truth
48:17
is telling the truth how do you know where you’re going unless you know where you came from so
48:22
this is acknowledging and what i believe is and so i had a residential school my
48:27
good friend her mother came she’s a residential school survivor and elder and she never talks about this stuff
48:34
so they left the show and they’re in the parking lot and she let start crying and she doesn’t really talk about it so
48:41
what i believe that this work is all about healing right and we have to be in the moment
48:47
acknowledge talk about the horrible things my mother was a prostitute who wants to talk about
48:52
that but it’s the truth why did she prostitute because of the residential school she was surviving
49:00
once we acknowledge the truth live with it sit with it instead of run well running’s okay the running to the
49:07
bottle running to the drugs running to the casino to dull all our pains all the empty
49:12
holes in our bodies trying to fill them up so we can feel normal whatever that
49:18
is and so i just want to honor you for being an educator and that you do work around this with the students that you
49:24
deal with um and you know i don’t know if you’re allowed to smudge at the university i’m glad you are
49:30
because that always heals and with the tobacco ties so i noticed my uncle willy
49:36
little child at the opening he had tobacco ties with him and he was holding them
49:41
so i remember one of my aunts right from moscow cheese and she gave
49:47
rocks she said when and i it’s at home sorry i thought about you should have brought it but when i
49:53
i said hold that rock so find things to hold on and it’s really about grounding
49:59
and how important is breath work right breathing and then to be in the moment when people
50:05
have a panic attack is learning how to do breath work we’re learning all the skills we need
50:11
and especially as first nations inuit metis people so now just so you know if you are
50:17
if your mother or father went to residential school or your grandparents there is a healing fund from the truth
50:23
and reconciliation so my therapy gets paid for by the truth and reconciliation
50:29
because of my mother my aunts and uncles and my grandparents so there are those things i want anyone in this room to
50:34
know that if this really bothers there is a phone number there on the wall to call
50:40
and somebody’s there to listen to you you don’t have to give your name it’s all anonymous so in part it’s just being
50:46
in the moment being grounded honoring um and and
50:51
i celebrate that i’m here as i said i could have been killed in that foster i could have i’m a huge scar in my head
50:58
from this crazy woman and the weird thing is every time and i had an elder tell me once
51:05
tell your story there’s a bit more healing so every time you’re doing this work there’s more healing more healing more
51:11
healing but we have to ground ourselves heal ourselves love ourselves
51:17
because without love as humanity as we know where where would we be without the
51:22
trees we would have no air it’s all hand in hand in hand right so did that answer the question okay and
51:30
thank you for being here yes the man there
Horse Spirit
51:37
well you know what this is actually a horse there’s a little horse in the middle
51:42
and so the horse for me well i’ll just tell you so i’ve never had this confirmed
51:48
but my friend who’s also a cree artist ruth cut hand you might have heard of her
51:54
her father um late adam he said you know your your friend
52:00
he has the horse spirit and he said in the cree way
52:05
we believe that the horse goes to the other world
52:10
and this is just for the artist and and i’m a lot of my artist into it is that
52:16
intuitively there’s a channel that is brought to the artist and so that’s why i’m wearing mr tim
52:23
and it means big dog you know why before the horses arrived there was dogs
52:30
so when they would move their camp the dog would have a trebwa which is a french word and would carry
52:36
their their home what they owned on its back so when the horse arrived can you imagine
52:42
this big animal so much bigger than the dogs could carry their teepee got larger
52:48
right and they could carry more things so it’s an amazing thing
52:54
um when the horse arrived what a gift to the people so it’s a very it’s a spiritual
52:59
connection that so it’s mr tim the horse and that’s why i’m wearing mine and i don’t know i’m never being confirmed but
53:06
i have always felt this because as a child growing up here in edmonton in my foster home
53:11
i was drawing horses i had no idea right and so so now i understand why
53:17
you’re welcome anyone else
53:22
can you tell the story of the um
53:38
i think you need to tell that story because it’s not it’s not a story i’ve heard of that
53:44
yeah i know it’s not my story either so i can’t i mean i’ve heard about these things um yeah so there’s different situations
53:52
where because and thank you for bringing that up where children of course were were starved so badly
53:58
that children started acting out and when you started acting out you stole food you paid the penalty so
54:05
my partner john his mother was made to wash the whole staircase and the floors
54:12
and she had to wash it with a tooth brush so she was there all day washing for
54:17
stealing food right so the children that were preparing food for for the school for the priests and
54:25
nuns they would steal the potato peelings and if they got caught there’s huge penalties huge abuse and i really
54:31
don’t know that story so i can’t tell it um did all kinds of things they became
54:37
thieves they stole to survive and i didn’t know that but there were gangs in the schools did you ever hear
54:44
that there were they’re actually gangs the things and so what the priests and nuns were
54:50
doing to them they started doing to each other right because that’s what they were learning
54:55
so there was very little food no love it was a terrible situation so i believe
55:02
yes
55:08
oh i never heard that one but okay thank you right it’s good that you know that
55:13
right the more information the more information we know the more that we can share with others
55:19
definitely more power yes okay so i want to say thank you yeah
55:25
thank you okay [Music]
55:34
because that’s what the creator brought me in the world to do
55:39
well i have a few books out i do have a i am a bit of an author so
55:45
but that’s never been my course of action i’m dyslexic number one
55:50
so for me writing has never come easy but this has always been and i don’t like to say it comes easy but it’s
55:56
always there for me too and i always say art is my best friend it has never let me down
56:02
it has always loved and nurtured me brought me to places around the world i would have never gone i’m able to talk
56:08
to you today so that’s the gift and i thank the creator every day for the gift that is given
56:14
so thank you thank you thank you so much again george
56:25
so thank you everyone for coming please stay and and enjoy the the exhibit uh
56:30
for those that are listening online please come to the gallery and and see it in live or in person uh we always
56:38
welcome everyone to come and see this exhibit is a very important one and i think we all need to be aware of
56:44
of the time that we’re living in with with the the situation that that it is with with these children so thank you
56:51
again and thank you for being here so much appreciated and have a great day everyone
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