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hi everyone thanks for joining us for this HEA live with Ellen a goodwill

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goodwill little child hi hi so first i’m my name is Liz I’m a

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programming and engagement coordinator at the HEA you may have seen me before if you’ve been watching these so first

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I’d like to begin with a treaty acknowledgement on behalf of the art gallery of Alberta I’d like to respectfully acknowledge

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that we are gathered on 36 territory although this is online so you may be

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somewhere else treaty six is a traditional meeting and living ground for many First Nations

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Metis and Inuit people’s and as individuals and cultural makers we recognize an honor space for these

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narratives to continue to influence our fibrate community so this felony we are six six feet apart

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socially this daring so I’m gonna be off on the edge of the camera a little bit

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elleny is a Dakota Lakota multimedia artist and designer as well as a registered social worker child and

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family advocate business owner arts instructor Paolo dancer and mother and if you are a regular visitor to the ATA

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you may have spoken to her in and exhibitions that she also works here as gallery dan our interpretive team so

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today I’m pleased to have Ellen a join us in your capacity as artists and arts educator to share just one of the

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techniques and media that she works in which is par flesh and yeah so thank you

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for joining us we last year we had a really good program as well the way I

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like to do my presentations is kind of doing a history of what we’re doing so

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para flash Coburg all of those things about how it translates to where we are now so as you know I’m an artist but

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most people know me as Lakota a OMA Jen Peters mom and so they have really

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helped me understand myself as a parent as a woman as an artist and so they have

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helped a lot in preparing and so what we’re going to be doing is I’m gonna

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talk about a little bit of the history of pair of flesh it comes from the Plains tribes and it’s a process by

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which height is scraped and cleaned and then stretched over a frame and then

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dried in the Sun so my people are Plains people so we didn’t have any trees so we

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had to use an alternate form of treating our hides unlike you know our relatives

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in the wooded areas up here treaty six where they’re pair of flesh and their

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hide there it’s a very different process so that’s what we have here so I I tried

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to bring in some of the pair of flesh that I work with so of course I made if

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you did join us last year we were able to kind of go around and kind of look at

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each of the pair flesh pieces that we had made so we did medallions last year

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and that was really to look at pair of flesh and how we connect with those

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traditional processes on an individual level and so this year I thought it would be great if we did something more

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collectively especially with Kovan happening and a lot of us you know weren’t able to visit our communities or

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weren’t able to see our families you know a lot of us had to work from home

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and so that something that I as an artist it really I meant home anyway or

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my Studios I’m in my home and then I come to work here but I have two children that are really extroverted

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into children that are they’re very introverted and so seeing the dynamic between them it really made me look at

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myself and what my idea of family community where I belong where I fit in

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and I wanted everybody to kind of think about that and how we stay connected through you know times where

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we have to be a part and we want to kind of talk about the the themes of identity

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community family family sometimes doesn’t just mean you know being related

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by blood you know you’re welcomed into families in different ways your community doesn’t have to be you know

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the community that you grew up with it could be your work community it completely you know a sports team those

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types of things so when we look at traditional kinship roles we look at

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where we are in our family so I’m the middle child so I have an older sister

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and have a younger brother and then I also have my late adopted sister and so

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those relationships were very specific but they were also very important in each of the ways that you know we’re who

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I was to them as much as who they were to me and I’ve learned so many lessons from that I’m very thankful we’re very

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lucky to have both my parents and so them continually teaching us and

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exposing us to our culture and our heritage and being proud of who we come

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where we come from so I’m Lakota Dakota but my community is mussel cheese Alberta which is about an

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hour south of here in Herman’s can reserve but also my family I’m a

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goodwill so my family is from standing Buffalo and by way we’re from Cheyenne

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mirrors so having all of those things within me is very complex you know and

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then I also live in the city so what does that mean what does that mean to want to do traditional processes but

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I don’t have anywhere to you know clean a porcupine or even a teach my kids you

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know so that’s also evolved too so in my practice I do like to of course pay

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tribute to my ancestors and my family by continuing this but also

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bring it into where we are now because we’re still you know indigenous people

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no matter where we are even if we’re visitors here and so how does that affect us on a daily basis so

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what we’re gonna do is we’re going to start doing our boxes so I have a couple

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examples here and so you can have tape we also wanted to do things that we had

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in our home so that we’re not having to go out unless we have to and so some of the materials are like

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cereal boxes we have a bunch of washi tape we have markers we have everything so

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we’re just kind of doing with what we have um so let’s start so if you printed out your template yeah and also with

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your template you don’t have to follow this you can make it large you can make it smaller you can even make it round

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you can do whatever you want um so it’s not really how I learned about templates

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and making things as many of us do it’s from just whatever we have so for me you

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know even designing you know beadwork and stuff like I really use just a lot of whatever I have around which is how

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we were taught to and so in that way you know you can use a cardboard box and

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glue fabric over it you could do you know it’s endless and there’s not it’s more of the experience of doing it

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rather than you know perfecting the technique right now you can always continue to learn and you can always

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continue to work on your technique but you know you’re here to have fun and you’re here to connect and you’re here

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to put that amazing energy into the piece today so alright let’s get

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[Music]

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so I’m really happy to be back on the work as was the saying I am part of the

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interpretation team here at the LGA and so in a lot of ways you know I I do my

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art at home but then I come to work wearing you know very thankful to be surrounded by art um which exhibits are

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still world very timely Rembrandt or

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sorry it’s live in desert that’s 1638 Rembrandt emerges which just before we

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closed for for koba’s so we are very lucky that it has been extended so there

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is recalculations which features work from our collection and in golden light

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[Music] Orthodox icons there is there is so you

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welcome you guys to come in and we’re always here to help people you know visitors coming and you know I’m

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personally glad I love recalculations I think my favorite piece is the sandpaper

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with the the husband-and-wife team yeah

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so I have yeah so I yeah I always have favorites in each Valerie I love all of the icons

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it’s amazing I love these I love just

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the technique of it because there was a lot of things that I didn’t know and being an artist I didn’t go to art

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school or I didn’t yeah so learning about contemporary art was

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something that I was really kind of yeah

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it was one of the things that I was really kind of like I don’t know a lot but being here I’ve learned for sure so

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much and I’m lucky to be surrounded by it all day and then have the opportunity to do stores yeah so I’m monitoring the

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questions here in the chat box and Amber’s just wondering if this session will be available to share afterwards and yes it will go on our YouTube

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channel probably a few days yeah after today so you can share and yeah awesome

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yeah for sure um but yeah so I have been learning a lot since I’ve been here so

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we’re just gonna so I just cut out the template I don’t think I’m gonna do the hole punch I think I’m just gonna tape

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it with the washi tape so now you can just decorate it so should we trace it off yeah

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so I already cut mine out yeah I know so well yeah all along everyone so yeah you

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said cardstock or you suggested yeah

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anything yeah like a cardboard box we had like a bunch of different things in

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my house and so if you’ve ever purchased a piece from me you will know that so I

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love gift wrapping each individual piece and writing a milk and so I had a lot of

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my when I wrap pieces up I have a lot of my

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stickers and things like that so I thought it would be great to use those so some of you know that I have a cat

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his name is Nelson and then my daughter has a cat named lonely so I got some

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stickers to put on here because when we

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look at the boxes and we’re constructing these pieces traditionally each box and

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everything we do has to do with this teaching whether it’s you know telling a story about you know a lesson that needs

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to be learned or or who you are or the things that care that we care about so

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decorating the outside is just as important as you know what’s on the

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inside of the box so I was just telling Liz earlier that my daughter’s have

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slipped out to the other day and I was very scared so I was happy to find her

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and so yeah so I’m going to be making a little box and I think it might be cute for their tree but there’s also other

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nurses too so yeah so I think maybe make

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sure that you have you kind of just lightly mark where the lines are we’re

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gonna fold and then when we get there

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we’re kind of almost yes

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and they actually a few years ago when I was a gallery attendant that was one of

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the first exhibitions I worked in was a big ol origami exhibition which is really cool yeah well I really like the

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fact that you know with such an abstract piece you don’t really know you know if

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you don’t go and read the label so I like to ask people questions about what they think it is and what they think

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it’s made out of and that type of stuff but I love it because it’s such a big my

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mental peace but growing up in the country painting fences sandpaper was

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something that you did that you use to take off the old paint when you had to repaint your parent your family’s fence

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that goes all the way around and so when I looked at that I was like oh my gosh

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like sandpaper all night that’s like I had a flashback of like summers doing

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that and as much as it was such hard work and when you’re a teenager you are

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like this sucks I immediately thought back to my childhood didn’t thought what a great testament to you know work with

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your hands and hard work and so I think that’s why it’s definitely one of my favorites because that’s what it reminds

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me of yeah

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[Music]

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[Music]

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and so we are open Thursdays Fridays and

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Saturdays and at eleven twelve is for

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vulnerable people and seniors yeah

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do they have to book or can they just come in time slot so you could do that

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online you’re really testing my hat and

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also even though the the benches have been taken oh you can grab when you come

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and visit if you do require seating at guest services there are chairs that are

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buying stools that you can bring into each of the galleries and then there’s

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also you know markings of where you can walk and then we also have stations for

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hand wash and yeah so we’d love for you

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guys to come in and visit us and chat [Music]

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and Churchill Square is beautiful so you have to come and visit so when we talk

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about where who we are and where we belong when we look at it in terms of

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now I like to share that yeah like my

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community isn’t just you know muss coochie or is it you know the Dakota

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Lakota people or you know bring an Albertan or any of that like I also have

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a big attachment to people that I work with and what we do and so in those ways

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creating together is some is really a good form of you know healing and

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connect you know I certainly missed everybody here and so when we think of that you

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know what what happened what have you done since you know when we had to you

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know statement a lot of video calls with everyone is for yeah yeah and so that’s

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like because yeah like last year’s National Aboriginal day with such a success we had so many people come I met

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a lot of amazing people makes new friends and that was one way that we really enjoyed because again we were

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talking about who we are where we come from you know where are places and you

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know this world and I feel like these type of projects really do have an impact and bring us together there was a

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lot of things that I learned about even Edmonton that I didn’t know you know even was it it there was a society it

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was like a group that did look like icons the process of icons which I

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didn’t know even existed in Alberta at all even here and so you know learning

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through that and knowing that um there’s so much more you know things and things

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to do and available groups and stuff like that you know granted right now

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it’s um yeah it’s a little tricky but like this way is good you know okay so

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I’m gonna just decorate oh yeah yeah so

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historically they were used for all sort of all sorts of things because it was

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such a durable piece and the way that it was treated was they were durable they

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were easy to pack and then the designs and the colors you know some families

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have just like crests just like you know different families so we had a lot of

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designs and colors that were meaningful to a specific family you know just like

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families that are hockey families and rodeo families and so even you know for

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different ceremonies whether we’re making you know relations with each

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other or you know our coming-of-age ceremony or anything like that these

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types of things were also gifted and so it was really important to keep this

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alive I’m very fortunate to come from a family who you know stories and

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traditional knowledge is really helpful and really important and and that’s what

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I love is coming from a community you know and my dad his second language is

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English and so even though we were

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raised with a Cree speaker you know

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we’re still learning and we’re still learning a lot I’m very fortunate that both my parents are alive to continue to

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teach me and teach my kids I’m thankful for my brother because I have teenage

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boys so did my cat upside that’s a

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fantasy um so I just used like a ruler and then

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you can even use like the edge of your that’s good you know you know just sort of like scores yeah a little bit um I

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did have a bone folder but yeah it’s but

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I got it at Michael’s actually and so but it wasn’t as effective as like a

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butter knife or you know but I have tools for my other work and so I have my

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all even I have we were talking about hole punchers and I have my leather punch and I was like it looks like it’s

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not really good little regular paper yeah yeah and even that like you could just even poke it through so that’s okay it’s

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about the process it’s not about it’s about you enjoying it yeah yeah and then

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you can even like yeah even if you have questions we’re always here to help but

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I wanted to show you guys a little bit of so for the box because we’re away

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from my parents and you know we were able to see them but not you know as

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much as we could at that time so I thought it would be awesome if you could

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put you know pictures into a box and

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then also make a box and you can make

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somebody present then then I thought why

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don’t you create a care package so I

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wanted to send this so you can put a

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template in there yeah wait let me put together stickers

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and stickers yeah and then just like a little card so how connect this

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all together you can either yard you know lace it through the yarn or you can to keep it

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do you want to do a yarn little bit try that one okay so you’re just gonna go in

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and out and you’re just gonna connect it I’ll just punch like it’s kind of a big hole cut yeah three yeah and so during

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the quarantine I kept very busy with our projects thankfully how are you saying

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to do this well I was still working from home yeah I’m really new at garden but

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yeah you feel so accomplished when you yeah I probably need to harvest my

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onions like so I guess you could also I

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feel like a printer that takes cardstock you can print the template right on paper yeah yes you could just kind of go

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through it with like you would like a needle and thread but just yeah like connected you can even tie it I’m sorry

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from the bottom yeah I started I started on the bottom with this one but I did a

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bunch of different lacing techniques to

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see which one I found the easiest but I also thought it looked kind of cute with

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all of the difference yeah yeah like you know I guess if you show

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that under that came on that side let me see the different yeah yeah and then

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also I found so I just picked up like a

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bunch of things that I had I had a few things lying around but I didn’t have

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enough to kind of so I like just used whatever for decorative purposes but um

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yeah and so a lot of artists and crafters and things like that we know that you have an excess of supplies and

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little tiny pieces a string that you don’t you’ll swear that you need five

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years down the road so you hold on to it so this is one of them so it did I did

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use it but yeah this is kind of what we did last year we did medallions and then

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we painted them I saw in that one last

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year and the other day she was wearing her Maddow really oh my gosh well that

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always makes me so happy it does it makes me so happy because you know like

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I love to share you know whatever I have learned because somebody taught me you

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know I wasn’t just born with you know all of these things somebody was has always been so kind to

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you know help me or guide me and so I just feel that you know I was very lucky

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and I want to give that to other people because you know it makes you feel so much better and you know it’s a way to

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not only you know care for others but take care for yourself and so that’s one

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of the really really important things that I find and then it was it’s amazing

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how many people interpret you know this any kind of activity make

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you tired yeah I can’t like the lazy way yeah yeah so I hope to see everybody

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making boxes and then you should upload

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them and then take us so that we can see how your body is show you oh yeah

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because it’s very nice to share I always

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love the feedback too and then even it doesn’t even have to be the square one so if you do any kind of boxes even if

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you just buy a box and and decorate it you know that’s meaningful did you use

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two different oh we did use two different I like it so my decoder name

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is shoot that watch a week so I always

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and even when they don’t intend to I’m always just like dropping to like

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flowers and things like that so I was gonna do this I don’t know if you guys

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could see it but I was going to do some Dakota florals and then I just got

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carried away with like other yeah it was so crazy and then I started looking and

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I’m not like a big scrapbooker or like any of that but I am thinking about it

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now he said these are yeah so the yeah

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so like this one i made it i made a belt bag but i never

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I’m kind of that person that like makes things and like just to see if it turns out so yeah a lot of it is this one is

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from the YW hub in Calgary so I was very fortunate to have been one of the

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artists chosen to play pieces for the YW hub which you know helps moms and

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families and not just women but families with different services all in one area

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in Calgary I’m being how I was a young mom and I’m still you know I still have a lot to

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learn and I still you know appreciate all of the help my parents my family my community gives me so it was an honor to

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be part of that yeah and then I also make dolls and so these were my two

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favorite when it was so far so yeah josh

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says this is awesome wickedly deadly awesome so good job is it Josh who this

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is Josh okay cuz I like my brothers Josh

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[Music]

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and I know a lot of people with their cats I’ve had many conversations with

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visitors and co-workers about like everybody’s love of cats you know what

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be a good idea to like I’m like a collage is not what it’s about yeah yeah and then do it like all on one

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and then kidding I didn’t even think of that yeah we’re splitter of course you can

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also do yeah I was thinking about that like do one or like or just do like the

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colorful pattern inside yeah yeah see

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you endless endless possibilities

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[Music]

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through this activity which has so many different ways that could be done

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sharing processes and the significance

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I just like to thank everybody who join us um and please come and visit us and

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there’s so many it’s the 10 year anniversary of the architect of the

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building yeah yes yeah so if you come you know we

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have such a beautiful building and it has such a history and significance to Edmonton and so you know we’d love to

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see you know and we love to talk about it too and the materials and things like

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that so yeah I would like to see all of you coming in yeah and just if you have your boxes

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make sure you take a picture of them let me know who you are let me know if you like this activity and if you’d like to

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see other you know pieces or other activities that we can do to continue

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the live streaming in the web series like that was amazing so thank you for joining us thank you

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and oh I’ll just add relate to the building last week’s AGA live was on

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Facebook live Michaela’s spoke about the architecture of the building and that

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recording is still on our facebook page and you-tube and july 7th is our next

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live stream we’ll be with artists Haley Finney she’ll be doing a drawing demo with

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Lindsey Sharman who’s the curator here at the HEA and you can see Haley’s

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recent installation in Manning quality come visit us so check out our website to register the

36:30

bat as well mm-hmm all right thanks everyone and thank you Elleni thanks for

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having [Music]

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