Intro

0:00

fiance and welcome everyone to george little child uh his

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his first nation name is cowassis and i’m not sure what does that mean

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so there’s a wonderful little story so no it’s a story right so in 2001

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i had the great privilege of going back to the ehrman skin first nation where my

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family is from and my relatives said they wanted to honor me at the pow wow

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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

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told i was going to be honored and i had no idea that on that day i would be given my

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great grandfather’s traditional first nations name

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and so it’s a great surprise and the orator said in cree and then in english

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today you will be known as nani colossus and

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so from that day forward i carry my great grandfather’s name so my great-grandfather was a gifted

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gifted hunter they say that my great grandfather could

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run so fast that he could grab the rabbits by their ears

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they say my great grandfather nani colossus could run so fast he could club

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the deer they say that my great grandfather nani colossus

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every time he went hunting would burn holes in his moccasins because he ran so

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fast and who would have to fix his moccasins or make new ones his wife my

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great-grandmother every time he went hunting so who do you think he would feed

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when he brought the deer or whatever he hunted who would he feed first

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anyone pardon me why would he feed the deer

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yeah no people what people in his community would he feed first

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no orphans and children who next

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elders who who next the community

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who would he feed last himself okay so he was a very revered hunter and he

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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

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you you’re welcome now we know yes oh and it actually means swift child because he ran so fast it

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shouldn’t be little child and that’s the indian agent that messed our name up

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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

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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

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the arts so hi hi and i’m gonna just pass it over to you george and let you

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have the floor i’m not sure if you knew that mj is the curator of this show

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and she’s also pre i am yes i’m pre-mohawk and french there you go yes fancy mix yes

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[Laughter] well dante how are you i’m greeting you

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in my pre language so it is with a great honor

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but there’s one there that this is being shown and this is the inaugural exhibition of

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this body of work so this is the first time the public

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will see this work this is the first time i have seen this work displayed together

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so i am an artist who’s been an artist for many many years

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my career as a full-time artist began at the age of 30

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and i’ve been creating art full time since that time i was born here in edmonton

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august 16 1958 and i was born at the university of alberta hospital

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and i always say that’s why i have too smart and

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my life here in the city so the residential school was developed

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by the canadian government and with certain religious groups the roman catholic

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the anglican and the united and those were the primary suspects

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of the residential school so the next experiment the government of

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canada did after the residential schools was something called the 60s scoop

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and why it was called that is it began in the 60s

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where the government of canada started taking first nations children

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away from their families and their parents were residential school

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survivors so i am a product i and i don’t like to

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refer to myself as a 60 scoop survivor but this is the term being used today

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and i always say i’m a 60 scoop thriver but i did survive the 60s too

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so i was raised in five different foster homes

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the fourth home the woman almost killed me and she was very abusive

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and threw me down flights of stairs and was very cruel but thank god for a doctor a physician a

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physician who saw what she had done to me she had told him

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that i had urinated the bed and it was an edmonton cold night

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and she said she left the window open and i had turned black and blue and the

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doctor said there’s no way this is a lie and he took me out of that foster home

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thank god and he i went back to the children’s care center

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and a dutch canadian couple as so i said to my mom well why did you choose me

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like why me of all those children in the center and bless her soul she was very

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religious very christian and her comment

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was that we chose you because we wanted to help someone less fortunate not the answer i wanted

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because they were christian they wanted to help people and so i went to their home and she was

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a very loving understanding intuitive woman and she said when i arrived at their

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home i was already drawing at the age of four so somehow i had developed that skill

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which was quite amazing but i believe the creator gave me the gift of my art

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to get me through the hell that i was going through as a child my mother with her loving intentions

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and her christianity i mean that’s how

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i mean she was a very a wonderful individual and so she sent me to art classes as a

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young boy it was interesting and one of the places that i came to

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was the edmonton art gallery i came to the institution the classes

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were downstairs under this so part of this art gallery is the original art gallery which is quite cool

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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

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month i went maybe once a week at the end of the class they kept one of

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my drawings because they thought it showed a promise

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so that’s my bit of history with the edmonton art gallery which is now the alberta art gallery

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so my work that i have created over the course of my career

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i have always felt it was my duty uh i was chosen i believe by the creator

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not god the creator because i don’t believe in christianity

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i believe in the first nations ways i was chosen by the creator to do the

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work i do and what i believed and i my work is very intuitive

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but what i believed is that as a first nations individual it was my duty and my responsibility to

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speak for those who could not speak for themselves so i always did art about the underdog

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i did art about my first nations history and culture

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and so thus began the journey so i’ve actually been creating artwork

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about the residential school for over the last 30 years

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and in doing so i did a lot of research i spent many days at the archives here

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on roper road where there were hundreds and hundreds of photographs of first

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nations children who attended the residential school

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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

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deeply into but it took me 11 years to find my family my i didn’t know that i was half

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caucasian i’m half white and so i found one half sister one half brother a full

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brother and two full sisters and then i found my aunts and uncles

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and aunts and uncles on both sides and i began my

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to learn about my history to discover who i am and in doing so that information

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led me to create a lot of the work that i do today and so what i would do is i would go to

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archives and i would search through the photographs and what i would do is i would pay to

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order eight by ten photographs of these rows and rows of children

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and there were no names on the photographs they were nameless beautiful little children with no names

Unidentified Children

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no identification so what i did is i took this is one of

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the photographs so i took the photographs back to muscotis or what was then called

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hobima to the urban skin reserve and i asked different relatives or

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different elders so i asked these individuals well who are these people so they’d say oh that’s

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mary uh goodin that’s mary soto just so you know this is my

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late mother rachel little child that’s my mom and this is dalio musso so

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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

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often say her maiden name and her married name and if it’s was a child that came from

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another reserve to attend the residential school in in musketeers

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they would say well this girl her name was so and so but she came from that reserve so they all seem to know

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and then as so out of 10 elders if eight of them said that was mary and

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two said it was susan that’s how i did the research so it was my intention

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to bring or copy the names to give to the archives here

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in edmonton the children’s names these beautiful unidentified children

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and so just losing my train of thought there for a second so what happened was

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that in these photographs there were always certain children

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no one knew why didn’t they know they seemed very clear they would identify about

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88 of the photograph they knew all the kids names but there were always these

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children no one knew and i took it upon myself

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and i thought about so often as an artist not every artist is the same

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but often ideas live in my mind and i thought about these children and i

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really felt it was my responsibility

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of their story and this was long before finding the graves and kamloops just so you know

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and so i started drawing each one of those children

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no one knew who they were what happened to them

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did they die at the school what happened to them why does no one know who they are

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so that’s what this exhibition is all about right here i am

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can you see me these children are unidentified

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no one is connected to them it seems or appears so i wanted to give each and

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every one of those children in those photographs a voice

Family History

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but what i also did this is right here you see the young boy with the barbed wire

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so my uncle willie little child and i didn’t know

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this because i had never heard this before but he said that there was electric

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barbed wire around the school so if you try to escape

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you would get electrified what does that sound like in your minds does that sound like the holocaust

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exactly so this i didn’t even know

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i had two uncles so my grandmother bella also went to residential school

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and my my grandfather edward also went to residential school my grandfather edward died at 53 and my

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grandmother was 36 after 12 children nine of her children

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went to the residential school out of 12.

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and so i had no idea until my auntie my late auntie rosalie

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she said i had an uncle he was an artist i said who auntie his name was louie

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and he he died at the residential school and so this is louie

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we don’t know how he died we have no idea where he’s buried

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right he’s around the property and then i discovered in my research

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that i had another uncle alfred my another brother to my mother late mother

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and he also died so when you arrived at the residential

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school you’re often five or six or seven sometimes children were three and four

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and they arrived at the residential school and when you were 16 it was called timed out so that

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represented the fact that you were now able to leave the school

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you i guess in in a weird sense it was like a graduation and so alfred

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did not live he either died there or right after so there was two of my

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mother’s brothers that died at the ehrman skin indian residential school

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so now let’s fast forward to finding the graves of 215 children

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at the kamloops indian residential school

Finding the Graves

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and in realizing the work that was created for this exhibition is talking about all those issues right

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is speaking for those children who have didn’t go home didn’t they

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didn’t return they were nameless no name

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they have and can you imagine anyone in this room how many of you have children hands up

Residential School

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okay can you imagine someone coming to your home and taking your children away

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and you never saw them perhaps ever again because that’s what happened

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losing the child’s connection to their language identity

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losing the possibility of being loved so what was taught at the residential

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school no one hugged you no one said geez bob you’re an amazing

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boy boy you’re a good boy you never heard that

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so i have lost five relatives in musketeers

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to covet my beautiful last uncle in my family

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uncle rainey and his wife auntie rachel my cousin allen and two second cousins

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died of cobit and he was my last connection so there’s no more aunts and uncles left

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and in thinking about what happened to them they really never

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so people the elders never told me what happened to them at the schools

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late auntie rachel i don’t know why she just gave started

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talking a little bit so when we arrived at the school

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they gave us a great big sick white roll of ribbon

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and they gave us a grease pencil this is my friend john so if john when he arrived at the

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residential school he’s no longer drawn he’s number

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74. what john would have to do is cut a piece of that ribbon with the

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grease pencil seven so he would have to sew it in his shirt

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sew it in his pants his socks his undergarments his hat his coat his shoes

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and for the rest of his time at the residential school he’s number 74. so if john lost his hat and another boy

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who’s number 43 came and found 74 that he knew right

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away he didn’t go up to john and say john i found your hat hey 74 i have your

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hat so that’s what happened what does that sound like a

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prison suddenly you were stripped of anything you had and that’s what orange shirt day is all

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about when phyllis arrived at the school her beautiful orange shirt her mother

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had given her was taken away in great orange shirt day

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so my aunt goes on to tell another story she said

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that she was responsible for ironing the nuns

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this part the habit this is called a habit they would he would iron that

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and it had to be starched and it was stiff and hard

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and one day i don’t know how but because they never saw the nun

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without this they always had this on and so one day

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she came into the room because she was ironing and there was a nun and her head was shaved bald and she

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screamed she you know that they didn’t know them as people they weren’t people they were

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like a human really and she didn’t have her habit on so that’s

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another story my aunt and uncle say when they woke up very early in the

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morning they would have to pray for a couple hours on their knees then they would be given the same

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breakfast every morning terrible porridge porridge every day

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same meals meanwhile

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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

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because all the girls had to sew iron clean

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the boys had to do yard work do the garden do everything outside the residential school

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so they remember praying eating have a bit of education and all afternoon you

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were doing your chores and i’ve heard this story from many different

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angles and viewpoints of the fact that while the children were given the worst

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food and there were residential schools across canada that literally were starving the children intentionally

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the children were hungry every day they were hungry all the time they went to bed hungry they would cry

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at night there was no none no priest that came and loved them and said i love you and

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cherish them and hold them they never got held the only time they were held or

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retouched was to get beaten or slapped or raped that was the only touch that they ever

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experienced and i’ll get into that in a bit further

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so knowing those just those few little stories that happened with my aunt and uncle my late aunt and

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uncle so those are a couple stories but i haven’t heard about the abuse in my personal family

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but my beautiful mother rachel late rachel

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after residential school so at one point did you know that people who lived on a first nations

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reserve had to get permission to leave so they had to ask the indian agent for

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permission to leave so you would approach the indian agent

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and let’s say you had to go to the hospital in the next town the white town

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so you would say to the indian agent so it’s a um george little child

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will go to watasquain and he’s allowed to leave and he has to

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be home back to the reserve by 6 30 and if and it was a pass it was an

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actually written thing and when if you didn’t come back on time the

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rcmp were sent to get you and put in prison so

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by the time my mother became a young lady that had changed so she was free to

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leave the reserve and what happened if

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if you’ve never been loved you’ve never been held can you imagine they say that babies who are in

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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

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but once they reached once they went to the residential school that was gone

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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

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and so traditionally what would have happened within my mother’s people there were planned marriages

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you would look at your child and you would make an arrangement with this family

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and you would say one day this girl and that boy will be married

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and there was a celebration and sacred ceremonies

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well now the priest would decide who would marry who and so the partner

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that you were given right to be married to was also a residential school

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survivor so this one didn’t was never loved

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right except as a very small child and would have forgotten that this one didn’t know love so they got together

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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

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so you have generations so you talk to someone who would have survived the holocaust

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well the second generation is messed up because of what happened to their parents in the holocaust

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it’s no different with first nations residential schools the children of those people are messed

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up so it goes generationally until people say enough this has to stop we have to start

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and teaching and healing and healing and healing and healing so when i look at my poor little mother

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she actually died two blocks three blocks from here on skid row in 1965

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she drank herself to death she was a residential school survivor

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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

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but this is part of it is that the government took her five children away

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in the 60s scoop will anyone in this room if your children are taken away from you

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it will kill your soul in a great way and you will never ever forget

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what happened so my poor mother rachel

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i don’t have no memory of her because of the crazy foster mother beating me up at the age of four

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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

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follow time okay ten more minutes

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and how long is the q and a okay i might eat your time anyway

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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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