After the recent news of the discovery of young children buried at the Kamloops residential school, our artist team was called to act in creative response. Many of our friends and artists are indigenous and work closely within the indigenous community and so this is an artist act of solidarity and an opportunity for young hands to be involved in this. Working with Pat Calihou Metis Artist we cut out orange hearts for the young students to paint orange as a hands on opportunity to learn this dark part of Canadian history. With the assistance of the teachers the young hands painted and installed these orange hearts on a fence on the north side of the school. We hope people in the community, whether they are walking or driving, see the orange hearts on the school fence on the south side of the street and come to understand and reflect with what has happened. The many kids inside the school walls know about the children at Kamloops residential school, they are learning and remembering.
I am a contemporary outsider artist that believes in the healing properties of the natural environment. I paint landscapes in abstract as an expression of my connection with nature and its ability to provide me peaceful inspiration. As organisms on this earth I believe we are interconnected with nature and highly interdependent.
But as the psycho-social environment we live in today gets ever increasingly complex its effects on us are becoming more pervasive, corroding and sophisticated. However the energy, peace and serenity of our natural surroundings can provide a way of grounding our senses and healing our minds. I try to capture the interrelationship between my mind and nature as I see and feel it; it’s an expression of my soul captured on a physical medium and in a point in time. Going through the process in itself contributes to balance.
Driven by my own lived experience, I am a self proclaimed arts-based advocate for mental health and strive to demystify and eliminate stigma around these issues. My initiatives in this regard include being the Vancouver Caucus leader for the Artist Alliance for Mental Health, a collective member (2010) of the artist-run Gallery Gachet in Vancouver and the Producer and Host of Sound Therapy Radio a peer oriented mental wellness show on CJSF 90.1 FM. I have a true belief in human potential and in the statement; ‘art is a means for survival’.
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