Why do I burn my art?
I get these angry messages in my inbox. Why do I burn my art when I could donate it or paint over it or other things.
So, I know this won't stop the angry messages and I hope those people start having a better day soon. Instead, I wrote this for you, the person reading this right now.
I burn my paintings because I want to.
I have to move soon and storing these 50 some odd paintings is going to be a problem. These aren't my beautiful originals, or my treasured oldies. They're painting party designs which I need to let go of.
So, let's get into my most commonly asked questions.
1) Why don't you donate your paintings?
Thrift stores often have stacks of paintings in there. I don't think they're adding any value to the store.
2) Why don't you paint over them?
In order to paint over them, it takes a couple of hours to properly gesso and sand the canvases. Frankly, they're not worth the effort. It would be worth the effort if it was wood, but not on a canvas. Again, I have 50 canvases.
3) Why don't I just throw them in the garbage?
Most of the painting is actually an item which will release methane when it decomposes in a landfill. Burning it will release carbon dioxide, which is not as dangerous as methane, in terms of climate change.
4) Why don't I restretch them?
I could. But I'm not packing around a bunch of stretcher bars in hopes that I one day have the time.
5) Why not give them away to other artists?
I have a lot of actual art supplies which will be more useful than some old paintings. I do donate art supplies.
In reality, these are my paintings. They are my items that I can do whatever I want with.
I've worked at a landfill. I've seen people throw in 7 working TV's, an entire kitchen worth of dishes and pots, brand new hardwood flooring, an entire apartment's furniture and more. All of these things are genuine items which could be donated and reused. In fact, my kitchen table is one that came from the dump over 10 years ago. If the 'waste' of my paintings bothers you, I hate to tell you what's being thrown away on a daily basis.
The Real Reason
More than any of that. The real reason that I burn paintings is that, burning is actually a therapeutic process for me. There's something calming about the fact that the painting no longer exists. Maybe other artists will understand me here.
Sometimes I see an older painting of mine and I just want it to not exist any more. There are some paintings that I remember and I'm honestly relieved that it no longer exists. It's gone forever, baby.
I keep my older paintings, the ones that tell the story of my progression. So, storage is one of the main reasons that I need to get rid of everyone, so that I can safely store the paintings that I am keeping for a good reason.
Painting Party designs were made to help teach people and I have a huge stack that's taking up space. So, they aren't useful anymore. I will likely make a new collection of painting party designs one day, and these old ones will just be retired forever.
I retire old designs because I get sick of them, or I created them so long ago that I can't remember the steps anymore. So, it's always important to create new ones.
I often sell these paintings and I'll hold onto whoever doesn't sell. This time, everyone has to go.
I've already sorted through the paintings and selected those for the burn list that don't even get a chance to be purchased. They might have a hole, or just not be up to my standards. This is an opportunity to get a great painting for a cheap price. Some of them are actually quite nice.
My Birthday
These paintings will be available until Feb 12th. On the 13th, I'm going to bring all the unsold paintings outside and burn them. The 13th is my birthday. Lately, I haven't been enjoying my birthdays. With having to move, I'm really dreading it.
This is giving me something to look forward to. I'm able to get some closure on a period of time in my life and move forward to better things.
All the money raised by this sale will go towards our moving costs. It's all directly helping our family.
So, enjoy shopping for your gems. There are some really pretty paintings in there.
Thanks for hearing me out. You can leave your comments under this blog, right here on my website if you want.
Everything has changed! - important website updates
Nothing in life is permanent. I'm learning that in a real way this winter.
I've had to change a lot of things on my website, so let's talk about that for a bit.
1) Prices - yeah, prices went up. I hate changing my prices, I like to make sure that my work stays affordable. However, there's some changes I've had to respond to.
a) Prices for ALL of my suppliers have gone up.
b) I've lost suppliers and had to go with new ones which have way higher prices. One of my items went up by 400% from when I set my price to where I can get it now.
c) Groceries and all the rest of my living expenses have gone up.
However, I also am trying to make changes for the better
Free Shipping
I've bundled shipping into the cost of my items. So, you'll get free shipping on most things, unless you want to upgrade it past my offering.
If you're in town, pickup is no longer an option on my website. It's ending for reasons out of my control. I'm not exactly happy about it, but it's the way it is.
So, if you're one of my pickup people, I can give you a discount code for 10% off (basically the cost of shipping). This code will expire on the last day of February and pickup will no longer available. Use code: Pickup
Good News
I'm going to be in Two Rivers Gallery!! In March 2023, my collection Otipemisewak will be launching! I'm very excited about this and I'll let you know more later!
My Life
Now, for the less good news. My life is changing a lot. It's stressful. It's hard. I'm having headaches a lot because I'm so tense and stressed. I'm doing my best every day.
I don't want to talk about the specifics because this is a public space and anyone can read this. Just know that I am having a challenging time.
Luckily, I'm with a man who loves me very deeply. My daughter is so sweet, she even wipes my tears away. My family is supportive and loving and they are always down to help me in any way that they can.
So, there's some things that I'm not able to offer right now, like painting parties and commissions. I'm prioritizing my mental health and increased needs for my own life. I miss you all, but I need time.
Supporting Me
If you love me and want to help me, I'm going to need to downsize all of my things. So, I'll have a special sale starting next week for my birthday. It's going to be a 'fire' sale. Yes, I am putting paintings up for sale and either you buy them or I burn them!
I have a lot of ritual burning to do which is going to be important for my healing process. Burning is a release to me and I have a lot to release.
So, thank you to everyone who puts in orders and supports me in the transformation into this new life.
I know that releasing will give me space to bring new work into the world. I have a lot of beautiful art that's living inside of me but this constant onslaught has been hard to work. (I've only half-finished one painting this month.)
I want to end by sending a lot of love to everyone reading this. Life can be hard and what we choose to put our energy into comes back to us. It's not easy to choose peace, so thank you to every person who supports me because I feel it.
Lots of love,
Erin
I quit social media for 30 days
I left social media for over 30 days. Technically, I've just logged into Instagram today to lurk. Facebook is my real vice. In 2009 or whenever I said I'd never join Facebook and yet here we are. I've had a love/hate relationship with Facebook for a long time. I never got into Twitter, it always felt too angry, especially now.
Why I Left
At the end of December I was about to take my normal Christmas vacay and after a bad client came around, I realized my break needed to be longer than normal. I finished up whatever business I absolutely needed to do and left.
I uninstalled Facebook and Instagram and blocked them on my computer. I’ve done this before and usually I just go on Facebook on my phone’s web browser but I knew I needed a total detox. I left social media like it was an abusive relationship and, I suppose, it had become a bit like that.
I would scroll for hours each day and I could feel my mood and perception of the world worsen with it. I would inevitably feel like I could be doing MORE, even though I was totally burned out. I really beat myself up a lot, and I could feel that getting worse whenever I would scroll.
I was feeling really burned out. I’ve been feeling really challenged by life lately. I feel the tension between my work life and my life as a parent. That tension hasn’t left a lot of room for Erin. I felt like I absolutely had no choice but to unplug.
How did I feel 1 week in
Initially, I struggled to stop the urge to open social media. I felt like I was missing the scroll. To scratch the itch, I opened the weather app. Ahh, it’s -10 and it might snow tomorrow. It really did help scratch the itch and remind myself of what I was doing and why. Jeez, I didn’t realize that I looked at social media that much, I’ve checked the weather 8 times this morning.
I realized that I was distracting myself so much that I hadn’t realized how I was really feeling. As I let go of the distractions I could also feel myself slowing down. I needed a lot of decompression but I wasn’t able to do it in a vacuum anymore.
My daughter is two and a bit now. While she brings light and love to my life, as she changes phases it demands new things from me. I could decompress alone before and now I didn’t have that choice. I needed to learn new tools.
How do I feel now
You see, I don’t work in the business of hard labour. My job isn’t to lift heavy things or work with my body. My job also isn’t to work with just my mind. I’m not mindlessly entering data which takes little to no investment of myself. I’m an artist.
It’s a weird thing, to be an artist. No one seems to understand it, including myself. I’m still understanding what it takes to be a creative person.
However I do know that it requires your heart to be in the right alignment. When you’re working with your heart things can flow very easily and the work has an ability to truly connect with others. When you’re not working with your heart, it’s not like other jobs, something feels off. The work doesn’t connect and it can take an invisible toll on you.
It sounds like then, that you just need to do what you’re passionate about. But it’s not really that simple.
I think of creativity as a little fire, burning in the center of your chest. That little fire needs to be tended to, gently and lovingly. My little fire thrives off of authentic experiences, love, gentleness, solitude, nature and family. When tended to, that little fire can create beautiful and moving works of art.
However, I’m constantly feeling like this little fire’s needs come in direct opposition to the capitalistic world that we live in. Tending to that little fire can mean that more time is spent NOT creating than creating. It can mean that when it’s working properly, I actually need to be not doing work. It’s a very strange conundrum that I hardly understand.
Enter, social media. I have a hard time finding a way to have social media FUEL my fire, rather than take from it. It can feel like I’m already depleted but I need to continue to put myself out there.
Most of my work has nothing to do with social media. I can build a whole website, send packages, paint, teach courses without any social media at all.
However, it’s a necessary thing in this world, to have a solid social media presence. But I feel the additional pressures to ensure that it adequately showcases my authentic personality. It can feel like a full-time job just to get the algorithm to show your content. It's constantly judging you about how often you post, whether people engage with your posts, whether it’s a video or an image and other completely unknown factors. If it thinks you passed the test, you can have your post shown. It builds a ton of resentment in myself and many others out there.
However, I think the biggest struggle that I have is to balance my life as a parent and my life as a working artist. My daughter is growing. She knows that mommy sits in her studio now and screams at the door because she wants to play tea party with mommy. Mommy goes and plays but mommy can’t play tea party all day. I constantly feel like I'm failing on all fronts.
But that's not really the lesson to take away from it. Not truly. The lesson isn't, you are inadequate. It's life is more than this.
She reminds me that life should be FUN. Life should be lived, in all it’s stages. It doesn’t need to be full of chores and things I ‘need’ to do. It also needs big laughs that make your cheeks hurt.
I think I needed a break to just live my life and weave in the trips to the pool, the park, to Grama’s house. I needed to spend weeks beading earrings and Christmas gifts. I needed to do pointless stuff to just bring that joy into my life. What’s more is I need that regularly in my life.
Life doesn’t need to be a perfectly staged instagram post, or a flawless house. Life is markers on the wall, again. I just cleaned that omg. It’s fucking messy. It’s snuggles and grilled cheese sandwiches. It’s the tomato soup all over her princess dress. Omg I just put that on her.
I often feel like parenting is something that I don’t want to share, because I want to protect her (and myself). But some days, I also just need to share what my life is authentically like. Sometimes it’s me hiding with the dog in the boot room, because we’re both being pestered and we just need a break.
I also need authenticity. That’s what this whole blog is. It’s me, being my messy and true self.
This past month and some has been a real relief, but I can definitely feel the call of social media, pulling me back. I’ve been working on my website all month and soon it’ll be ready to launch. I hope that I can have a new era of authenticity and drop any of the airs of social media perfection. That shit was killing me and I wasn’t even doing a good job of it.
Thanks for sticking around with me. I know that you're here because we’ve had some sort of connection and that’s really cool. If you feel like you need to unplug, I completely understand you. I’ve got a newsletter which is supposed to post monthly, but sometimes it’s less than that. I put a lot of work into it, I hope you enjoy it!
Alright, I’m outta here. My husband is coming home with the baby and I’ve got a lovely little girl to snuggle. <3
Why I'm Embracing Rest
Reflection is an important and natural part of life. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the time when we choose to reflect is also around the darkest time of year. Often, we feel like darkness is the reason that we feel so awful at this time of year but I would like to propose another theory, which is that feeling can lead us somewhere good, if we let it.
Remember, there can be no darkness without light. The very existence of darkness is proof that there is light, interacting on something and casting a shadow. The existence of darkness and light is just another example of the duality of life on this planet. When we work on our shadow spaces, we make room for light to come in.
Where I live, in the Boreal forest, we feel winter in a strong way. We are gripped by the great frosts and deep freeze temperatures that break anything which tries to rebel against the period of rest. We can also be broken by the cold, when we push past our own natural instincts to pause and instead proceed at all costs.
As humans, we are inseparable from nature. We drink the water held in ancient aquifers, we eat the foods from mother nature and every day we witness the changes in her great cycles. We also feel the changes inside of our bodies as they respond to the cues from Mother Nature. You see, our bodies are in it for the long game they don’t have quarterly quotas or hourly social media insights to track, they are looking to keep us alive in the long term, like for millennia.
In periods of great cold, we rest. Staying inside during extreme temperatures keeps us safe. Even the animals hunker down trying to keep warm, making them even harder to find. So, our ancient ancestors learned that there was no point expending extra energy just to risk hurting yourself. We needed to conserve energy, so in times of great cold we rested as well. During this time, we would tell stories, dream and play. Nearly all of our northern ancestors did this and these instincts are still in us today.
Now, we have increased pressure to be working. We push against our natural instincts and are inundated with messages like ‘there’s no excuse’, 'push yourself', 'no time for rest', ‘don’t be lazy’ or ‘deliver at all costs’. It’s no wonder we struggle so hard and ignore all of our cues during these times of natural rest. Our bodies know we need to slow down and when we don’t, our mind struggles as well.
In the long-term game of life, we aren’t sprinting, or even marathoning. We’re existing in the ancient heartbeat of mother earth. It’s one with no beginning and no end. It began long before we took our first breath and it will continue long after we take our last breath. We are here, not to achieve the quotas of a short-term life, we are here to experience the ebb and flow of life over and over and over.
When we can connect to the ebb and flow of mother earth’s heartbeat and listen to what this period is telling us, we’ll actually survive longer. The breaks that we take will give us energy for the times when we work hard. Expending energy will give us a sense of satisfaction that we’ll take into our breaks, allowing us to rest more deeply. The cycle of rest and action are ones that we will repeat endlessly. Our life is one of the inhales and exhales in the great cycle of the earth.
I’m beginning to see these cycles in my own life. The inhale of inspiration and the exhale of creation. I used to think that if I just had an experience and came home to create the painting, that would be enough. I could feel inside of myself that something wasn’t right. There’s something missing in a much deeper place.
This year, I felt like I listened to other people more than myself. In a way, listening to someone else is nice because you can get rid of the feelings of insecurity and work only on the idea. There’s an energy exchange and there’s something for you to bounce your energy off of.
However, I came out of this year feeling like I didn’t know my own voice anymore. I struggled and I felt awful but I didn’t understand why. The needs of other people were coming at the expense of my own.
In November, I felt like I couldn’t paint. I wanted to quit. I wrote an unreleased blog called 'You Should Quit'. It's pretty bleak. By December that feeling had only intensified. I was feeling low and I felt like I had nothing left to give.
However, the pressure of living in a capitalist society keeps us pushing even when we have nothing left to give. Capitalism wants everything from us and it does not care what it takes: our sleep, physical health, mental health, friendships, our children and their health. There is no boundary that it will not cross and we as a society perpetuate this.
We ask the unreasonable of people. We demand that they are answerable to us 24/7 and that their needs are to be placed last. We do this to each other, to the land, and we can feel it being done to ourselves. Though we may not even know that it's happening.
I eventually gave up even pressuring myself to paint. I took it off the table completely. I told myself that I don’t have to do anything other than what I absolutely need to do. Then the feelings in my heart showed me that I still had a lot of unnecessary crap masquerading as important remaining. I took everything off the table.
I was left with caring for my daughter and my own self-care. I set some very small goals, like shower every day and I’ve since added exercise. Sometimes I’d bead, or dream a new life into reality, play with my daughter or clean the house. Sometimes I’d do absolutely none of that.
It took a few weeks, some meditation, time outside and a lot of quiet. I slowly started to hear the heartbeat of the earth. I could hear the subtle rhythm that I had drown out with all of the noise that I thought I needed.
I began to realize how noisy my life had become. I had no ability to hear my own voice because it was just so damn loud all the time, and I’m not just talking about my screaming toddler. I’m talking about social media, TV, reading, other people’s voices. I began to see that I was literally listening to EVERYONE else other than myself. No wonder I felt anxious. There was nowhere in my life where I could just be without someone else telling me what to do.
This coming year will be one where I spend more time in silence. It will be one where I watch, listen and feel the great cycles of the earth and myself. I will look closely at the earth and observe her changes and how that mirrors the changes in me. I’m setting some strong boundaries, but boundaries are also flexible. They can come and go as needed and they answer only to me.
Just by giving myself this space, I can feel this wildness and fire return to my spirit. She feels ancient, fierce but tender and loving. It is rebellious, to go against the grain, to see the expectations of society and to buck the tradition.
It can be challenging and upsetting to others, who have lived in the capitalist machine and expect you to adhere to it’s rules, the rules which ask for every bit of you in the name of a few more dollars. The very rules that measure your worth in likes, dollars and views.
But, that’s not what we’re here for. We’re not here so we can have a great Instagram feed. We’re here to feel the wind in our hair, the bite of cold air on our cheeks. We’re here to make tea and to laugh with friends. We’re here to run and feel our feet leave the ground. We’re here to fucking live.
So, this year I’ll be doing just that. I’m going to shake some things up. I’m going to exist in my own world and I’m going to bond strongly with my loved ones. I'm going to enjoy my life.
In this time of reflection, I invite you to spend time in your own method of contemplation. Reflections can show us a mirrored version of the reality that we’ve already lived. They can allow us to gain new perspective.
But reflections can only be really seen when the water is calm, quiet and resting. When you take your reflections, remember that if you are doing it from a place of anxiety, you’re going to see ripples and distortions in your reflections. Allow your water to come to a rest, and for the winds and ripples to cease. Then take your long, hard look and see what new perspective you can gain.
I'll see you in the new year.
Kawapamatin Mina
Erin
Healing Melancholy
Personally, I find the word melancholy to be such a beautiful word that I have a hard time associating it with the actual experience of feeling your heart in a low place. Someone suggested languishing, which I imagine as what a rich person in the 1800s laying on a chaise lounge fanning themselves might say. I personally want to express it in sounds, like blahhhhh or flarrrph, more than real words. No matter how you say it, most people I know have been feeling this way lately.
I can come by my melancholy honestly. I’m a self-employed mother of a toddler living in a dark, cold Northern town. Even though she’s older, sleep is still broken and she pulls me away from work to play. I’m grateful for the play and the snuggles but it can get frustrating which just builds upon the other struggles in life. It’s been hard for me to go from a woman who had all her time to herself to one where her little one entirely consumes her world. I love my daughter with all my heart, but sometimes I need to love myself by being alone.
I don't know about you, but when I need to be alone I feel so drained. My reaction to this depressed state can be to do nothing but that gets annoying for me. I can only watch so much TV and I am not a domestic woman. I will cook and clean, but only to keep the baby from crawling all over me.
In these times, I’ll turn to painting. Now, you may expect that given my words, I would paint things that are gray, dark and rainy. But that’s not really me. Instead, I like to paint how I would like to feel. It’s my way of lifting me up.
I turn to warm pinks and oranges next to cool blues creating this vibrant contrast that makes me feel better simply by looking at it. I paint trees, which are always soothing to me. I find their complex exterior and quiet spirits to be beautiful sources of calm. I render tall mountains which have empathetically looked down upon a land and it’s troubles for millennia.
Something about the act of spending hours painting just makes me feel better. It doesn’t solve my problems, get me more sleep, clean the house or cook me food. Instead, it nourishes the place in my heart which has been in the doldrums and needs some wind to fill my sail.
I started with the trees that I see in my daily life. I often feel stuck in my house. I work from home, I parent. I'm home. A lot. I yearn to travel and see new things. But instead, I painted a few little scenes that I enjoy in my daily life. These trees and these skies bring me a bit of calm beauty in my chaotic days.
Melancholy trio - available individually or as a set
I moved onto these 4x12s which feature a fire crackling underneath a tree. These scenes feel like an oasis in the dark. A place to sit, calm yourself and get warm. I find these scenes very comforting and healing.
Warming Up trio - available individually or as a set
By the time I came around to this last painting, I was feeling much better. I started this painting of the mountains and the pinkness of the mountains is just so outrageous. The florals in the sky are a reminder that sunny, flower-filled days are coming again. Then, we have a cheery little fire attended by a little mouse and a fox, both roasting marshmallows. Even when the days are dark and cold, we can warm ourselves around the fire. These paintings are my fire.
Healing Melancholy - 11 x 14, acrylic on canvas
My series is a bit whimsical and I think that is the part that is particularly healing. Whimsicality cannot take itself seriously. It could not possibly be so dull as to be serious! It can only be silly, funny, and joyful. I think whimsicality is the antidote to melancholy. I invite you to introduce a bit of whimsicality into your life and see if it helps cheer you up when you feel low.
So, here’s my little collection. It’s taken me 7 paintings to work through these feelings and I’m sure that this feeling will come again. Luckily, I’ll always have painting to turn to.
- Erin
Teachings of Mdaamin Giizis or the Corn Moon
What seeds are we planting and where are we planting them?
The moon that typically falls in September is known as Corn Moon to the Anishinaabe (Mdaamiin Giizis). My great grandpa Tanner was descended from a line of Anishinaabeg Metis from Manitoba. When I discuss these Anishinaabe stories, I honour my Anishinaabeg ancestors who guide me on my way.
I've been sick this month and confronting that forced rest has made me consider where I put my energy. In my line of work, I don’t have sick days or support in that way. This often leads me to push harder than I can reasonably sustain because the idea of productivity that our modern culture is obsessed with is a toxic and damaging one. I’m slowly working on adopting the indigenous world view of work, which includes healthy rest but it’s not always so easy to do.
I've been reading the brilliant book, You Are the Medicine by Asha Frost. In it she discusses the medicine that each moon brings us and how we can use that to heal our lives. I highly recommend this book if you find indigenous healing compelling (you can order it through Books and Co here)
The full moon that we just had is Mdaamiin Giizis or the Corn Moon. Corn carries the next generation with it in rows along its body. It asks us, where are you planting your seeds? Where are you channeling your energy and what is the long term impact of that?
I look at my little daughter, she will be 2 next month. She's learning words like shoes and socks, kitty and dog. She even says ‘aw shit’ and I swear that she didn’t pick it up from me hahaha. She's picking her own clothes and deciding when she wants to go outside. She's developing her own opinions and feelings. The energy and time that I spend with her now will have a direct impact on her life as an adult.
As I watch her grow, I can feel the tension between the colonial world, which would have me control her, and my indigenous blood memory. I know that kindness, patience and allowing her to decide her own path is best. It will be messy and not orderly, but it will lead to a healthier person.
I have to admit, as I was tired, sick and not sleeping, it was harder to give her the space to be her own person. I grew frustrated quickly and had a really challenging time. It's important to remember that rest is a sacred and essential part of life. The seed I needed to nurture in myself was rest so that I can help my little lovebug grow up happy.
I will be taking a planned rest from Sept 26th to Oct 5th where I will be unavailable and any orders to the shop will be fulfilled when I return. I really look forward to this rest.
In my own life, I think about my own seeds. Where am I putting my energy? What will be the long term impacts of me placing my energy here?
I know I can't be the only person who gets sick and just scrolls social media. But I feel it in my soul, drawing my energy into a negative place. I know that I can't keep planting my seeds there.
Lately, I've been planting my seeds in a spiritual direction. I've been spending time listening to indigenous audio books as I make my winter ornaments. These books have been giving me a different outlook and helping me see in a new way.
Asha Frost's book, You are the Medicine, says that the animal spirit which best encompasses this time is the Eagle.
Eagle medicine helps us see from a new perspective. It has certainly done that for me this month. Can shifting your energetic focus allow you to shift perspectives and see a new world?
This October I start a journey with an Indigenous Spirit Talker, Shawn Leonard, to help me strengthen my connection to the spirit world. This November I get a tattoo to remind me to put the sacred into my work.
The seeds that I am planting are to help me grow my connection to the sacred, which is a path that I have been on now for about 6 years. I've felt the call to go deeper, to explore into areas that my ancestors haven't been able to delve into for many generations. For many of my ancestors, it was not possible to spend this time in reflection, even though that was very much the way long ago. I'm in a special and honoured space to be able to reconnect with spirit.
My art will always be an extension of my spirit. It has no choice. Art comes from spirit. All of us have the ability to connect to spirit through art. That may express itself as food, beading, medicine, music, fashion, painting or any of the myriad of art forms that exist. In my newsletter I discussed a painting of mine, Welcomed Home in Love, that very much was channeling the energy from spirit. It is a painting that honours the spirits of those who were victims of the Residential School system. After the initial 215 children were found, spirit asked me to create it.
I don't always channel my work from spirit like this, and you don't need to either. We all have a part of ourselves, maybe called spirit, soul, subconscious, left-brain, whatever you choose to call it. This part of ourselves doesn't express itself through words, it expresses itself through art. So, as I plant my seed into the spiritual realm, I also plant it into my art. If you choose to put your energy into art, you also put energy back into your spirit. Be sure you choose loving, positive energy if that is what you wish to receive.
This month, I’ve created this piece to celebrate Mdaamiin Giizis. It’s a digital work that I’ve made specially for this newsletter. It shows the colours of the universe inside of a cob of corn, illustrating the universe of potential that exists within each seed.
If you’d like a print or a card, to help out with my sick time, I’d really appreciate that. Prints are $20 and cards are $5 and you can 'tip' me and purchase a $2 digital download. I'll send you the full res image and you can use it for personal, non-commercial use.
Chi Miigwetch! Thank you!
Imposter Syndrome and Tipis
Two things that you wouldn't think belong together - imposter syndrome and tipis. Yet here, they belong surprisingly well.
Most of my audience are women, so we are no stranger to imposter syndrome. In fact, I think most of us now know that it comes in different flavours, like ice cream. But it's more like stepping in shit. We smell it and go, "ahh that was dog", or nope "that was definitely human. I hope it was my toddler."
My imposter syndrome can show up anywhere and everywhere. You see, I'm indigenous. I say it loud and proud, despite that nasty little poop smell. But it doesn't totally stop it from coming through.
So, when I said that I wanted to paint a collection of paintings celebrating my Metis heritage, that smell started lingering around.
I painted this as a reminder that my people have been here since time immemorial. I've gone through my ancestry to remind myself where I come from.
When I was in Saskatchewan, I would see a tipi gracing the skyline around indigenous places. The proud tipi bravely standing in a white world is a reminder of the ancient connection to this land.
You see, indigenous people came here over 15,000 years ago from the land bridge from Asia. You can still see tipis in use with the nomadic reindeer herding tribes of Mongolia. When I see their tipis, their round cheery faces and their nomadic lifestyles I cannot help but see a small window into my own family story.
So, I began this painting with an idea to use those star trails which are created by cameras taking long exposure photographs of the night sky. They show the passage of time. I began to do that and it didn't feel right. It felt too clean. Then, I thought of the way trees measure time, with their beautiful growth rings.
This painting is all about bringing that intangible knowledge into the physical realm. It's about reminding me that I do come from this land. My ancestors are from the plains and I am from the mountains, but Turtle Island has been the home of my people since time immemorial.
This painting is available for sale and prints are available now. Limited Edition Giclee prints (run of 100) are available for this painting and Sacred Fires Prophecy.
Halfbreed Mother opening speech
Breastfeeding Mother
This is the talk that I wrote. On the day that I gave this speech, I tried to follow what I wrote, but instead I roughly spoke from the heart. Ivan Paquette opened my show in a very heartwarming speech that ended in the gift of an eagle feather and a smudge.
This day was an incredibly moving, powerful and spiritual day. When I looked out into the crowd and saw only friends and loved ones, who were there to bear witness to an important part of my life, it choked me up. It was honestly something I'll never forget.
You can watch my speech with the link below. The volume for Ivan is low. Some people have had success listening with headphones or on their TV. But you should be able to hear me well, I was wearing a mic.
Watch my Artist Talk: https://youtu.be/m7gGg1IRv9Y
Halfbreed Mother Artist Talk
Tansi kiya wow nitotimak! Tawow pihtiktwi Studio 2880. Erin Stagg nisikason. Niyaa Michif iskwew ekwa Lheidli Keyoh Otutan.
Hello my friends, how are you? Welcome to Studio 2880. My name is Erin. I’m a Metis woman and I am from Prince George. I just spoke to you in Michif, the language that my grandparents spoke. It’s a language that combines Cree and French. It’s an endangered language, around 1000 speakers remain.
Today we’re gathered here on the unceded territory of the Lheidli T’enneh people. As an indigenous person who has grown up far from her ancestral territory, I have a deep appreciation for the land that we stand on now. Mussicho.
Thank you all for joining me. It’s truly an honour to be surrounded by your love and support as I open my first solo show. First I’d like to start by introducing myself. Erin nisikason. My name is Erin. I am a self-taught Metis artist. My family has roots in the Red River settlement, although my mom is from Meadow Lake. My Metis family names include Piche, Tanner and Poitras. I grew up in Fort St. James and this collection of art is kind of like my coming out party, but to celebrate my Metis heritage.
Although I’ve always known that I was Metis, I’ve never really known how to embrace it. I’ve felt a lot like I was appropriating my own culture, like it didn’t belong to me. I didn’t know ‘how Metis I was’ or what that even meant.
And then as 2020 began, I found out that I was pregnant. I began soul searching and looking to understand where I come from.
Growing up, my mom called us halfbreeds. Not in a derogatory sense when she told us that we were halfbreeds she did it in a humorous way. She says that she never grew up being called Metis, they were halfbreeds or sometimes halfassed. My ancestors have been called halfbreeds for generations. If you take a second and read the papers that my paintings are on you’ll see the word halfbreed all over.
The word halfbreed informed my idea of who we are. Half this and half something else. People would ask me ‘How Metis are you’ looking for some numerical answer. It felt like the further you got from purity, the less legitimate you were. It took me a long time to realize that being Metis is not answered in percentages. It is the colonial system that asks for numbers. For Metis people, we want to know where your ancestors came from and who they were.
This is what makes my art show so exciting to me. These are the papers that tell me who my ancestors were, that they were indigenous and where they are from. But these papers don’t exist for the altruistic reason of helping me with my genealogy. They are the papers that were meant to extinguish my people’s indigenous right to the land.
They are called scrip papers. Scrip is called the largest land swindle in North America's history. Scrip was a government imposed system to steal the lands that the Metis people lived on to allow Europeans to own them, legally. Thanks to blatant racism this was not an option available to my ancestors. Scrip was a coupon that could be redeemed for money or land, after a lengthy application process. However, the complex bureaucracy was specifically designed to fail. Much like the treaty system that First Nations people went through, most of the promises were never fulfilled. Today almost none of the scrip lands are in Metis hands.
Grifters would sit outside the scrip offices and offer to buy the land at a fraction of the value. The church would also offer to hold onto the coupons, and with no names present on them, they would simply keep the land. Huge tracts of land were lost in these two ways.
Luckily for me, the paperwork can be extensive. Some of the papers discuss my ancestors coming from a specific reserve. If you look at Sacred Medicines, the painting with the smudge bowl and sweetgrass on, you can read them discussing their heritage. They talk about being from the Gambler Indian Reserve. This provides me a tether to the past, to allow me to learn about my ancestors so that I can revive our oral history.
The government’s policy was to defeat the indigenous peoples of Canada by removing them from the land. Today, I rebel against that effort and I use their attempts to kill our people as a way to relight the sacred fire of our spirit.
I feel that my journey to becoming a mother has been a sacred one. It’s been intense. It’s given me sleepless nights, tears, frustration, pain but also joy, love, laughter and indescribable beauty. In the early weeks of my daughter’s life, I felt like I fell into the deep side of the pool, only to look around and realize I was in the ocean.
As I move forward in my life, I remember that I am sacred and that my connection with the land can never be severed. It isn’t something that can be bought and sold. It’s something inherent, gifted at birth. I am always connected with the land.
This summer, I visited the lands of my ancestors in Saskatchewan. I stood at the graves of my great grandparents and walked in their footsteps. In the sweet prairie wind, sweetgrass called my name, recognizing me even generations later. I walked along the top of the valley where my people hunted for buffalo. I breastfed my daughter where my people fought for independence. I feel like I walked the land and came home with their spirit. All the way, I carried my precious daughter. I named her Aurora, after the spirits of our ancestors.
This brings me to my art. When I came home from Saskatchewan I was gifted a vision of how my show could look. Each painting tells a story of one piece of my journey through pregnancy and the first year of my daughter’s life. (she will be 1 this month)
We start off with me pregnant in the Ancient Forest, connecting to the roots of the forest.
Next, we have my sister and doula represented, caring for me as I grew my daughter.
My sister was with me in my labour and I’ll never forget the way she held my hand and helped me through each contraction.
Next, we have my mom kissing my head, moments after Aurora was born. She may still be connected. Aurora was born in a beautiful home water birth that I was so fortunate to have.
Next, we have a burning sage stick sitting in an abalone shell next to a braid of sweetgrass. I picked the sweetgrass from the church where my second great grandparents were married. I could smell it on the wind, even when no one else could. I found it by tasting grasses until I found it. Sweetgrass's name is wiingashk in Anishinaabe, meaning hair of the earth.
The scrip talks about my ancestor being from the Gambler Indian Reserve, which was an Anishinaabe reserve.
Then, I am featured carrying my precious daughter, with my freshly postpartum body. I didn’t know how much magic was in those early sleepless weeks.
I warmed up to breastfeeding and found it to be a sacred way to feed my daughter. After all, breastfeeding was part of our culture since time immemorial.
In Saskatchewan we collected our sacred medicines. I smelled sweetgrass in the footprints of my second great grandmother, and found sage amongst the graves of our ancestors. Sage and sweetgrass are two of the four sacred medicines of the medicine wheel.
I taught my daughter to walk in the cold glacial waters of the mountains. Those waters would have been treated as sacred and potent with energy.
And then, I painted the family portrait that captures our journey. I am standing with my mother and daughter with the graves of our ancestors. My mom grew up playing in this tree and my fourth great grandfather owned this land. He started the community of Meadow Lake where my mom was born and this graveyard is named after him. Many of my ancestors are buried here.
Finally, I painted ‘From Maiden to Mother’ to encapsulate the journey of motherhood and the transformative power that it has.
I invite you to enjoy my paintings in your own way and to find your own meanings in them. You can read more about the individual paintings if you click through to the product page.
I want to thank my daughter, Aurora. I am so grateful to her for changing my life. I also want to thank my family, my husband Dalan for being the best partner, love of my life and Aurora’s dad. Thank you to my mother for her infinite love and for teaching me how to be a mom. Thank you to my sister, brother for always being there for me. And thank you to Gary and Kelsey who’ve added so much by being part of our family. Thank you to Studio 2880 for hosting us, to Ivan Paquette for opening for me.
And
Thank you to all of you for being here to support me so that we can celebrate this part of my life. I appreciate all of you. Maarsii! Hiyhiy!
View the whole collection and purchase prints
Read my last blog: What is Metis scrip?
What is scrip?
What is Scrip?
This October I am so excited to have my first ever solo show! It's a celebration of love, resilience and Métis culture. It's called Halfbreed Mother, and it features beautiful paintings of motherhood upon scrip papers. This is an opportunity for me to discuss Métis heritage. Often the Métis are called the Forgotten people, but we are also Indigenous peoples to this land. So, let's talk about scrip, something that has impacts to this day but is rarely discussed outside of Métis circles.
Painting on papers like this is part of a Sioux tradition, notably Sitting Bull painted on ledger papers when he was held captive by the US government. I acknowledge my Sioux ancestors when I participate in this tradition.
Scrip papers hold great significance for Métis people, especially when we’re proving our genealogy. Scrip papers prove that we have ancestors who identified, not as First Nations, but as Métis. Though these papers call us halfbreeds. Hence, the name of my show.
Halfbreed is a word that was used often in my house, even to this day. It's not meant as a derogatory word. It's been used to describe my ancestors for generations. However, the word has a history which is dark and designed to tear apart one's identity.
First, allow me to introduce myself. I am a Métis woman living in Prince George. In the Métis tradition, we don't say "I'm 1/4 Métis" as this is meaningless for us. We talk about who our ancestors are and where they come from. My ancestors were from St Francis Xavier, part of the Red River Settlement. As a result of the scrip system, we moved to southern Saskatchewan and eventually to the area around North Battleford. My grandparents were born in Meadow Lake, as was my mother. She moved to BC as a young girl and I was born out here. I have scrip papers for a large number of my ancestors, including the Piches, Poitras, Delarondes, Morins and Aubichons. The Tanners were Anishinaabe and are thought to have taken treaty. It's upon these scrip papers that I've painted my collection.
These scrip papers have an extremely nuanced and complicated history. They do not exist for the altruistic purpose of helping us with our genealogy. They are the relics of the time when the Canadian Government tried to extinguish our indigenous title in the largest land swindle in the history of North America.
Who are the Métis people?
People believe that Métis means any mixed European and Indigenous ancestry, but this is not true. Métis ancestry is more about who your ancestors are and where they came from and whether they identified as Métis. The Métis people are one of the three indigenous peoples of Canada including the Inuit and First Nations people. When you are applying for Métis status, you need proof that your ancestors were part of the Métis culture which originates from the Red River Settlement in southern Manitoba. However, tracing your ancestry is not as simple as listing a birth location. You must also prove that your ancestors identified as Métis. It is commonly done through scrip records which declare ‘halfbreed’ ancestry.
What is Scrip?
Scrip is called the largest land swindle in North America's history. Scrip was a coupon that could be redeemed for money or land, after a lengthy application process. However, the complex bureaucracy was specifically designed to fail, so much like the treaty system that First Nations people went through, most of the promises were never fulfilled. The legacy of the scrip still impacts Métis people to this day.
Historical Context
After confederation, the Canadian government devised the treaty system to remove land from First Nations hands and leave them on reserves. When this was occurring, many Métis people wanted to be included in the treaties that their family members were part of, or given their own Métis reserves. It was seen as an avenue to have some 'legitimate' land. Instead, we were given the scrip system which resulted in the scattering of Métis people and almost no land being left in Métis hands.
In the early 1800s the government had been encroaching on Red River lands, even surveying over the homes where Métis families lived and giving them to settlers while the Métis were on their summer buffalo hunts.
This led to the Red River Resistance of 1885, which sought to affirm Métis rights in the constitution of Canada. The Métis won every battle but one, the Battle of Batoche, which resulted in the end of the resistance. The Canadian government sought to punish the Métis and ensure that a second resistance was not accomplished. So, they used many tactics to weaken us, including the famous slaughtering of the buffalo. This caused mass starvation among the Métis, Cree, Sioux and Anishinaabe people.
Taking advantage of our desperate situation, the government offered scrip which was a coupon that could be redeemed for money or land. The government designated scrip lands which were hundreds of kilometers away from the homeland and were often unsuitable for agriculture. So, families had to choose between moving to this unknown area or to choose a meager amount of money. Many chose money.
There were also speculators waiting outside of the scrip offices who would offer to purchase the scrip for a fraction of what it was worth. The church also offered to hold onto the scrip papers, with no proof of who it belonged to, the churches were able to acquire large amounts of land.
The Supreme Court of Canada, in 2003, called scrip ‘a sorry chapter in our nation’s history'. In 2013, they found that the federal government failed in its promise to the Métis people. Yet, even today there have been no restitution or recourse. Today, most scrip lands are not owned by Métis people.
Scrip for my ancestor, Zacharie Piche. His name is not present on the document
Legacy
This policy led to the Métis people being spread far and wide across the land, an attempt to weaken our strong familial bonds. Each move would set my ancestors back for another generation, as it took time to build a successful farm. My ancestors moved many, many times. My ancestors ended up in Northern Saskatchewan, with other Métis families. Many Métis people did not have farms of their own and instead lived in narrow slices of land between the farmer’s field and the road called the ‘road allowance’. They slipped through the cracks, literally, and lived in extreme poverty.
This period of time was known as The Dark Times. We represent it in our sashes through the colour black. The land kept the people alive, as they relied on geese to fill the larders, berries to make pemmican, and mud to keep winter’s wind out of their homes. Poverty created a spirit of resiliency, cleverness, resourcefulness and strengthened the familial bonds within the community. During this period our people hid to escape persecution from the Canadians.
In order to escape destitution, some children ended up in residential schools, day schools or industrial schools. Some families hoped that their children might have food and an education in these schools while others had their children stolen from them. As we are now very aware, these schools did not care for the children. Those that came home returned deeply traumatized which would manifest as drug abuse, domestic violence and alcoholism. Others did not come home.
In my family, I am 3 generations removed from the residential schools. My great-grandparents attended schools, though it is very difficult to prove. This distance has allowed my mother to begin the healing that I benefit from today. And I pass that healing down to my own daughter.
Healing
For my family, the loss of land sits in our hearts. We feel a constant yearning for our lands, much in the same way that immigrants do. While my family has made a home and we feel our connection to this land, the land of the Lheidli T’enneh people, we know that it is not OUR land. When I visit the lands that were once ours, I see how they are not waiting for us to come home. The lands have been settled by others. The move out to BC has severed a lot of the family connections that I would have otherwise had. It’s cut us off from our people, language and our culture.
This story is one that all indigenous peoples in Canada share. Many of us feel disconnected. Many of us do not live in our ancestral homelands. Many of us lost our languages, culture, regalia and more. This is why we talk about colonization being a cultural genocide. Scrip has been part of that genocide.
I find healing in the land. When I think in a colonized mindset, that the land belongs to us, I weep the loss. It feels overwhelming and impossible to recover from. But when I remember that I do not own the land. The land owns me. Simply by the nature of my existence, I belong to the land and the land always welcomes me home.
These paintings are a rebellion against the very system which tried to extinguish our indigenous title to the land. Each time I reconnect with the land, make medicine, teach my daughter about our heritage, rekindle our spirit and speak our language I am rebelling against the very forces that sought to ‘kill the Indian in the man’. This is why I’ve made this art.
We are still here. We are indigenous. We are Métis, the people who own themselves.
I want to thank my incredibly funny, silly, smart and beautiful daughter, Aurora. My dear girl, you came into my life and opened another chamber of my heart. I didn't know it was possible to love someone so much. Maarsii for changing my life.
Maarsii to my family, friends and supporters who have helped make this possible. Maarsii to Studio 2880 for having me as their Artist in Residence. Maarsii to my ancestors, I am here today only because of the groundwork that they have done in the past. Each time I read their names, I am charged with their spirit. It helps me remember where I come from, so that I can pass on that spirit to my daughter, Aurora.
Halfbreed Mother opens October 7th, 2021 5-7pm, at Studio 2880.
How do I connect with my Métis sash?
This is my Mètis sash. It hangs on my door and reminds me of life lessons. It reminds me that I'm not one thing. When I look closer I can see that I'm woven together with my life experiences, joys and struggles. This sash helped remind me that dark times may be present, but they don't make up your whole story.
This sash was given to me by my mom, the sweetgrass by a friend, the sage and shell are from my niece. The table was built by me. We're always receiving gifts from others, some are physical items, but words can be gifts too. When we can weave these gifts into something that serves us, we're making life meaningful, we're healing and we can give gifts to help others weave their sashes.
Métis Pride, Erin Stagg 2021, acrylic on canvas
Early in my pregnancy, my mother gave me a red sash to hang in my new studio. It’s a red sash, the icon of the Métis people. My mom encouraged me to display it proudly. We had been going through the family history and unearthing our heritage so it had a new meaning to me. I laid it lovingly in my art studio and when the pandemic closed everything, it came home with me. But the feeling I’ve never been able to shake is that it doesn’t belong to me. How do I connect with my sash?
I’ve always recognized that the sash is the symbol of the Métis people. However, we didn’t grow up with one and I never saw one in my grandparents' homes. My mom picked this one up from a store on a trip to the prairies.
At first, I didn’t know ‘how’ Métis I was. When we were looking through our genealogy, I began to understand where we came from. I talked about this a bit more in my last blog, if you’d like to read it.
As I learned more, it began to change my mind but it took a bit longer to change my heart. As with much of the Métis culture, I’ve felt like I’m appropriating it. I’ve never understood the depth of the imagery, the history or my place in it.
Why do we feel disconnected
I began writing this piece before it was announced that 215 children's bodies were found in a mass grave outside of the Kamloops Indian Residential School. This section is written a week after that revelation.
In short, we experienced and continue to experience a cultural genocide. While many Métis people may have escaped the Residential School experience, that was not the only tool of oppression that colonial forces used against us. For a detailed account of our history I recommend The North West is Our Mother, by Jean Teillet.
The Métis people were pushed off of their lands by the Canadian government as they brought in settlers. The Métis people resisted. Louis Riel tried to operate under the colonial system, and was elected as the first premier of Manitoba. But, the Canadian government sought to oppress us, and never acknowledged his legitimacy. Instead, tensions rose. Despite the legal challenges to ensure that Métis had land and culture rights which were enshrined in the constitution, John A MacDonald deliberately ignored us.
This story is long and complicated and I cannot do it justice. In the end, the Métis resisted the colonial forces as they came in to survey and steal yet more land. We rose up and demanded that they leave, much in the same way that indigenous people fight pipelines today. In response, they sent Gatling guns and armies. The first Gatling gun was tested out by the Canadian government on the Métis people. Reports say that we still won that battle but we did eventually lose the war.
Louis Riel, as our leader, was wanted for treason. After a lengthy period of fleeing from these colonial forces he eventually gave himself up. He was hung for treason. We entered into the period of dark times and dispossession. Métis people were beaten in the streets of Winnipeg by police and settlers alike. Our women were raped and attacked. So, many of our ancestors fled our homeland.
My ancestors went north. They had had their land given away to Mennonite settlers who would turn out to also be ancestors of mine. Many people fled north and encountered further oppression. We were forced time and time again off of our lands. The buffalo were slaughtered en masse in order to starve out the Métis people. In essence, the colonial forces stomped us into the dirt.
We were not taken to residential schools, in the most part, because we were half-breeds. We were nothing. Recently a Métis elder recounted how she wished that she was in a residential school when she was a kid because they had electricity and food. She had no idea the horrors occurring inside.
Many of the Métis people did not pass along a proud history or regalia because of this extreme poverty. We were not recognized by the white people or by the indigenous people. Many families would lie about their ancestry in hopes that their children would be accepted as Mexican, Italian or caucasian.
So, why do we feel disconnected? It's because we experienced and continue to experience a cultural genocide. It is not your fault. It is not your families' fault.
History Lesson
As you read the history, please know that this is a beginner’s understanding of the sash. I’m sure there are elders who would know more. If you know an elder who would like to share their knowledge, I would be honoured to speak with them and offer them tobacco. If I have errors in my understanding, please let me know so that I can make corrections.
The red sash is the most recognizable symbol of the Métis people, perhaps even more recognizable than the flag. As early as the 1800s, when the sash was first adopted, it was identifiable as a symbol of the dynamic and growing Métis population.
Erin's sash, 2021
The sash is a physical expression of the blending of two cultures. It takes traditional indigenous finger weaving and blends it with the woolen materials introduced by the Europeans.
The sash originates in the finger weaving traditions of the Anishinaabe people. They practiced elaborate and skilled finger weaving and would weave plant fibers to create items like small bags, tumplines for carrying cradleboards, drag straps for sleds or toboggans, garters and sashes. They used plant fibers made from the inner bark or stripped roots from certain trees. They also used sinew or even hide, all specially cut for whatever they were making.
The act of finger weaving requires immense patience, dexterity and skill. It was something that was learned and practiced over tens of thousands of hours. Some designs are simple, and others are very advanced and require making more than one sash at a time and weaving it alongside another to create a seamless design. The most cherished woven pieces were adorned with beads and porcupine quills.
When the traders brought in wool, the Anishinaabe and Métis peoples of the area began using wool to create their sashes, belts and bags. It seems that the tradition of these sashes was started in the town of L'Assomption, Quebec and it's popularity spread it across what would become the Métis nation.
The weavers would wax up the threads and weave them tightly, making it waterproof and allowing the traders to haul water over short distances. The Métis people also used sashes to store their fishing hooks, keys, as first aid or sewing kit, as an emergency bridle or saddle blanket for their horse and more. In photos, we see the sashes were worn as belts around the waist to help tie their coats closed. Eventually the sash has come to be worn over the shoulder, as a source of pride.
Sashes take many hours to create. A skilled weaver, can make a sash in about 60 to 300 hours, depending on the design and method. Some traditionally woven sashes can be $500 a foot, or about $3000 for a full sash. For a list of current sashmakers, please see the end of the article. If you have a weaver that you'd like to link in this list, please let me know!
Colours
Before the iconic red sash, sashes came in many different colours. When plant fibers were used they were muted and earthy, reflecting the plants that were used.
Metis Sash, Source: Indigneous Peoples Atlas of Canada
The first sash is believed to be woven in the town of L'Assomption, Quebec. This reflects its French heritage. It became a symbol of the North West Company and worn by their traders, who were of French and Métis heritage. The colours helped unify and identify the otherwise widespread population of traders. While the practicality of the sash meant that it was incredibly useful while out on the land.
After the merger between the Hudson’s Bay Company and the North West Company in 1821, the HBC began to adopt the Métis sash. They adopted the colour red as the predominant colour. This colour shift represents the change from French to English influence. It also reflects the Métis hunting flag. And after 1870, it reflects the spilled blood of the Métis people.
In modern day, it’s most common to see the red sash, however other sash colours are recognized as well. Each sash is a unique art piece. A skilled finger weaver may show off their talents through intricate designs. Families were also known by the distinct colours of their sashes, much like the Scottish tartan.
Metis sashes with infinity symbol. Source: UBC
Blue and white threads reflect back the blue and white infinity symbol that is representative of the Métis flag. Other theories on the meaning of the colours include: blue is for the depth of our spirits, our connection to water and white is for our connection to smoke and the creator. Families which have a blue sash may have ancestors who worked for the North West Company.
Green is a representation of the fertility of our nation and our connection to nature. Yellow is for the prosperity and resilience of our people and their ability to move through trauma.
In many sashes after 1870, the yellow was replaced by black. Black is for the dark times, the periods of dispossession and racism at the hands of the Canadians. In the years after 1870, Métis people were beaten and shot in the streets of Winnipeg. Many were forced out of their homes and left the Red River to move to the west. This dark period marks the beginning of the disconnection that many Métis people feel from their culture.
Today, the sash is a widely recognized symbol of the Métis people, even outside of our culture. The Order of the Sash is the highest honour that a Métis person can be given. It’s given out in Saskatchewan and Manitoba, but I’ve been unable to find any information on past recipients.
Connection
Understanding these things gives me some complex feelings. I feel like I should know these things already. I feel disconnected from the history and from the culture. It feels almost shameful to be learning these things off of the internet.
Some of these facts, my mom shared with me. This continues the indigenous tradition of oral history and storytelling, even though I never realized it growing up. She’s also told me things that I’ve never heard anywhere else. She told me that families passed down their colours in the sashes and that women had wider and larger sashes, to help carry their babies. She remembers a family member of ours with a blue sash, but cannot recall any other details. I’m sure there are many facts that have been lost to time, and I wanted it written down that this was oral history that’s been shared in my family.
There’s another side to this that my mom tells me about and that’s how we did not call ourselves Métis. On some of our documents, we are listed as half-breeds. We lived poor lives and did not have regalia to pass along in our family. Despite being descendent from Red River Settlement, we did not pass along a proud Métis story. Once I asked her, did you ever see an octopus or fire bag (other pieces of Metis regalia) in our family? She said “no” and with a laugh, “that’s for those uptown Métis. You have to understand, we were very poor, Erin.”
So, I didn’t grow up with a sash in my home or my grandparent’s home. I’ve never seen a sash that’s been handed down. That blue sash that my mom saw growing up is now long gone. All that’s left now are the threads of stories.
How do I find my way back?
This is a question I ask myself all the time. How do I find my way back? How can I weave these threads of my culture back together?
The answer for this came in an unexpected place. I gave birth in October of 2020 and part of my postpartum journey has been connecting with other mothers in an online peer support group.
One day, we were talking about the darkness that’s present in many of our journeys. We were a community of new moms in dark spaces, just leaving them or just entering them. From those dark spaces, it can be very difficult to see a bright future. We were encouraged that while our tapestry may be mostly black now, it won't always be this way. Slowly other colours will be woven in and the black will lessen. While we will carry those black threads for the rest of our lives and it will continue to inform us, the tapestry of our future will begin to have new colours woven in. We will find the colours of healing, community, love and growth woven in with the darkness. It will lessen the pain and allow us to help others through their dark times.
I immediately thought of my sash. I went over to grab it to show it to the other people in the zoom call and I shared the story of the sash with my peers. I shared the meaning behind the colours and what the sash means to the Métis people. I was finally able to connect with my sash in a way that I never had before. It brought tears to my eyes, as I was able to fully grasp the beauty of my regalia. Finally I was able to hold it and truly know what it stood for.
Each experience of mine adds a unique colour and story to my life. I’m more than just one story, I’m more than the sum of my parts. Every Métis person is like a thread in the nation of the Métis people, each providing a unique perspective on what it means to be Métis. Woven together, we are stronger than we are apart. The sash is a physical reminder of this soul teaching that we all know in our hearts to be true. We are stronger together.
Healing
This whole painting is healing to me, but it is just one piece of the puzzle. It started with the gift of a sash from my mother as we began the journey to understand our heritage. Next, I found it's true meaning in the kind words of another mother. These words led to the gift of sweetgrass from another mother. I then wrote my article 'How Metis are you?', for which I received a lot of very thoughtful comments. Then, I had the inspiration for this painting. My niece shared the gifts of her sage, shell and raven's feather that she uses for smudging. I lay these items out on the table that I built and took the photo that I used for my painting.
These gifts help me understand my identity and place in this world. The exchange of gifts is one that's quite sacred to indigenous people. We believe that giving and accepting gifts is an important healing process. My mom pointed out the table that held everything up and said that I must first lay the groundwork for that healing to occur. She also reminded me that I have a duty to spread gifts and love so that I may contribute healing and good energy to other people's sashes.
Legacy
I think it is the job of my generation to remember. It’s our duty to ask questions of the elders and to save this information for our children. I see it like a pendulum. The momentum has slowed, and it’s almost stopped. Our job is to keep it moving, so that 7 generations from now our descendants will have a thriving culture. Their pendulum will be beating rhythmically, keeping the spirit of the Métis people going.
If your family doesn’t have stories of their sash, know that you’re not alone. I’ve asked Métis elders and families about their sash and many do not have a story. Many say that they were too poor to have a sash, that they didn’t know they were Métis, or were adopted and completely lost that connection. If the sash doesn’t speak to your family, there’s no shame there. The Métis experience is incredibly diverse and your experience is valid.
In the areas that I have lost knowledge, I will ask the elders that I find along the way. I will also smudge and ask that my ancestors guide me. I'll wait for their quiet voices and do my best to listen.
Conclusion
Today, I see my sash and know that it represents part of my story. The fact that it’s machine woven reminds me of the disconnect and honours that part of my family history. It honours the part in my heart that knows that I’ve lost something. I'm learning to see the meaning in the colours and apply them to my life. I'll do my best to wear it proudly, though I know that will be a work in progress. As I learn to embrace my sash I will also learn to embrace my story, one thread at a time.
Closeup of Métis Pride, acrylic on canvas, Erin Stagg, 2021
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This journey of rediscovering my culture has brought art up that I want to make. That art inspires thoughts that I'd like to share and it all feeds each other. I personally find this process very healing. I remember that every bit of my culture that I reclaim is "saging against the machine", as Sisters Sage puts it.
If this image speaks to you, and you'd like to support me, I sell beautiful prints: poster, fine art paper, metal and canvas. My prints are made locally by small businesses in my home town, Prince George. Thank you to everyone who loves this painting.
Sashmakers
Kalyn Kodiak, Michif - Kodiak Herbal: https://kodiakherbal.com/
Carol James - sashweaver.com
References:
Sharon Pichè, oral history
http://www.mmf.mb.ca/the_sash.php
http://www.nativetech.org/finger/belts.html
http://www.metismuseum.ca/fingerweaving/background.php
https://traditionalnativehealing.com/traditional-metis-sash
https://easternwoodlandmetisnation.ca/metis-sash/
https://www.kikino.org/metis-culture/the-sash.php
http://www.virtualmuseum.ca/sgc-cms/expositions-exhibitions/batoche/docs/proof_en_the_sash.pdf
https://paddlingmag.com/stories/artists-gone-wild-carol-james/
