Light first,
edges later
Impressionist works in acrylic, oil, watercolour and graphite. Some are painted on stone ground so the markings sit down inside the rock; some are laid on thick enough to hold their own weather. The room takes its colour from whichever one you are standing in front of.
Enlighten
These are the old markings, left in red ochre for whoever comes next. I painted the stone with its cracks and its weathering still in it, so the figures look as though the wall remembered them on its own.
Awake the Echo's of Her Cries — Murky Waters
A killer whale rises through murky water under a red sky. Her cry carries further than we can hear it. The water is not clean here, and she is calling through it anyway.
Canoe Bailer
A woman rests inside the canoe with her bailer beside her. The bailer is a small thing, but without it the journey ends. I drew her the way the work is actually done, quietly and without anyone watching.
Caught in the Turn — Our Garden Spirit the Wind
A face turns inside the wind and the water. She is our garden spirit, caught in the turn of it. Everything around her is moving, and she is moving with it instead of against it.
Cedar Song
The cedars in full voice. I laid the paint on thick so the canopy carries weight, with the light broken up and coming through in pieces. Stand close and it is only paint. Step back and the forest is there.
David Murray, One of the Crazy Canucks
David Murray coming down the mountain, and the eagle keeping beside him. Speed and stillness in the one picture. The bird does not have to try.
Embrace Your Spirit
A figure stands and holds onto herself. The blue is the cold around her and the warm colour is what she is carrying inside. Embrace your spirit. It is the one thing nobody can take.
Feather of Truth
One feather, and nothing else in the picture. Truth does not need company. The blue above and the green below are the sky and the ground it drifts between.
Freedom Seeker
Red ochre on a stone gone green with time. The sun is up in the corner and the figure below is walking. Freedom is not handed to us. It is looked for.
Grandfather Calling Me Home
Snow down the valley and a small figure at the far end of it. My grandfather is calling me home. I kept the colours pale so you have to look for him, the way you have to listen for a voice in the cold.
Harmony
A pole, a raven, and the village behind. Everything in this drawing leans toward everything else.
In Progression
An osprey held in the middle while the seasons of a football club move around it. Two worlds that do not usually meet in the same picture. I was asked for something in progression, so I let the bird hold still and gave the years the motion.
Life Line
The circle is the line. There is no beginning you can point at and no end you can walk to. Everything green in this painting is still growing inside it.
Life Maker
The mother owl is landing into the nest with the father and the babies. The owl is called Life Maker, the Speaker of both worlds. He brings the Spirit of our Ancestors to us. I drew every needle so the nest would feel held.
Mother Earth
Mother Earth in formline. The turtle is Turtle Island, this whole continent without borders. She lies along the wing with the night sky running through it. Everything we are given comes from her first.
Mother's Ambilocal Tie, but Sad of the Truth
An early one. A mother's tie holds either way, through her line or through his. The sadness in it is that men and women both had eyes and still had no eyes to see.
My Sister, Peggy Wallace
My sister, Peggy Wallace. I drew her with her earrings on and the wind in her hair, looking out past me at something I could not see. This is how I want her remembered.
Prayers to the Tree Spirits
A woodpecker working a standing dead tree. The tree is finished and it is still feeding somebody.
Protector
A wolf comes out of the storm, and above her there is another one already in it. The protector does not wait for good weather to do the work.
Raven Embrace
Ravens in turquoise light with the stars coming through. Raven is not a simple bird. He takes and he gives back. This is him with his wings open, which is as close as he comes to an embrace.
Raven Story in the East Side
The ravens tell it on the East Side. I lived down there and I listened. Gold light comes into the blue wherever somebody is still looking after somebody else.
River Song
The river singing. Every colour I had went into this one, because that is what moving water does with light. There is no quiet place anywhere in it.
Shadowed Glimpse
Deep blue, and the markings barely there. You get a glimpse and then the shadow takes it back again. Some things are only shown to us the once.
Sisters of the Northern Lights
Three sisters standing under the northern lights. The snow and the sky are the same colour here, so they are standing in the middle of it, and the stars have come down to their level.
Solar Flare
Painted on a Greece theme: the white buildings, the blue domes, the sun turning over the water. I put a mermaid in at the side. Every coast keeps its own stories about who is out there.
Squirrel Clan
The drum hoop, the feathers, and a squirrel coming in from the side. Every clan has its own small relation that keeps turning up. Ours gathers, and stores, and will not sit still.
The Drummer's Gift
The drum carries the figures painted across its face, and the two feathers lie where they were set down. The gift is not the drum. It is the sound you give back with it.
The Visionary Witness
The eagle looks out from inside the wheel. He is the one who sees furthest and says the least. A witness does not step in. He remembers, and that is the work.
Thunder
Thunder inside the circle. I drew the thunderbird thin because you rarely see him. You hear him first and you look up after.
Thundering Rhythm
Black and white, with the lightning coming down through the middle of it. There are handprints along the bottom. Somebody was down here keeping the rhythm while the sky did that.
Mount Currie Chiefs, from Time Past
The Mount Currie chiefs, from time past. My mother, Evelyn Peters, was of Mount Currie, the Lil'wat Nation. I painted them the colour of old ochre so they sit down in the rock and not on top of it.
To Dance
The regalia is moving and the eagle is above them with his wings out. I painted it hot, because that is what a floor feels like once the drum is going.
To Pray Within
An owl folded into himself with the circle standing open behind him. To pray within is to go quiet and stay there a while. He is not asleep.
Tree Spirits Are Gone
One tree left standing in the blue. The spirits that were in this stand have gone. I painted the wind still moving through it anyway, because the wind does not know yet.
Warriors Crossing
The colour is blood, and the shapes come through it without hard edges, the way they would in a bad light. They are still moving. That is the part that matters.
Whispering Wind Through Grassy Fields
Grass in the wind, green laid over green. Stand in a field long enough and the sound stops being wind and starts being a voice. That is what I was after here.
Innocent Dancer
The dancer, with the old markings coming up red beside her. She does not know yet what she is dancing on top of. That is what makes her innocent.
2 platesLil'wat Pictographs
Two small canvases, both worked deep blue. The pictograph is a traditional Lil'wat marking, a record left on rock. I sought the permission of our elders before using the traditional symbols. My mother was of Mount Currie, the Lil'wat Nation, so these markings are my own line as much as they are our record.
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4 platesScattered Leaves
Four panels. I pressed the leaves themselves into the paint and let them print whatever they had in them: the veins, the broken edges, the rot. Then I let the colour run down the white. They fall scattered and not in any order, and I did not arrange them.
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2 platesI Feel Like Thunder / Then I Feel the Rain
Two panels that hang together. Nothing in either one is given an edge. The first is the pressure that builds ahead of a storm and the second is the release of it, and they are very nearly the same picture, because those two feelings sit that close.
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2 platesKnowing Oneself / Water Beneath Your Wings
Two panels worked until the surface is woven right through. Knowing yourself does not arrive as one clear picture. It comes in pieces, over and over, in the same few colours. The second panel is what holds you up once it does.
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