A stairwell opens into weather that is not in the building
Worlds folded into one another: a whale under a mountain, a tower with Mother Earth on top of it, satellites talking back to pictographs. One line runs through every one of them.
A Vision, A Memory, Our Dreams & Our Own Reality
Four things in the one picture, and no line drawn between any of them. The whale goes under, the mountain holds, the people come and go along the bottom edge. A vision and a memory are not so different once you are far enough along.
Ancestral Song — Harrison Hot Springs
Harrison Hot Springs, with the sky gone gold. The feathers hang down into the water where the canoes are working, and the bear stands at the edge listening. That song was going on there long before any of us arrived.
Ancient Dialog, in Today's Universe
Four panels of the same conversation. The old markings are still being spoken, only now they are said against satellites and steel. The feather comes down through all four of them.
Branches of Honour
The painting and the objects kept together in the one frame: a feather and a braided cord set beside the branches that were painted. Some of the honour in this piece is not paint at all.
Changing Tides
Ravens working the tideline, with the formline running through the water behind them. The tide changes whether or not we are ready for it. They worked out how to live with that a long time ago.
Coyote Journey
Coyote's face, with the old markings laid straight across it. He carries the stories and he plays tricks with them at the same time. Both at once. That is the difficulty of him.
Embrace Your Spirit
An owl comes out of the weather. Below there are moccasins waiting with a feather laid across them, and the dandelion has already let go of half of itself. Everything here is part way through leaving or arriving.
Embraced By Time
Two hands holding on, and the eagle coming in close to look. The dandelion is going to seed beside them. Time does not take hold of us all at once. It does it the way that flower does.
Golden Drummer
The drummer against the sun, and everything else left white. I took the background out so there is nowhere to look except at him and the sound coming off him.
K'esu — For Paula Cranmer Underhill
Three paintings made for Paula Cranmer Underhill: the village with the canoes drawn up on the stones, the cove opening out to the water, and the beings that move through the weather of that same coast. They are meant to be seen together.
Life Walk
Three panels, painted to be read across. A hoop hangs in the middle of the sky with the moccasins beneath it and the light going down behind. A life is walked in that direction whether or not you look up.
Message Through the Praying Eagle
The eagle brings it and the feather carries it down. Purple and blue right the way through, because a message that matters does not arrive in daylight colours.
Mount Currie Chiefs, from Time Past
The chiefs of Mount Currie, coming up out of the snow. My mother, Evelyn Peters, was of Mount Currie, the Lil'wat Nation. The wolf holds the front of the picture and the faces stand behind him, where they have always been.
Pinnacle of Life
The pinnacle of life is Mother Earth. It is not money, power and steel that reaches the heavens. The two eagles are the witnesses of change through time.
Spirit is The Water
Under the surface, with the bubbles going up. The small white figures are down there as well. Spirit is the water — not something carried in it, the water itself.
Strength with Medicine
The eagle with his wings all the way out, carrying the medicine down. Behind him the pole is standing in the cold. Strength on its own is not much use to anybody. It has to be carrying something.
The Jagged Edge
The moon inside the hoop, the feathers hanging, and the ground gone red underneath. There is an edge in every life where the colour changes over like that.
Transformation of the Dream Weaver
Woven right across, red on red. Look at it long enough and the faces come up out of the weave: eagles, eyes, a figure turning. The weaver does not make the dream. She makes the place where it can appear.
Within the Song
Inside the song there are faces, and flowers, and the wings still going. This is what it looks like from in there, rather than from outside listening to it.