Katheryn Wabegijig is an Indigenous artist, custom picture framer and emerging writer working and living in Tkaronto/Toronto and belonging to Ketegaunseebee/Garden River First Nation.

self portrait, indigenous, copper, wood, katheryn wabegijig,

Self Portrait in Reclaimed Copper

2016

Hammered pennies on stained wood

48 x 48 in.

*Acquired by Royal Ontario Museum

My experience making this piece has been an ongoing catharsis; from the moment of choosing materials to possibly work with, to the fruition of the self portrait. It was a laborious and satisfying journey. I succeeded in pounding out 620 pennies that each took me about one and a half to two minutes each to hammer with a nail setting awl to completely rid the penny of the Queen’s face and text that made their colonial mark on the copper that I was set on reclaiming. Through some research and using my own learned knowledge of my Anishinaabe peoples’ connection to the natural beauty and significance of the metal, I formed a sense of connection to a significant material which holds it’s own spirit in my culture. The familial connection to my grandfather to the actual pennies that I used added a layer to the experience that I am still reflecting upon. My mother’s father represented this force who was not always proud of being Anishinaabe. A man who created his own business and saw mill from and without the ability to read or write. He resourced trees from his community and surrounding areas to make a living but was also mindful of the impact on the environment and practiced reforestation. There has always been an attached guilt, though, for me working through the fact that on both sides of my family and personally we make our living on resource extraction. My father was a miner and I am a picture framer and artist. Coming to terms with such questions and issues that abound from these industries are always in my mind and a concern in every material that has been used from the earth.

I always feel a profound sense of vulnerability in speaking about how my art is my process of decolonizing myself through knowing myself and acknowledging the oppression that has happened for so many hundreds of years through colonization. The effects on myself and my family is inherent in our being of having a deep sense-memory of how it once was and trying to come to terms with the injustices that prevailed in suppressing many of our beautiful and strong traditions; ones that I am slowly coming to know.

I will continue to make work that allows me to decolonize and reindigenize.

katheryn wabegijig, indigenous, anishinaabe, aboriginal, native, artist, wood, photo transfer

Drops in Gichigami (series of 3)

2016

Running Wolf Woman N'dizhnikaaz (1 of 3)

My Father Walks with Our Ancestors (2 of 3)

My Mother Calls on Our Ancestors (3 of 3)

Acrylic, gel medium and photo transfer on canvas mounted to wood (3 separate panels)

22 ½ in. x 38 in. (outside measurement of installed panels)

*On loan to Shingwauk Kinoomaage Gamig

The Anishinaabek Discovery Centre

Family and historical photographs interweave with culturally significant design to explore memory and identity in the wake of the cultural genocide of my Anishinaabe traditions. Bold, black line imposes a Woodlands Art stylized portrait onto the fragmented narrative. Through reflection and revelation I am in the beginning stages of decolonization.

Gramma Portraits Series

Gramma Portrait Edna Perreault

(2016)

Acrylic, gel medium and photo transfer on canvas

26 x 50 in.

Gramma Portraits Series

Gramma Portrait Madeline Wabegijig

2016

Acrylic, gel medium and photo transfer on canvas

26 x 50 in.

revolutions

Video installation on white-painted brick

(Carnivora: We wish we caught this rabbit for you at Gallery 26 November 26, 2015)

Teachings, I have been told, are given intentionally and intimately by a knowledge holder, elder or healer. The revelation of how true this is has been made clear to me through this experience. The footage reflects on the internal conflict present in the experience that I am still processing and in my continual search for cultural guidance throughout my life. My intention is to explore the displacement and diaspora that exists in a life lived between these two worlds. At the outset, Carnivora had been about an exploration of my relationship with food and meat but on a grander scale has been a continuance of understanding my artistic, social, environmental and personal relationships in this constant duality where I struggle with ideas of commercialism, colonization and institutionalism.

Sacred Colours

2015

Acrylic and gel medium on canvas mounted to wood (2 separate panels)

32 x 32 in. (outside measurement)

My Medicine Garden (Cedar, Sweetgrass, Tobacco and Sage)

2015

Acrylic and gel medium on canvas mounted to wood (5 separate panels)

48 x 48in. (outside measurement of installed panels)

This Is Indian Land (An Intervention)

March 2015

acrylic, charcoal and gel transfer on found painting

Running Wolf Woman

April 2015

watercolour and acrylic on watercolour paper

16 x 20 in.

Critique and last class for my Critical Issues and Ideas in Contemporary First Nation Art course. Inspired by Daphne Odjig who I presented on tonight and the journey from my beginnings with my family dodem, Catfish Clan, and through ceremony to my new awareness of my Spirit name and how that is guiding me through along with my colours. A great amount of learning and experience this past while that I am very thankful for at a time in my life where I have needed to actively seek Anishnaabe teachings to help me with strength and courage.
Chi-Miigwetch.

This Is Indian Land (Where I Walk)

March 2015

This is a photograph submission that was featured in the Re:Activate Symposium held at OCAD University.

Revising and Reconstructing the Indian Act

March 2014

Indian Act text, black material, red thread, white thread, chain

60 x 72 in.

I am a 35 year old Ojibway/Odawa Anishinaabe kwe who is searching for her place in her culture and her culture in herself. There is a private process in all Anishinaabe's journeys to find their right and true path. She searches for this as she awaits her husbands return from prison.

While visiting my reserve, Garden River First Nation, during a break from university, my mother and I finally made an appointment to go to the Shingwauk University library which houses records upon records of the Shingwauk Residential School as well as others to create an archive and research centre. They are continuing research into their family and community history. I was searching for my grandmothers' names or faces in the albums from the two residential schools that they were said to have attended. My search was unsuccessful but I came away with lists of names from these schools' registrars to help in further research. I also left with other informative booklets to do with causal links between residential school attendance, aboriginals in the prison system, violence and alcoholism. One of the other materials that she left with was a 1996 revised copy of the Indian Act. I had heard recently from an inspiring talk by a Cree filmmaker, Jules A. Koostachin, that to decolonize "we must understand the system before trying to change it." This was a place to begin. Upon receiving new guidelines to begin my next collage project to do with systems, I immediately knew that I must deal with the Indian Act. This confusing, out-of-date yet revised and convoluted set of legislations that are born of racist, propagandist, and assimilative control tactics from a colonialist government are, to say the least, daunting subject matter for any treaty person. She begins to tackle this booklet with the only coloured pencil that she had, flesh-toned; that of course means a pale, pink, peach colour, nowhere near my own. I started reading and automatically began highlighting the word "Indian"; a gut reaction. Halfway through, tired of reading and re-reading paragraphs to circle back to related subsections and getting angrier and angrier at the confusion of terminology and overuse of pronouns, she begins to simply scan the rest of the text and like a game, search and seek only the single word. When I came to the end of the booklet and the last "Indian" had been marked in "flesh-tone", I flipped the booklet upside down and began from back to front to over-highlight these markings with a reddish-brown coloured pencil. I felt a sense of reclamation and ease.

Again I re-read through the sections grasping a fuller sense of the contents until I was satisfied that I had gleaned what I must. My decision to shred the document had been my plan all along and now I set up my make-shift ruler and guides to cut one inch strips along the full length of the open booklet to create 42 cm long strips. I proceeded to scatter these on my floor and separate all of the pieces crumpling as I go. There is a sense of release in this act. For a good part of the day I will walk on these pieces as I go about my day and also ripped and cut 21cm square pieces of black material. After all thirty one pieces are cut I set up my sewing machine with white thread and began to randomly take a strip of the Indian Act and rip it in half. I did this six times and then began to sew them at equal intervals along one edge of a block of material. I tore another six and sewed it to the next edge of the block. I then wove these strips together in a lattice pattern. I sewed the two loose edges down to secure the lattice and moved on to the next thirty blocks. I began another pattern, this time with red thread on the top and white on the bottom; an X from corner to corner on each block. I then began to sew the blocks together in rows of five, as I have done before in the quilt making process, to make a blanket. The blanket/covering/hanging/quilt will be five blocks wide by six blocks high. After sewing all of the rows together I pinned the block with the "Indian Act" title into the center of the hanging with yellow headed straight pins. I then sewed two lengths of looped black fabric to to the back of the piece to insert rods into the top and bottom for stability and for hanging purposes. The piece will hang from chains. With the completion of the work I found a cathartic peace after working through anger and frustration, then detachment and finally a calmness and sense of freedom and understanding that this document is not "law" and that it is only a tool that may be bent and changed to the will of this government but also by the developing governments of my people.

The physical act of revising, cutting, tearing and reconstructing the thing has rewoven the psychological hold that it once had on this artist to become a release.

IN and OUT of Time

2014

arylic on LP vinyl albums mounted to spin inside mdf frame

22 x 22 in.

Waves of Colonization (and my colours)

acrylic on stretched black material, copper stain glass lining tape

2015

12 x 50 in.

This piece speaks to pre and post colonization with the embedded imagery of the thunderbird and the cross. It also introduces the colours that I was given in my naming ceremony so that my personal presence is instilled in the diptych.

Dream in Ojibway

December 2013

acrylic, pen and ink and varnish

24 X 36 in.

*Acquired by Shingwauk Kinoomaage Gamig

The Anishinaabek Discovery Centre

I further explore my learning of Anishinaabemowin, my Ojibway language, through the use of text on a brick wall detailing the syllables of the language. I have explored with the brick shape before and the repetition has conveyed a sense of building and barriers.

Inspiration from the Winged:

Homage to My Dad's Beadwork (In Process)

February 2015

Ochre upholstery thread, linen canvas, black material, white thread, toilet paper hand made beads, acrylic, gel medium, needles, pattern on paper, Dad's beaded thunderbird medallion necklace

24 x 36 in.

I have been immersed in a search for my place in my culture and my culture in me throughout my years at OCAD University. I have been experimenting with beading again lately. I began looking at it from a historical lens as I further learn about the wampum and how the introduction of glass beads from European colonists has changed the way in which my ancestors embellished objects. While this is a theme which I have explored in various ways in my artwork, I have actively chosen to not use the actual beads or wampum shells in my art pieces as I personally believe that to comment on this medium and to explore the personal concepts that I wish to work through, I must represent these objects which hold so much history through other means. I see it as a respect that I am bestowing on the medium as I feel that it has not been a skill that was taught and given to me to use in conceptual art. In this piece, which I entitle "Inspiration from the Winged", I am using a medallion necklace that my father, Cecil Wabegijig, who passed away when I was 14, beaded as inspiration. I have always related to the thunderbird and held the image as sacred, a source of strength that is connected to my spirit in a very special way. I have represented my father as an eagle, Father Sky, in my artwork for many years. The medallion is a direct connection, for me, to his spirit. My mother gave this medallion to my husband for our traditional marriage ceremony. I care for this medallion for my husband until he is released from prison and can care for it himself. With these things in mind, I wanted to create my own beads, my own pattern using the medallion as source inspiration and my own loom. The bead loom is a technique that was taught to me by my mother.. I wanted to create a larger scale version of a typical bead and loom to create the impact that this medium has on me. I am in awe of beaders that have a passion and talent to create such beauty with such patience, care and honour. I have chosen to employ the four colours given to me as my spirit guides, white, brown, green and turquoise as a way to continue to strive to better understand myself and come to know my path. The act of making the 420 beads, which are made from pieces of toilet paper, water and gesso, was cathartic. Rolling them in my hands, white from the gesso, was a healing, meditative process that allowed me to think on the meaning that was told me of the colour in relation to myself, which is love, warmth and wisdom. I also used white thread, on the black material stretched behind the liner that I used as the loom, to create a water ripple design. It was told to me that I am a lot like that water ripple, "It never stops until it hits something. It's called Miiziwa." The brown is about two things; helper-wise it is about perseverance and nourishment. Green is about humility; it means you walk very lightly on this earth. Turquoise is about a direct connection to spirit. I used a linen liner as the loom to incorporate one of my other chosen professions, framing. My father also made frames. I used to watch him work in our small garage on his workbench creating custom pieces. I stained the linen with cedar tea as another way to instill healing and good energy through our sacred medicine. The whole artwork has been about the process and representing that patience, care and honour that is inherent in beading for me. I chose to leave the last four rows; to be finished one day. When it is time to give my husband my father's medallion, I will finish my inspired rendition of it. For now, it is a home for one of my father's only beaded creations.

Running Wolf Woman Emerging

March 2015

acrylic on black fabric

16 x 20 in.

Dodems of Me

October 2013

acrylic on canvas

16 x 20 in.

Our Promise

October 2013

acrylic on canvas

48x48 in.

Woven: Faded Dancer

November 2013

acrylic on acrylic woven canvas strips mounted on tabletop

16 x 16 in.

This piece is representative of the diversity that exists in our world which is held in the utmost respect by my culture. This idea is represented by the four colours; black, white, red and yellow that are interwoven with each other. The meaning of which also relates to other elements, medicines and directions that our people believe. The image in the forefront is representative of myself and the place I find myself struggling to come to terms with.

From early on in my life I have felt on the outskirts of each society in which I have been a part. Growing up in a small mining town in Northern Ontario I was one of the only Native people in my school. I have never felt intense racial discrimination although there has always been an underlying feeling of not belonging and feeling as though I needed to conform to this culture in which I was raised.

This is also a condition of my parents’ generation that they feel being pulled to assimilate to a society that their parents were forcibly pulled into. To have knowledge and feel a part of our own Anishinaabe culture is the ultimate hurdle as it has been shamed out of our ancestors’ sense of self. There are varying degrees of this phenomenon but I believe it is universal. There is a feeling of invisibility for our people and even though we are marketed as a tourist attraction for our country there is no real great understanding of what our socio-political-psychological state truly encompasses.

I have felt this way my whole life especially being raised outside of my families’ communities to have seemingly “better” opportunities in life. I am struggling to find guidance in my own culture and am yearning to find my place.

When I was small my mother made me a traditional regalia, very simple, but so beautiful. I danced for a couple of summers at my family’s community in Atikameksheng Anishinaabek with the beautiful traditional regalia my mother made for me and always felt a pull towards Fancy Shawl dancing. I would practice the dance steps I learned watching my older cousin and would long to have the courage to ask for one of my own. I was always so very shy and so I never asked. I haven’t danced since. I believe that I will one day dance again at our gatherings and possibly in the Fancy Shawl style but I know that I will also return one day to the Traditional.

Walking Gently on this Red Road

September 2014

mixed media/sculpture; gel medium, red thread, birch bark biting, transfered images of artwork, red fabric matboard, copper stain glass lining tape, leather, turqoise stone