art delivery : 07.01.21

Hi everyone,

Normally I only send emails to NSTATMA subscribers during the week, but I really want to share today’s issue with as many people as I can! Here we go…

Embroidery on Tyvek! What is Tyvek, you ask? Well if you’ve ever seen a house under construction, it’s those sheets of fabric-like plastic that go between the outer cladding and the frame… but for Montreal based artist Caroline Monnet {Anishinaabe/French} Tyvek is her canvas. Well, sometimes. She also uses insulation, metal, and all sorts of building materials in her multi-disciplinary work, but for these recent text pieces, it’s all thread and Tyvek. Here’s a quote from her about this work:

“My recent body of work confronts the impact of colonialism by bringing to light, through indigenous methodologies, outdated systems. I use contemporary building materials and incorporate patterns passed down from generation to generation. [The first piece above] is addressed to the Canadian government and invites it to take back all the negativity, the abuse, the control that it has imposed on the First Nations over the last century”.

Today, July 1, is Canada Day. This year however, instead of picnics and BBQs, most Canadians are taking a very hard look at our history… a history that somehow got mysteriously left out when the text books were written. The injustices and, quite frankly, horrific treatment of our Indigenous people has been coming to light in recent months. As just one example, thousands of families had their children taken away, in some cases never to return, in the name of “assimilation”. I won’t get too deep into it here, but if you google “residential schools in Canada” you will get the whole, awful story. It’s a great shame on Canadian history, and it is time to open our eyes and truly acknowledge what happened. Artists like Caroline Monnet are using their work to shine a light on these travesties, and so I will shine my light on them.

Beam Paints… oh so, so gorgeous! Ojibwe artist Anong Migwans Beam is the creator of this juicy line of hand-made paints, and this is a tiny snippet of her story:

“Beam Paints is the result of a multi-generational love of pigment, paint, colour, and innovation. I was raised by my artist parents, Carl Beam and Ann Beam, and was taught from a young age how to harvest hematite pigment in the LaCloche mountain range near our home in M'Chigeeng First Nation on Manitoulin Island [Ontario, Canada]. Beam Paints draws on my early educations in Indigenous pigment and expands it to encompass all paint traditions.”

I just bought “Robin’s Egg”, “Wild Rose” and “Gold”! Cannot wait till they arrive in my mailbox! Happy Canada Day to my fellow Canadians - may we remember everything that means - and to everyone else, thank you for reading / possibly hearing about this part of Canadian history for the very first time. I’m so proud to be Canadian, but now is time to right these wrongs. *FYI: I included the orange paint above {“Kosmaan’aande” in Ojibwe, and “Pumpkin” in English}, because it’s become the symbolic color to bring attention to the horrors of the residential schools.

~ Danielle