"Day of Action", in Canada

Sign the petition.

"I support strong First Nations and a strong Canada!
We are calling on the Government of Canada to join us in…
Protecting Our Children...
Investing in Our Future...
Respecting Our Responsibility to One Another..."

Broadest Coalition Since Fight Against Free Trade Gathers to Support Right to Say No.

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Canada seeking to join Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement?

"The deal would create a international regulator that could turn border guards and other public security personnel into copyright police. The security officials would be charged with checking laptops, iPods and even cellular phones for content that "infringes" on copyright laws, such as ripped CDs and movies."

Useful article: 5 tings you didn't know Google could do, at Webupon.com

Knee jerk redaction.

Sharing a Story - A Young Metis Man

"After a few pleasantries and a few procedural matters, he told me that I had tested positive for HIV.
My world collapsed. My chest felt heavy and the room began to spin. I got up, kicked the garbage can and rushed out of Michael’s office. I ran down the stairs, got into my car and said to myself "whoever gave me this sickness, I forgive you". I don’t know why I said that, but I believe that it was my saving grace and prayer.
My first phone call was to my adopted parents. My mother answered the phone and when I disclosed, she called me a liar and hung up. She never spoke to me again..."

Phoenix Mars Mission photos.

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Some recent visitors to the feeder.
Goldfinch (very common).


Purple finch (few regulars) and sparrow (very common)


Rose-breasted Grosbeak; very exciting! (2 visits) I have never even seen this species until this summer, but I haven't been looking that hard.


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AstronomyCast episode on the "scientific method".


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What About the Rights of the Parents?

"... Why some of the men had as many as three or four wives. What kind of damage was this doing to the innocent children?

The Christian community saw only one conclusion. They had to go in and rescue the children. If that meant sending law enforcement officials into the community to forcibly take the children from their parents, so be it. It would lead to a much better life for the children so the parents be damned. After all, what did these backward people know about raising children properly?

No, I am not talking about the fiasco at San Angelo, Texas. I am talking about what happened to the children of Native Americans across America in the late 1800s..."

Arts festivals in Ontario.

Native hip-hop at Folklife: Komplex Kai raps a rez reality.

Art Hostage commentary, on Bill Reid theft.

Minneapolis Institute of Arts hires curator for Native Art.

Selling artwork is sometimes no(t) easy.

"I registered on e-bay and then tried the daunting task of trying to sell. This was new to me. In the end for the final step, it asked me for a PayPal account. Hmmm...sounds easy. Then it asked for a credit card number. From there I was in a slump. I'm metaphorically akin to a starving artist, I don't even qualify for a credit card let alone provide a number for security reasons..."

Edit May 30, 2008: Metis fiddler, Sierra Noble. My apologies commentor; she only claims "Métis musical roots" in her Bio.

"She has been studying classical music as well as fiddle music in the context of her Métis musical roots for most of her life.
Sierra’s breadth of experience is impressive and she has developed a distinctive and comfortable stage presence where exceptional instrumentals, energetic step-dancing and unbelievable pop performances exist in perfect harmony..."

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Tags: Day of Action, Canadian copyright, copyfight, HIV, Phoenix Mars Mission, songbird, scientific method, Tim Giago, Bill Reid, Sierra Noble, Canadian blog, First Nation, Native blog,Bingorage, Broken Vulture Art, blog,pics

chiefs machetes moons thefts fences

Grand Council Treaty #3 elects first female Grand Chief.

Manitoba band compensated, century after land swindle.

"In 1907, descendents of an Ojibwa band led by Chief Peguis were removed from their fertile farm land in Petersfield, about 50 kilometres north of Winnipeg.
The entire population was relocated to a parcel of rocky swamp on Lake Winnipeg."

Non-Native takeover, of Native American Bank?

"... the bank remains one of the most profitable in the country... The bank has been a gathering point for a growing number of Native-owned businesses... Two of the three members oversee other banks: Lewis Anderson is president and CEO of Woodlands National Bank. And William Snider is vice chairman and CFO for United Western Bancorp, based in Denver.
Snider and Anderson are non-Native - as is McLean, the interim president, and Tracie Davis, the former CFO who was brought back to the bank under a 90-day contract..."

Amazonian Indians attack Brazil official over proposed dam.

"Tensions were running high at the meeting, where about 1,000 Amazon Indians met with activists to protest the proposed dam on the Xingu River. Environmentalists warn it could destroy the traditional fishing grounds of Indians living nearby and displace as many as 15,000 people.
"He's lucky he's still alive," said Partyk Kayapo, whose uses his tribe's name as his last. "They want to make a dam and now they know they shouldn't."

Protection of indigenous media sought at the UN.

"Indigenous advocates want the United Nations to help draft laws protecting the rights of Native people to own media and for the prosecution of those who kill or persecute their journalists.
The issues of indigenous rights to ownership and free expression come on the heels of a series of murders of Native broadcasters in Oaxaca, Mexico: two in early April and then two more three weeks later..."

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Marcie Rendon is putting on some Native Theatre in the Twin Cities.

Includes an uncensored version of Borders Uncrossed, as discussed in a previous post.

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Last week's full moon, setting.





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One of the great bands; WEEZER, brings every internet meme to the table in Pork and Beans.



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Several (gold) Bill Reid pieces stolen from UBC's Museum of Anthropology.

"It's Bill Reid's art. It's pretty much priceless," said Macrae. "For that stuff to go missing it's really a terrible thing."

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Native American Rights Fund Visions for the Future Benefit Art Auction. August 22, 2008. La Fonda Hotel, Santa Fe, NM.

Bold Moves; Six Nations choreographer building her reputation.

"Creativity is innate for Santee Smith, a dancer and choreographer whose innovative blend of contemporary and traditional dance has won widespread acclaim.
But business acumen comes on the job, says the Six Nations Mohawk, who has been chosen to receive a new arts award that will help her acquire management savvy. Smith is one of two recipients of the first John Hobday Awards, presented by the Canada Council for the Arts..."

Ugly Necklace Contest.

Long before Billy Merasty took on the lead role in "Elijah" as Elijah Harper, he met the politician-turned-activist at the height of his fame in 1990. "Elijah" airs May 25 on CTV.

Government of Canada Supports 16 Ontario Arts-Training Organizations.

Calgary's Shakespeare In The Park opens with Aboriginal-themed Tempest

Plucked from his family in Curve Lake, artist Freddy Taylor endured life in a residential school.

"... When he was six, an Indian agent offered to take him to lunch, Taylor recalls as he puts down his paintbrush.
"He said he was going to take me for a bite to eat," Taylor said.
He didn't.
Instead, Taylor was plucked from his family (it would be 10 years until he would see them again) and placed in the Mohawk Institute residential school in Brantford, Ont.
"The first day I went there, a couple of the older boys took my food and they beat me," Taylor said. "As years went on, I took from the little ones as I learned to survive..."

All my relations - and then some. A book review, by Heid Erdrich

"Ojibwe editor and author Drew Hayden Taylor ("Me Funny") seeks to challenge mainstream images of indigenous love and lovemaking in these 13 essays on topics as varied as erotic Inuit theater and Cree language."

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Ran into an interesting blog posting about an unsuspected source of anti-Native prejudice (at least unsuspected by me). The Amish?

"... the references to what happened to his people at the time of the arrival of the Amish in the area did not even exist in the museum. His tribe pushed hard to have it acknowledged that their tribe occupied this land. He also said that, in fact, when the Amish arrived they moved directly into the houses and farms that had just been vacated by his people. The native people were moved to the west in what is now called the "Trail of Tears".

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Tags: Treaty 3, Peguis land settlement, Native American Bank, Xingu River dam, Marcie Rendon, moonset, Weezer, Bill Reid, art theft, Santee Smith, Freddy Taylor,Heid Erdrich,Canadian blog, First Nation, Native blog,Bingorage, Broken Vulture Art, blog,pics

Antler Muskie

In addition to the painting demonstration that I gave for Aboriginal Awareness Week at Fort Frances High School, I was also commissioned by the vice principal to create a carved antler muskie for the school's trophy case.
[The school's teams are "The Muskies"].

A quick online search found a suitable muskie illustration to base the work upon; just to keep the piece anatomically "in the ballpark".



[Click the illustration, if you wish to visit the sourcepage at TNTOutdoors.]

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After removing the bulk of the tines (pointy bits), I sketched in the Muskie shape and relative position of eyes, gills, mouth, fins, etc. The antler was chosen for its tine positions that allowed for the projection of the pectoral and pelvic fin pairs and the spread of the tailfin.



The piece was clamped in a vise to remove the excess antler with a right angle grinder and hard disk, then a right angle grinder with a "flap-sander" disc.



Note the parallel "score lines" on the fish's back.





Hard disks are used to cut grooves into the mass of the antler, down to the depth of required removal. "Cross-hatching" the grooves makes the removal of material easier.





After cutting away the bulk of the antler mass immediate to the sculpture, the main beam of the antler is cut away (because the work will be done in the hand from this point instead of the vise) and a rudimentary mouth is cut.

A rotary tool with grinder-disc, burr and sander attachments will be used to finish the piece from this point (the last of the initial sketch still visible on the "outside" of the beam).



Gills and mouth roughed-in; all fins nearly finalised.





Eyes hinted at and given projection by reducing the head around them.
Body's "sinuous" shape exaggerated by reducing opposite sides at different points along length in both vertical and horizontal dimensions.
Tail given "concavity" in vertical dimension. Hard external "plates" on upper jaw roughed in.





Eye shaped and hole drilled for iris representation. Possible installation position mirrors source illustration.


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Most of the antler carving that I have seen is Inuit Art [Wikipedia article].
See also, Clint's Inuit and Native Art Bulletin.

But there were some conspicuous examples of carved and polished deer antler in the local, prehistoric, cultural toolkit; harpoon points.
Specifically, fishing harpoons.



[Illustration from the book Grand Mound By Michael K. Budak; published by Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1995.]
Michael Budak ran the Grand Mound Centre, before the MHS closed it in 2003.

This is the type of fishing activity and tool that was represented in my previous posting about the one-day painting challenge at Fort Frances High.

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Tags: antler carving, whitetail deer antler, muskellunge sculpture, muskie, antler harpoon point, Grand Mound, Rainy River, Minnesota Historical Society, Canadian blog, First Nation, Native blog,Bingorage, Broken Vulture Art, blog,pics

Dam serious pics - clicky enlargey

My sister's new babygirl, Danni, loves this song
and so do we.



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Coming back from Uncle Charlie's funeral in Sioux Narrows, Sister Holly and I stopped by the side of the road to look for running sucker.

The suckers weren't running at the time at that location, but we took the opportunity to explore a series of small, crumbling dams on the small creek. The creek runs from a small marshy lake, just off the east side of Highway 72, about ten miles south of Sioux Narrows.





The largest of the three dams (that we saw, there may be others) has a height of nearly fifteen feet (downstream side) and a width of about fifty feet...



The opening in the dam is only about five feet across. There is a concrete "Y-brace" connecting the dam to the "powerhouse" structure







The powerhouse?
Perhaps there was some sort of waterwheel or small turbine here at one time.





The view downstream; from the large dam.



There is an inscription in the dam:
Duane Damon
May 27/48



Views of the "secondary" dam.







View of the "tertiary" dam, through the brush.



Looking from the main dam, back towards the highway. There is a concrete foundation and (new-ish) wooden walkway.





Holly, standing between highway and creek.


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New York Times, March 17, 2008 article. Chinook Salmon Vanish Without a Trace.

SFGate, May 2, 2008 article. All salmon fishing banned on West Coast.

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Views from the highway; on the way back from dropping sisters off at Thunder Bay airport.
French River [east of Seine River].

Looking North:









Looking South:








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Tags: dam, Sioux Narrows, French River, sucker fish, spring spawn, Northwestern Ontario, Canadian blog, First Nation, Native blog,Bingorage, Broken Vulture Art, blog,pics

Iceout and dark energy

Amputee runner wins right to try for Olympic spot

Ontario MNR and Grassy Narrows (First Nation, Ojibway) sign agreement in logging dispute

Regina (Saskatchewan) is one step closer to having Canada's first on-reserve post-secondary institution.

Canadian Copyfight Alert!!!
Jim prentice is about to try and ram US-industry-dictated copyright law through parliament; without the public input he promised, after his last attempt to feed us to the DMCA sharks. Contact your MP, make some noise.

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Loony iceout on Rainy Lake.





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Native Artists Grant Programs, listings at Evergreen.

Mary Anne Barkhouse: The Reins of Chaos.

"... The growing emphasis on paradoxical categories such as the absurd, cynical, and grotesque is indicative of the shift. Although in Canada this trend may be considered broadly, it often seems that Aboriginal artists are at its forefront. Mary Anne Barkhouse is certainly among them. Known for elegant, often ironic installations in which woodland creatures defend their way of life against the onslaught of human conquest, she uses wry humour to critique contemporary culture and the space reserved for Aboriginal people within it..."

2009 P.O.V. Call for Entries. The arrival deadline for submissions is Friday, June 27, 2008.

Archaeologist Uses Satellite Imagery to Explore Ancient Mexico.

Inca Skull Surgeons Were "Highly Skilled," Study Finds.

"... Around the ancient Inca capital of Cuzco (see Peru map), remains dating back to A.D. 1000 show that surgical techniques were standardized and perfected over time..."

How to be a human. [At Violent Acres]

Search on for Native art fund director.

"You have this foundation now coming on line that has enormous potential to become a powerful funding engine that will redirect the face of private philanthropy and divert huge increases of financial resources directly to our Native artists and tribal communities."...
this cornerstone of sovereignty has been malnourished because most tribal governments have not been able to support their artists. Instead, they have been focused on frontline crises, including housing, health care and joblessness..."

New Tim Giago article; Time Magazine Snubs Indians Again.

"Every year Time magazine names 100 people as its version of "The Most Influential People in the World." The editors of the magazine apparently live in a world without Native Americans, the First Americans to be precise...
Could it be that the editors of Time magazine are, as the editors of other mainstream media, so ignorant of the Native Americans in their midst that in their minds they do not exist? ..."

Five vestigial human organs; no longer counting the appendix.

Actor Adam Beach has plan to back First Nations films and TV.

"... His new company will produce feature films created by First Nations filmmakers.
He has also been hired by a new internet cable company to head its aboriginal division and will start reviewing proposals for the network in January..."

Dark Energy; The "most profound problem" in current physics.

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Tags: Grassy Narrows, Native Education, Canadian copyright, copyfight, Mary Anne Barkhouse, satellite archaeology, Inca surgery, Tim Giago, Adam Beach, Rainy Lake, Canadian blog, First Nation, Native blog,Bingorage, Broken Vulture Art, blog,pics

One day painting challenge at Fort Frances High School.

"Sturgeon Hunt" [Pics click to enlarge.]

I was asked to provide an art demonstration, for Aboriginal Awareness Week, at the local high school, so I agreed to create a box frame, stretch canvas and finish a painting...
in the span of a single school-day.

I prefer to make my own canvases, on a "box-frame" that is self-framing.
The joints of the box frame are "butted", so that a mitre saw is not necessary to create the corners. After lining up the flat edges of the boards, holes are drilled and countersunk, then coarse thread drywall screws connect the boards.



To align the "brace" attachment points between the long sides of the frame, the board is placed, then the outline traced. After removing the brace, then two or three points can be drilled from the 'inside', then countersunk from the outside before fastening the screws.





The canvas is draped, then tacked with staple gun, several staples at a time, flattened down with a hammer. The piece is moved so that next tacking is opposite of previous tacking. Alternate between axes often.









The canvas is tacked flat, then the fold is stapled down "on top" and on the "downside", to reduce visibility.




This was the initial sketch for the piece. I had been thinking about this composition for a while, as a variation on the Sturgeon Hunt bronze sculpture proposal composition.



After priming the canvas with 'matte gel medium', the initial objects (rocks) are sketched in with pencil. Then the background colour is placed around them.
Normally, I would start with a solid background colour, then work from background to foreground but I worked this piece rather flat because of the time demand.







The rocks are blocked in with shades of gray.



I decided to suggest the boulders as "lodges", by using a black shaded semi oval to suggest "doors". Although I did not have the time to develop this theme, rock is often seen as the dwelling of spirit in Native mythologies.

If you look closely, you will see the outlines of three sturgeon that I "scratched"-in with the pointy end of a paintbrush.



Scratch detail 1.



Scratch detail 2.



Filling in the fish bodies with a rough solid colour.

NB - Note the position of the fin under the gill of the large sturgeon in the foreground and how it changes to the next picture. I stood back, looking at the piece at this stage and determined that the body shape was way out of balance and made the necessary changes.



The lateral lines are scratched in, modified and finalised, highlight coloursand "bellies" added and human elements introduced (in the style of the Canadian Shield pictograph).


Begun blackline outlining, adding more detail. [This pic is a bit washed out.]



Foreground humans given minimal features, sturgeon spears added and outlining finalised. Sketch, below, for comparison. Fini.





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Tags: sturgeon, spear fishing, Rainy River, pictograph, canoe, aboriginal awareness week, Fort Frances, acrylic painting, canvas, fish painting, Canadian blog, First Nation, Native blog,Bingorage, Broken Vulture Art, blog,pics