painting and poetry/ poetry and painting

The play between poetry and painting has always influenced my work. I had the fortune of studying at the Umeå Konsthogsköla (Umeå Branch of the Art Academy of Sweden) when I was very young. Art has always been at the core of my life. It, more than anything else, has stretched and filled the spaces of my days.  Art, specifically painting, is like the spinal cord of my life. Through it, with it, and because of it, I sense the world. I make my place in the world, and the world becomes my home through my painting and poetry.

Painting informs my work as a poet, but my painting is also influenced by my poetry. I wrote a book of poetry in 2008 called Gabriel’s Beach. It was abo

ut one of my grandfather’s named Gabriel Vandall. I learned a lot about him from my father and my uncle. They spent a lot of time with him when they were younger. They told me about his time in World War I and World War II. He survived influenza in WWI. In order to enlist in World War II he lied about his age, claiming to be younger He say heavy combat, including being involved in the Battle of Juno Beach: and, he received several metals. 

I put his life into a larger context in my book of poetry. I wrote about his uncles who fought against the Canadian Army in 1885. I wrote about the way the Métis and Cree men in my family were dislocated from themselves and from their territories.

I am working on a painting entitled “kimosôminawak ê-ohci-mâyahkamikahk” (our grandfathers from 1885). It will be part of an exhibition which critically examines Canada 150. While I have been painting it, I have been thinking about the poems which I wrote about this period of time (1885) and the way the events after it have had such a profound affect on my ancestors and myself. I thought about the dislocation and the trauma that many Cree and Métis men experienced. 

I hold that poetry and painting are powerful tools for examining the past, but they are also powerful tools for examining the future.