Mixblood

10/28/2022

08/16/2022

Black Powder

12/01/2021

The hot topic of Indigenous Identity - one fact is true: fake claims will soon have criminal consequences.

The recent call for organizing a Canada-wide dialogue about Indigenous identity by the First Nations University of Canada (FNUniv) is a solid step tow...

12/12/2020

If you're writing memoir and looking for a one-on-one mentorship, this is an excellent opportunity with Jowita Bydlowska.

Her memoir, Drunk Mom, was hailed by Lena Dunham as an "intense, complex and disturbing story, bravely and beautifully told. I read Drunk Mom with my jaw on the floor, which doesn't happen to me often." While The New York Time's Book Review said “While the title suggests a simple autobiographical autopsy of motherhood marred by alcoholism, Bydlowska’s memoir delivers far more – a human portrait of the disease.”

12/08/2020

12/04/2020

Latest work - Custom ordered fine art prints - museum quality inks that will last generations.

11/28/2020

THIS MAN
Did not survive the American holocaust.

Designs based off original series of work made with the support of the Canada Council for the Arts in 2004

10/16/2020

"X-Ray Excavation," a mixed-media painting by Amber Gunn Gauthier, a Ho-Chunk and Menominee artist, is among artworks by female Native American artists in "Intrigue and Novelty," an exhibit at the Schingoethe Center for Native American Cultures

09/29/2020

September 30th has been declared Orange Shirt Day annually, in recognition of the harm the residential school system did to children's sense of self-esteem and well being, and as an affirmation of our commitment to ensure that everyone around us matters.

So why the orange shirt? It began in 1973 with Phyllis Webstad who was six-years-old when the new orange shirt she excitedly chose for her first day of school was stripped off her back. She never saw it again.

Ms. Webstad’s story is the nucleus for what has become a national movement to recognize the experience of survivors of Indian residential schools, honour them, and show a collective commitment to ensure that every child matters. The initiative calls for every Canadian to wear an orange shirt on September 30 in the spirit of healing and reconciliation.

Indian residential schools operated across Canada between 1831 and 1996. In its comprehensive report in June 2015 on the residential school policy, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada declares "establishment and operation of residential schools were a central element of this policy, which was best described as “cultural genocide.”

The date, September 30, was chosen because that was the time of the year the trucks and buses would enter the communities to “collect” the children and deliver them to their harsh new reality of cultural assimilation, mental, sexual and physical abuse, shame and deprivation.

Ekosi pitima

08/18/2020

07/27/2020

“Old Fashioned Sneak Up"
From the creative series Re:Appropriation - Canada 150

For some reason, in my own work, I'm not a fan of clean or austere, I like messy, and I'm compelled to be dangerous. Perhaps it's simply in my DNA or perhaps it's about a story that just absolutely has to be told - and that story is anything other than clean and austere. The story is a dirty blood-soaked tale drenched in tears, and expressing it for anything else is just a lie, a pathetic fallacy.

As a child, I loved these images of "Indians" as painted by Charles Russell, they impressed upon me a kind of Indian you could be proud to be, they also impressed upon me the harsh reality of Indian and White relations, and in my later years the distinct disillusionment of our mythology. What happened in those years that life was so wrought with turmoil that we had to live every day fighting to survive? We moved camps constantly, we watched every single population of wildlife disappear right before our eyes and we got caught up in the frenzy of competing to carry forward, to live on, to be prosperous in spite of losing every inch of soil under our feet.

As tensions tightened and living our lives on the land was no longer possible many died and anyone who stood in the way of colonial progress was quickly put down. It's was a slow silencing and as the fences went up the freedoms went down.

"No Fast Elk, hunting is not permitted here, you and your group have to go back to the reserve, or there will be harsh consequences"...

Keep in mind that telling this story doesn't reflect anything other than an incredible power of perseverance, adaptability and an irreverent spirit to thrive and live well - as one of the most important values in all indigenous society is LAUGHTER - we must - absolutely must laugh in the face of adversity - we must laugh at ourselves - we must laugh at the absurdity - and most importantly we must laugh together out of sheer joy, irony, or sadness.

07/27/2020

Mukitou: Black Powder.

Inspiration for the script in development called Black Powder, he's a reformed Cree gangster recently released from the Saskatchewan Federal Penitentiary. Estranged from his family for over 15 years he arrives back to the reserve to discover his youngest grand daughter was stolen, one of the many MMIW. This is heartbreaking news - instead of turning to drink and drowning in his own self pity he wanders off the Rez on foot looking for answers that will hopefully lead him to his grand daughters killer(s). After experiencing a string of dead ends and conflicted by the extraordinary incompetence of local RCMP investigations, he begins to sew together a thread of apparent connections to other cases and as he draws closer to the truth he quickly discovers that the skills which put him behind bars serves to save his life and that of several others.

The name Mukitou, (Black Powder) is an old Cree name and was the name of Chief Big Bear's Father. The significance of his name and origin is revealed in the story.