Issue/d Paper
Judy Anderson

Storytelling has always been an important part of Aboriginal culture and art making. Prior to contact with European people Plains Indians drew and painted images on hide robes, tee pees, drums and shields. These images acted as mnemonic devices to aid in storytelling or to remind the viewer of the important events that had taken place for the individual or tribe. With European contact Aboriginal people were able to acquire paper and began to draw/paint their stories on paper or within ledger books. This style of art came to be known as ledger art and its ability to tell stories has always interested me.

Issue/d Paper dually references my own personal issues plus government sponsored issued paper. For Aboriginal people paper, through ledger art, appears to be the impetus for the movement into European influenced artwork. The books or paper used were either traded for or captured in battle. In either case the paper at some point had been issued from a store or the government. Specifically in Canada, the government issued paper to residential schools, which was then utilized as a means to civilize and assimilate. Moving away from the stark whiteness of issued paper each piece in this show is made from handmade paper that mimics the color of rawhide. I have in essence re-issue/d paper to reference the history of Aboriginal people and remind the viewer that Aboriginal culture is ever growing and evolving.

I use Parfleche bags and boxes (traditional Aboriginal containers made of rawhide) and ledger art to examine my family and my life experiences. These works directly reference ledger art with family photographs acting as the mnemonic device to aid in the story being told. Each box or bag holds or carries a particular issue regarding my family or myself that I have been working through. For example in “Childhood Memories” I reference my early childhood, living in Regina, Saskatchewan where I first experienced the beauty and pain of the thistle.

For “Looking Beyond” I cast my pregnant belly three weeks prior to the birth of my daughter. The result is this piece, which includes twenty handmade paper mounds that have objects from nature inlaid and four handmade paper mounds that have objects with political associations. These bellies/mounds deal with the issue of land including; the appropriation of sacred Aboriginal burial sites, spirituality surrounding land in general and the cyclical nature of life and death.

Resembling a small field of burial mounds the bellies also symbolize the Sweat Lodge, which is called the womb of Mother Earth. When we go to Sweat, we are cleansing ourselves and, upon exiting the lodge, it is like being re-born as we crawl out. While the image of the burial mound relates to death, the womb refers to the move from the spiritual world to the temporal world.

Exhibition Date: April 17 to May 24, 2008
Opening Reception: Thursday, April 17, 7 to 10pm
Artist Talk: Saturday, April 19, 1pm

gallery    Jennifer Pickering   Roger Crait