Krista Dalby is the co-founder of Small Pond Arts in Picton, ON. She also volunteers her time and talent to charity organizations like Puppets Without Borders and ArtsCan Circle. Krista is great and has agreed to share some of her experiences with the ArtBridges community. This is an excerpt from a blog published in November 2013 about her time spent in the First Nations community of Pikangikum, ON as a volunteer artist with ArtsCan Circle. Thanks for sharing, Krista!
– Cora, Indigenous Community Arts Coordinator & Communications Assistant
“… I was on the road again – this time heading to Pikangikum in Northern Ontario as a volunteer artist with ArtsCan Circle.
It was my second trip to this fly-in Ojibway community, and I was travelling with two other wonderful artists, Raven Murphy and Kenneth ‘Magoo’ McGregor. Our theme for the week was turtles. If you look at the shell of any turtle in North America you will find that it has thirteen plates, surrounded by twenty-eight smaller plates. For First Nations people, the turtle’s shell was the original calendar – the larger plates representing their thirteen moons, and each moon containing 28 days (I’ll save you the math – that’s 364 days). Of course many First Nations also call North America Turtle Island, so the turtle is an animal totem loaded with meaning and symbolism.
The first part of our project was creating a giant papier-mâché turtle. Because our time in Pikangikum was so limited, I brought the sculpture – made from cardboard and foam – in pieces in my suitcase. It really wasn’t much to look at…
Upon arrival, I taped it together with masking tape.
Some high school students helped me papier-mâché it.
The following day, some more teens jumped in to help paint the turtle.
But the main part of the students’ task was to each create a design for one of the thirteen moons which they would paint on turtle’s back.
It turned out pretty great! It’s now hanging in the art room at Eenchokay Birchstick School.
Our second project was working with another group of teens to create six short videos based on these same moons. Students worked in teams of two to four, each creating a two-minute video. Once they’d presented us with some sort of plan, we gave each team a video camera and let them go to it. I was so happy with what we got back – creative footage full of handmade touches, with a few giggles thrown in to the soundtrack for good measure… having fun is an important part of the creative process!
Gorgeous handmade title for one of the videos
Before we knew it, the week was over, and we hopped back on our teeny-tiny airplane that made five (!!!) stops before landing at Toronto’s Pearson Airport. It’s amazing the difference of perspective a few days away can give you. Walking through the airport was a shock to my senses. Everything was so shiny and expensive and fast. It all just seemed so excessive. The chasm between the haves and the have-nots of this country is so vast that it’s hard to accept or comprehend. Pikangikum is a town of 2300+ and is not hooked up to the electrical grid; the whole town is run on generators. As we were leaving, there was talk of the power being shut down for four days – an unpleasant situation as winter was settling in, not to mention the fact that school would be cancelled as long as the power was out. Most households in Pikangikum have no running water. Come on, Canada: you can do better.
I really cherished this trip to Pikangikum and I’m eager to go back to continue building on the relationships I’ve started there. The rest of Canada needs to hear the voices of these people, especially the youth, and anything I can do to help encourage those voices to speak up is certainly worth pursuing.
Lake Pikangikum
But for now I’m happy to be home, and am feeling big time gratitude for the experiences that I’ve had, the life that I live, and for the place that I get to come home to.”
Posted with permission from Krista Dalby (excerpt from a blog originally published November 10, 2013)
Read Small Pond Arts’ profile and ArtsCan Circle’s profile on ArtBridges’ Community-Engaged Arts Directory and Map
