Jeannette Hansen, executive director of Miywasin Friendship Centre, accepts the donation of artwork by local artist Shelley Ewing, who painted this piece after hearing the story of the remains of 215 Indigenous children found on the grounds of the Kamloops Residential School.--NEWS PHOTO LAUREN THOMSON
lthomson@medicinehatnews.com
When local artist Shelley Ewing learned of the remains of 215 Indigenous children found on the grounds of the Kamloops Indian Residential School, she channelled her emotions into a painting she has donated to the Miywasin Friendship Centre.
“I’ve always been fascinated by Indigenous culture. I think it’s beautiful, I think their spiritual teachings are beautiful,” said Ewing. “When the 215 story came out, I literally couldn’t sleep for a couple of days. I was very emotional about it and art is a very cathartic process, so I think I did it for myself more than anything.”
After Ewing finished the painting, she didn’t feel it was meant to stay in her home. She “just thought it should be somewhere where it could mean something because of the story that I tried to include in it.”
Ewing’s painting depicts Indigenous dancers and children in cultural clothing, as well as in Westernized clothing. There are two older women crying, whom she says depict the tears and the trauma residential school survivors and the entire Indigenous community are still coping with years later. The painting shows 215 wind-swept dots across the bottom and a quote from Bishop St. Vital dated 1875 that says, “We instill in them a pronounced distaste for the native life so that they will be humiliated when reminded of their origin. When they graduate from our institutions the children have lost everything native except their blood.”
“If you read this you can see that it’s intentional genocide,” said Ewing. “They planned this, they had intentions to take all of this away for their own benefit.”
Ewing believes education for non-indigenous Canadians is crucial in order to continue the work of reconciliation.
“People need to be acknowledged, they need to be told they matter,” Ewing said. “This was their land, this was their country. We have no business continuing this dysfunction, we need to fix it somehow … I think it’s everyone’s responsibility, personally, to get themselves a little more educated.”
Jeannette Hansen, executive director of the Miywasin Centre, spoke of the many services they provide to Medicine Hat, for Indigenous and non-indigenous people alike.
“About six years ago we started having a reconciliation week in Medicine Hat and creating more awareness for the residential schools, the impact and inter-generational trauma,” Hansen explained. “Mostly those were for service providers that had Indigenous clients, but now we see, with the 215 and more grave sites found at residential schools, that it needs to be broader in scope. We need to update the curriculum in schools so that they begin at a young age and learn about the true history of Canada and the Indigenous peoples so that we can better understand where the trauma came from and why things are the way they are today and how we move forward.”
Hansen says she was so glad Ewing contacted her.
“I knew this was affecting Canadians right across the country and I was really glad that she reached out and she needed to talk to someone and needed to get this out,” Hansen said. “That’s a beautiful painting and that’s part of healing, that’s part of dealing with the trauma that the Canadians are facing now as to what happened to the Indigenous peoples of this country.
“I was really grateful that she did reach out … and that we can have this beautiful painting to use as part of teaching, because it is a beautiful depiction of what happened … the trauma and the pain.”
The painting will hang in the cultural room of the Miywasin Friendship Centre on Third Street SE.
