If you are wondering what Sakaw Iskwew means it means bush woman and is the name of my great grandmother. There are reasons and stories about why I named my art pages after her. I’ve also been asked about the stories of my paintings so I decided to start writing them. I was asked if my art is native inspired, it’s not. It is native art, there is a difference. My art is inspired by my Cree culture, my experiences and often my dreams.
This triptych is of a dream I had several years ago. I dreamed of 3 women, these are grandmother spirits. They were old but didn’t look old. Each of these women had a different gift that to share. after I had the dream I spoke to an Elder and asked if it was alright if I painted these women. She told me that I could paint it as long as I didn’t paint all the details. So I tried paint a vivid experience with less details. That is not an easy thing to do.
I painted the dresses and some of the spiritual landscape and I also decided to hint at the fact that they were in ceremony and passing the pipe.
I was also asked about why they didn’t have faces. This is because of a conversation I had with one of my kokoms. I was talking to her about beadwork, traditional dolls and paintings. She said to me to consider how in the old days people didn’t include the face because of their teachings. We talked about how people have a spirit and the only person who can create a spirit is Creator. So now I try not to paint faces on people who haven’t existed here. Sometimes I still paint faces if it feels right but most of the time I don’t paint them anymore.
If you want to check out my other paintings you can check out my Facebook page.
Sakaw Iskwew 