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Bulletin, Poster
June 21 is National Indigenous Peoples Day and Summer Solstice
June 2, 2023
Updating colonial thinking on National Indigenous Peoples Day
National Indigenous Day coincides with the Summer Solstice. Not only is it the day when the sun travels its longest path through the sky, which explains why it is the longest day, but it is the day that many Indigenous peoples celebrate their culture and heritage.
When Indigenous people speak, they often pay tribute to “all their relations”. They are saluting not only their families, but their ancestors, and the more-than-humans on this planet and our universe, like the rivers, rocks, trees, animals, planets and stars. They recognize that we are all connected.
“The artwork featured this year by Theresa Williams shows this connection to her relations.”
ARCHAEOLOGY AND “CLOVIS”
Many false narratives of the histories of Indigenous peoples on Turtle Island has contributed to the hurt and the dismissal of their place on this land. They have long known about their people and all their relations through millennia of oral history.
Scholars have long argued that the presence of Indigenous peoples is situated at roughly 12,000 years BCE (Before the Common Era). This line, supposedly proving the arrival of the Indigenous from Asia, is referred to as “Clovis”.
NEW FINDINGS IN INDIGENOUS ARCHAEOLOGY
Now, Cree-Métis scholar from Whitehorse, Yukon, and Canada Research Chair on Healing and Reconciliation at Algoma University, Dr Paulette Steeves, is making the case that Indigenous peoples may have been here for 100,000 years or more. Through the use of genetics in connection with archaeological finds, Steeves argues that there are hundreds of sites on Turtle Island and Abya Yala (South America) that predate “Clovis”.
The notion that people had only been on this land for 3000 years is considered by Steeves to be the result of a hypocritical, biased and colonial attitude in archaeology which erased the diversity and history of the Indigenous people. Steeves is reconsidering the trajectory of global human migrations, and situating Indigenous peoples at the center of a reformed view of the evolution of humans and more-than-humans, the world over.
A DAY TO EXPLORE INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGE AND WAYS
As an exercise in allyship with Indigenous people, on this National Indigenous Peoples Day, CUPW encourages its members to learn more about our Indigenous relations’ histories and culture.
Resources
“A new era of archaeology”, May 19, 2023. Unreserved with Rosanna Deerchild. CBC Radio.
Steeves, Paulette F.C. (2021). The Indigenous Paleolithic of the Western Hemisphere. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press.
In Solidarity,
Coleen Jones
2nd National Vice-President
Theresa Williams, Artist
Theresa Williams is a proudly Indigenous, Secwépemc (Shuswap) mixed-blood self-taught artist currently residing in Carstairs, Alberta, in Treaty 7 Territory. Born in Calgary in the early 1960s and raised on her family’s large multi-generational, remote cattle ranch in Canoe Creek (Stswecem’c), British Columbia, Theresa has always been fascinated by landscapes and local history. College and then university followed by the need to earn a living, meant moving away from her small community, and motivated Theresa to make the best of wherever she ended up. After moving to Alberta in 2006 with her husband while he chased better jobs in the ‘patch’, Theresa found herself spending a lot of time alone. Her commute to work as a Postie and explorations further afield whenever her husband was back from camp, proved inspiring, and in 2016 she decided to teach herself how to paint. Initially her intent was simply to fill walls at home. Then a friend asked to curate a small solo show giving Theresa the necessary confidence to connect with the Leighton Art Centre in 2018 and shortly afterwards apply for representation at Bluerock Gallery in 2019. Theresa's landscape paintings have proven popular, and she is renowned for her plein air painting, steering wheel easel, limited color palette and bold, expressive mark-making. Decades spent driving throughout rural Alberta and British Columbia means that view through the windshield often shows up; foregrounds take a back seat to the middle and far away grounds and weather elements are common. In 2022, she retired from Canada Post and began painting full-time. Recent changes to the Indian Act finally correcting most but not all gender discrimination, mean Theresa is now an official member of the Esk’etemc First Nation, although she hopes to transfer to the Stswecem’c Xgat’tem First Nation. Her reconnection with ’Home’ and culture includes an honest assessment of her complicated ancestry and generations of Settler privilege gained. Her recent work attempts to reconcile these starkly contrasting realities.
Theresa attended post secondary in Vancouver, British Columbia, and completed the Foundation Year at Emily Carr College of Art. She attended the University of British Columbia and graduated in 1994 with a Bachelor of Arts, majoring in History. At that time, she was one of the first university graduates raised in Canoe Creek. Her artwork hangs in private collections both nationally and internationally, as well as permanent public collections in British Columbia, and has been published in newspapers and magazines and featured in a book of local Alberta history. Theresa’s paintings have shown in many juried group exhibitions as well as solo shows and have won multiple awards. She is currently represented by Bluerock Gallery in Diamond Valley, Leighton Art Centre near Calgary, and Gust Gallery in Waterton.
Most recently, Theresa became a Juried Member of the prestigious Alberta Society of Artists. In May of 2023, a small painting she made of her niece was selected by the Canadian Union of Postal Workers for their annual poster celebrating National Indigenous Peoples Day. Theresa is also a Featured Artist for Glacier Plein Air 2023, this year's annual late-summer event hosted by the Hockaday Museum of Art in Kalispell, Montana. Theresa’s immediate plans include an acrylics workshop, as well as submitting applications for several artist residencies and solo shows planned for 2024 and 2025.
