Nuanced. - 36. Carrielynn Victor: Indigenous Artist, Conservationist, & Medicines Practitioner

Episode Date: November 16, 2021

Carrielynn Victor is an artist, plant harvester, illustrator, storyteller, mother, conservationist, fisher and medicines practitioner within S'ólh Téméxw (the Fraser Valley).Video Interview: https://youtu.be/z4vx8zhKSPsEastern Fraser Valley based artist Carrielynn is a descendant of Coast Salish ancestors that have been sustained by S’olh Temexw (their land) since time immemorial and Western European ancestors that settled around Northern Turtle Island beginning in the 1600’s. Carrielynn was born and raised in S’olh Temexw and nurtured by many parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles. Along with owning and operating an art practice, Carrielynn maintains a communal role as a plant practitioner, and is the Manager of Cheam First Nation’s Environmental Consultancy. The philosophy and responsibilities of these land based communal roles are fundamental for informing the story, style and the details of Carrielynn’s artwork. With ancient and modern design principles combined, Carrielynn’s professional artistic practice takes the form of murals, canvas paintings, drums, paddles and in recent years, illustrations for scientific reports and children’s books.Website: https://carrielynnvictor.com/aboutSend us a textSupport the shownuancedmedia.ca

It is an absolute pleasure to sit down with you. I have been very eager to record this one because you have made a huge impact. And your journey over the years, I had the opportunity to research it and learn about the work you've been involved in throughout your life. And it's really, really inspiring. So it's an absolute pleasure to sit down with you. Would you mind giving listeners just a brief introduction of yourself? Sure. Well, first of all, thank you for the invitation and for,

taking time to do some background research. I think it's going to be a valuable use of time. And so, yeah, my English name is Carrie Lynn Victor. The ancestral name I carry is Homantelot, and I'm from Chiam. I also come from a settler family in Rosdale, settler families, the Monroe family there. And we, my brother, we, my brother and I, were raised in between Chiamma community and time in both Vancouver and Vancouver Island. So through, I suppose, through all that travel and working as an adult, I made my way home to Chiam. And I've been there for the last 20 or so years. Right.

And in some of my research, it said that you had to travel between Vancouver and Chilliwack a lot. And that kind of, I guess, helped you develop as a person. And I'm just interested to know what that traveling back and forth, how that it impacted you. I think that there's, you know, when our elders say there's kind of walking in two worlds, I believe that to a certain extent, and I also carry a bit of a different view. And so in spending time in the community and having our relatives always say, welcome home, you know, this is your home. I feel like I had relatives who took the time to do that, and it imprinted on me.

and then also having, you know, family off reserve or responsibilities in education or employment off reserve as well, I had to find who I am so that I could honor who I am and take me with me everywhere I went. You know, it's something to go home to friends and family and community and have them call me, you know, city or whatever. And maybe people are familiar with that. Maybe you're familiar with that. I know what it's like to be made fun of for speaking properly.

And I also know what it's like to be made fun of for having a little bit of a res accent. I know what you just can't win. So I figured the only way to really step forward in a good way was to be true to me. me. Who is me, right? And so I had traveled back and forth working in Nooksack for about four years, and I spent a few years living in Vancouver back and forth. And then I did work on Vancouver Island as well and spent time traveling back and forth. And all that travel back and forth led me to understand where I should be. If I'm going to spend all my time and energy traveling home, I should just go home and stay. And I knew I would grieve the excitement that family

felt when I arrived. Because if I was gone for a month or two months, I could come home and there was this sense of excitement. And that's a real uplifting thing. But in moving home, I knew I wouldn't receive that anymore. I might give it to others when I see them after having not seen them for a long time, but it was time to, time to grow into being, to being home. Right. And you talked also about how you were more of an introvert, and you chose to work at a casino that kind of pushed you outside of that element. I really like when people, like, find something within themselves and then kind of challenge it and try and push forward despite that. I think that sets a good example, because we can often over-define ourselves and, like, lock

ourselves into a box. And I think that that was just a really great read to know that you were able to see that and say, like, obviously you can't get rid of 100% that you have like an introverted nature and that you're probably more comfortable alone and with your own thoughts. But I'm interested to what led you kind of down that path. The path of coming out of a shell. Yeah. Well, there's a certain spectrum of customers who are seeking the values at the casino for different reasons. And it's just all kinds of reasons. Some people are seeking a satisfaction that's directly related to a winner's high.

And some people are just looking to hang out. And I think I even met a few people here and there who were looking for friendship in the employment employed. Like I felt like some people would always come to my table as a dealer and they would want to just talk about themselves or hear about me. And I had a real baby face and I was like 18 so I wasn't even old enough to gamble there. And the people who would come would share everything from war stories to work-related woes or why they couldn't pay for their groceries because they were always hanging out with me. And I really learned to listen, but in a setting where you're positioned in front of a whole bunch of money and people who are there for one kind of, they're there for that specific service, and I couldn't even turn 180 degrees in either direction, let alone touch my face without first showing cameras what was in my hands, or what wasn't. I found myself in a bit of a state of discomfort initially and then grew into

where I could be comfortable and I got all the questions that I could get and I was verbally and mentally abused and I was entertained and I was entertaining and I was bored a lot of the times. I was given a day shift and nobody would even come to the table for three hours. So there was tons of time to reflect, but there was nowhere to go. And it over time turned into how am I going to have a good time here? How am I going to make more money here? And I would make more money by being friendly and courteous and entertaining because when people are having a good time, even if they're not winning and they're having a good time, they're kind of throwing money at me. Like, this one's for you, doll, or whatever. And that's part of, I think,

an important part of that evolution out of a very enclosed shell. Right. And how did artwork kind of play into that because I think that that likely be valuable because you think of some of the work you're doing now where people are watching you. They're like walking past when you're working on a mural or something. So how did that evolution kind of take place into working on art and having that? I imagine you need confidence in order to make art and to push yourself in that way. For sure. Yeah. So going back a little bit before that time working, in table games, I would travel a lot between living in Animo as a child and coming here to Chilawak. Two hours, it was a ferry ride. I could bring my art supplies with me, and I did a type of

art that's like stippling, pointillism, and the ferry was perfect for it because if I relaxed my hand, the vibration of the boat would provide the motion for me and all I had to do, and all I had to do was kind of steer my pen and the, um, keep one arm on the table and the boat would move my hand. And I would need like, you know, 90 or 100 hours to complete a piece because there were millions of dots. And, uh, people always were just helping themselves to either stand and watch or actually engage. And so from a young age, uh, I made lots of, um, acquaintances with people and they wanted to talk about art. And they would often think it wasn't mine, even though I was doing it.

Wow. And I learned that I had to be able to speak to it before they would believe that it was even mine. Wow. And that carried on, like that carried on through. It wasn't just the stippling art. I did get into a bad car accident, and I couldn't do the stippling art anymore. And so moving into a different style of art and eventually into murals, I would be painting a mural. And if I had a male assistant, whether it was like someone we'd hired or it was my brother, people would approach the male on the site before they would approach me.

And they would ask them if they were the artist. And so again, confronted with this strange, you know, preconception that people have about male artists being the leaders, I had, I dove a little bit deeper into my own understanding of how to speak to what I was doing, how to evolve the practice. And a lot of that happens behind the scenes in, you know, day to day or in kind of sketching and dreaming and envisioning something, what can I do that's unique in a day and age when everything's been done? Right. And really, it's just been a process of kind of putting things together, things that already exist, putting them together, taking a look at them and kind of studying how light affects. different spaces and angles and and things wow and you mentioned that you got into an accident was that difficult to not be able to do the stippling anymore like was that like a moment of like oh no or was that like this is no big deal i can just transfer over to a new thing like what was that like it wasn't easy okay it wasn't easy at all and i had to quit uh the job that i was doing as well because the um the part

of my um body that was most affected was my wrists right And I think I had kind of centered my identity around my ability to create certain things and to do certain things. I was young, and I thought, if this is what I'm doing, this is who I am. And so I could no longer deal blackjack or dice, and I couldn't do fine work anymore without really bad pain in the wrists. and I thought I was going to quit. I said that to a couple of people who were really close to me. I'm just going to quit. And it took somebody who was also an artist to say,

you don't quit being an artist. You don't just shut it off. It's who you are. It's how you see the world. It's in you. And nice that you say that, but let's see what else happens. And I was, sitting around a lot because I like to keep my hands busy

and at the time I had nothing really to keep my hands busy I was wearing these braces that just held them in place and inside the brace was like a kind of a quarter inch gap and because I was still seeing images images were coming to me I thought how else can I create that What else can I do? And I went to the paint store and I bought a paintbrush. And this is how I brushed my teeth.

I put the toothbrush in that quarter inch gap between the glove and the brace. And I would just kind of hold one hand with the other hand and brush my teeth in this strange motion. And so I thought, why couldn't I just put a paintbrush in there? And so I jammed a paintbrush in there and just started painting. And I thought, I would keep that up as long as I needed to. And eventually, I could, I had some physio and some acupuncture and did some, you know, meditation for healing and began to overcome this wrist issue and kept the style. And the style really evolved after that. Wow, that has got to be such a journey to kind of reinvent yourself.

And like, it sounds like you're here now. And like, I think for people, it's easy. look at and go, like, while you're this incredible muralist and, like, you've shared such great works, but to go through that kind of journey would have been such a challenge. You also talked about how you envision making artwork. Where did that come from for you? Was that as a child you always were able to, like, envision making artwork or putting things together?

Or when did that kind of come into your life? Yeah, it's been with me as long as I know. it like if you open up my childhood school memories folders I was talking about wanting to be a painter at four and five years old because I was always painting, always drawing and you know how they say you got to have your 10,000 hours, that's a thing I spent those hours really I think cartooning and tracing And even though cartooning and tracing are not seen as high art, what they did was they trained my lines.

So I trained my lines on I like clean lines, I like smooth arcs, I like a nice circle and on and on. And a lot of that came, I think, from what I was tracing as a child. So I spent a lot of time copying things in order to better achieve what I was seeing kind of in my own mind. And I can't even begin to create some of the things I see. I see them and I'm just like, wow, where do you even begin? What are the materials? What is the style? Like, what is that?

It moves or, you know, and I'm so limited with a 2D medium. Right. For the most part, I can't do everything I see. But the things that I do see that look like they can be done in a 2D medium, I'll puzzle over them for sometimes weeks and months to get a better grasp on how to make it real. Wow. I have heard a little bit about that. I heard about someone who's like a member of the Kwokwakw First Nation.

And from my understanding, he would have dreams, like full visions of, like animals and like he would have like mythological stories kind of in his mind and so I'm interested to know more about how these visions come about or do they come when you're sleeping or during the daytime when do they when do they typically happen for you I've looked for the pattern I've looked for it and the best way I can kind of describe the moment when they come is like in between the in breath and the out breath they're that fast like I'm taking a breath, I pause, it's there, I'm breathing again, I can't see it, where did it go, what was it, you know? And it's not like a sustained dream or vision, it's a fleeting thought. And so I've had to really train myself to absorb as much as possible in a fleeting thought. Yeah, like it's like an inspiration that just comes to you. Have you ever had one that came and then you missed out on it? And what was that like? to kind of go, that's, that's brilliant, and then it's gone.

It's frustrating. Yeah. Yeah. And sometimes they come back. Sometimes they keep coming back, and they come back and back and back and back, and they'll evolve a little bit, and it gives me a better chance to absorb it. But sometimes they just go, and it's, it's like, oh, I guess that was just for that moment, you know. Do you, where do you think that it comes from? Because I imagine that, like, it would be like a creator or, like, that it would be like a creator or, like,

it comes from somewhere? Where do you think that it comes from? Because do you think that they're usually positive? Do you think that they're sometimes negative? Like, um, how do they feel? Um, we, I remember having a conversation about this with some peers in, uh, theater school. And we would, we'd sit down and talk about our, uh, we'd pool our thoughts together. And we were talking about song catching one time because there was a, a Cree fella and a Blackfoot fella and a blackfoot fella and a couple of Stalo ladies and a Wittowitan and a Beaver Cree. And we'd really sit around and we'd challenge ourselves to articulate what it was we were seeing or feeling. And our teacher would challenge us as well.

And we said, what if the same song comes, but we hear it through our own cultural and personal filters. Right. And so this guy hears it, but he. He hears it in his own way, and maybe he catches it, maybe he lets it go, and then maybe someone who sings opera catches it, and they sing it through their filter, because it's so much about feeling, and it's so much about energy. And so to be an artist and capture something that's visual is also about capturing an energy. Where does it come from?

I don't quite understand that, like, fabric of the universe because it's intangible. But I think it comes from beyond, you know, us. Maybe some of it comes from Earth, but it always, always comes through these filters, cultural filters, character filters, how my brain works, right? It goes through all of those and then I see it. Yeah. Do you think that other people perhaps? Like, I've never had that.

I've never had such an experience, but it seems like it would be moving. What is, what is it like to kind of be one of one in that you and like a select few get it in that way? Like perhaps you have the opera singer who gets in a different way, but what is it like for you to get those experiences? I'm not, I'm not in, I don't think I've reflected on that. Okay. That it, that I just assumed everybody had their own version of it. I do feel like sometimes with some of them, those moments, I do feel like I've got to make it happen. And sometimes the idea of it, maybe not the imagery of it, won't leave me alone.

And those images that burn in the back of my brain and say, make me, make me, they don't wake me up at night, thankfully. Some people say they can't sleep or they don't, you know, they wake up at 3 a.m. I'm a pretty good sleeper, but when I'm awake during the day, I'll hold on to it. And sometimes I'm holding on to like three or five ideas and waiting for the right moment. And if it means I'm doing three other things, I'm cleaning the kitchen and I'm already doing this art project and I have to go somewhere later. and I know I'm busy, the idea is like, now. And I know if I don't drop everything and do that, it's not going to come back with the same energy. Right.

So my people in my household very know well, if I have one of those moments that they will just leave me to it. Because the things that are born of those energies are some of my favorite things. That's amazing. and how often does it end up being that you get to make artwork that is from those experiences? Is it usually like a majority of the time, or is it less than? I wish I could say it was a majority, but the current occupation I have is seeing through the visions of clients. Right. And it's really rewarding, and it satisfies my artist a lot to work with clients and bring their kind of ideas to the space.

I don't do it as often as I'd like to, but I know I'll have time someday. And when I do have time or make time, if I drop everything and do it, it's probably like once a year or a couple times a year. Yeah, I've gotten to talk to Lucas Simpson, who's another muralist in Chilliwack now, and David Shearer, who's also another artist who makes Kopea Line publishing. And they have kind of the similar feedback that one of the struggles. they face is making sure that what what they feel is still still has time that it doesn't become too much about the like the sales and the working for clients and stuff has that been something that you've tried to balance or struggled with to get motivated for something that perhaps isn't your own there's a there's like a certain list I have of of where the

priorities are right and I I'm not super vocal about it because some of it It has a nuance of cultural responsibility to it. And so, you know, the murals and the logo commissions and the book commissions pay the bills. And they feed the – and I've learned how to kind of feed the artist with them because it's new. And I get to have ideas of my own. And seeing people excited like they curated something for the first time is so fun. And there's this – there's also this, like, I really have. to kind of fight the offers and the urge to go full commercial with my work, be that through

one of those licensed image production companies, like I won't say any names, but we see them out there and they're making oven mitts and baby books and all kinds of cool stuff. I do fight the offers within myself because the offers come in and it's steady money. And that's appreciated for an artist, I think. But I don't want my intent to be to serve a dollar. And so right now, intention is very important. And if somebody comes along and they need art for cultural reasons, whether they're having a memorial or they're having, say, something for ceremony,

and they want something specific on it. I think that's what the gift is for. As much as the gift provides to me, the gift is to give it away. And so there's never any money attached to art for ceremony or cultural needs. There's always this understanding that it'll come back somehow.

Sometimes it's directly from the person. Sometimes it's other things. I don't know exactly how that works. But the overall, the motivation to make the art can't be money. If I start to think that way, it almost just shuts off. The inspiration, right? I find that really interesting because this podcast is called Bigger Than Me because it's about people who look beyond themselves

and who understand their role in the community and who are able to, try and be role models, set positive examples. And I think that it's really beautiful that you're able to see the importance of your art for the sake of the community. And it's one of the reasons I wanted to have you on is because I think it's so important to give people access to our culture. That seems like something that's taken longer than I think many would have liked because we've heard about the atrocities and people need to know about the horrible things that have gone on and the abhorrent legislation. But we also need to feed the culture. and give them an understanding of what they almost destroyed, what Canadian society almost removed from our society, and that we would have been worse off as a consequence had they been

successful. Everybody would have been worse off because we would have missed out on the beauty and the culture and the wisdom and the knowledge that exists within the artwork, within the language, within the stories. And I think that your ability to share that with people gives them that window into the beautiful nature of something that was almost lost, like trying to stomp out a flower and having that flower be able to survive and grow as a consequence, I think that's the example you said. So I'm just interested to know what it's been like to be able to share your artwork with the community and kind of the response it's gotten because it's been overwhelmingly positive from what I've seen.

It's pretty positive. And, you know, what you're saying is really important. And I feel like I'm from a family who shares the value of that. Yes, we know what's been done. Yes, we know where we've come from. And we always say we, because we understand we're not separate. And I think it's important for settler Canadians to understand as well that when a young person or middle-aged person or an elder is, feeling affected by something that happened 100 or 200 years ago that didn't happen directly to them.

That they're tied by blood and by memory and by collective history and by values and culture and traditions and tied, tied a thousand times to these people who experienced it. And we have empathy, deep empathy. and so when I work with those values I often think of my think of you know where am I coming from if I was new to this understanding who's my audience and a lot of that comes from theater and music who's your audience how are you going to relay a message to them so that they can receive it if they think differently than you And often times people do receive my artwork the wrong way.

I'm currently working on a big mural at a school, and the kids are misinterpreting the messages in the pieces, even though it's part of their curriculum. That doesn't look like a beaver. That doesn't look like a wolf. What's that? No, that's not an eagle. And I stand with my back to them because I'm painting. But I pause and really think about how they're just honoring what they know and they're growing in their understanding of the world around them and that the piece that I'm creating will expand that understanding. And maybe they'll see that wolf every day for six years and they'll know what a wolf looks like through a coast-sailish lens.

and they won't say that to someone and they'll teach their kids and their kids won't say that because it almost cuts me and so at the same time that there's these misunderstandings that happen on the sites there's some really beautiful understandings

that happen as well when little guy came sprinting around the corner at a middle school and I heard him running and stopped in his tracks and he said to his friend look, she's painting a Hulk-a-Malem-Wolf.

And I was like, oh, my gosh. It's not a Hulk-a-Melam-Wolf, but his reference to our culture and our world is through the language. How beautiful is that? What a world we're living in here in Chilawak where our young people are looking at us through a first lens of language. That's so cool. I couldn't agree more. And that is a beautiful story. But what is it like to have your art misinterpreted? You said that it cuts. I can't imagine what that experience is like because it is like you're sharing a part of yourself. And there is like a certain level of vulnerability to putting that out there. I just did a podcast a little while ago and somebody wrote just a comment being like nobody wants to hear this. And it was a negative comment. And it hurt because that's my biggest, my biggest fear starting this is am I wasting people's time?

am I like there were a lot of fears starting this and am I the right person to do this so I'm interested to know what that experience is like for you to have those misinterpretations they they do happen and it's it's a I suppose it's my job not to take it too deep it's really always a reflection of where someone else is at I have doubts I have super vulnerable moments and some of them come from the bulk of work that's coming my way. How am I deserving of this? And so where some artists are saying, like, oh, I'm struggling. I have no opportunities. My struggle right now is how to say no. And so I'm trying to pull in other artists or other young people to help me achieve these so that I can begin to share something. And there's, they don't know me. And without being super defensive, I just have to sit with the fact that I'm doing what I'm doing for my intentions and my reasons. I'm honoring what I understand are the principles that have been passed forward of co-sailish art, which is a language

within itself. I'm respecting them to a degree. I'm altering them to a degree, but I personally don't believe I'm altering them outside of those principles. And that means a lot to me. And if I stretch them a little bit too far, I might feel that in the work. But this understanding of why I'm doing what I'm doing and when I do it is the bigger thing. And it kind of overrides at the end of the day, right? We can zoom out and say, oh, this is the benefits. And this is the outcomes.

And, you know, this one time when I was able to turn around and give to this person or this organization, and it rippled out from there, those helped me through those moments. Right. I think that that's amazing because I'm in law school right now. And one of the topics that I'm working on is Jonathan Burroughs is one of the foremost leaders in indigenous understandings of legal traditions. and trying to find a way to incorporate that into the Canadian legal system. And he's done great work, and I was just reading a piece by him where he was talking about how oral traditions don't necessarily get the respect they deserve,

but like examples of you just saying that, like, you can feel whether or not you're within the principles, whether or not you're following them. And he talks about how indigenous people often learn the rules and how to abide by natural law through T. teachings about how the insects interact with nature and how the trees interact. And when elders share that information, they're sharing legal principles. They're just not calling it legal principle training the way that our kind of approach to law is treated. And so your ability to kind of make that comment of I can feel it and I know these broader

principles that I'm supposed to fall within and I know and I can feel whether or not I'm falling in with it is like that example of how oral traditions are strong, they're just not written down. They're just not documented the same way, but that doesn't make them less valuable. And I think that I'd like to know more about how you kind of approach these principles and where do they come from for you? Is this taught to you by elders or is this something you just feel and that you know after seeing other artwork that you want to make sure that you respect that? Let me think. There's a few things here. And, you know, one of them is that there was a resurgence of co-sailish design.

And we really have those now elders to thank for the work that they've done. To pick up a design style that wasn't viewed as in the same class, let's say, as other North Coast styles. but to be true to it anyway my hands are up to those elders because right now we're in a different time and people do have a bit of understanding and value for co-sailish design that they didn't have in the 70s and the 80s

maybe even the 90s so I'm really grateful for that work it's a lot like being grateful I think to the elders who stepped out of the closet and helped us be where we are today in our collective welcoming and understanding of people on the spectrum. So on the gay spectrum. So back to the art, when I began, I knew I was doing it wrong because one of my elders told me I was doing it wrong.

And she referenced a couple of artists who were following the principles and said, really look at what they're doing. It was at one point an idea of mine to seek out funding and then to go see Susan Point, but she didn't answer any of my well-written emails. I still adore her and have met her since, and we've had some laughs about it. But the thing is, so much of it was self-directed. And I began to see what in nature the art, the design itself was reflecting. Because the language comes from place and because we're Holmough, we come from place,

and because the designs come from this place, I really felt like if I spent an enough time outside and I looked around and I observed the life around us. I would begin to see what was happening in this. And somebody said, one of the elders in a Chiam community said, you know, nobody was making art traditionally, historically. Nobody had the time. We were surviving and the designs themselves serve a purpose. And at the time, the designs were from the people who they were meaningful to on the things they needed them to be on. There's probably a fancy way to say that.

No, that was well said. But what I mean is that a design served a spiritual purpose. And so to honor that, I don't just put designs on cups. I don't just make T-shirts, you know. I'm a plain T-shirt kind of a person. But part of that comes from my understanding of the value of this work. And so if I make a piece and I release it out into the world somehow, I'm automatically obligated in my own heart and mind to feel like it's got to mean

something based on not what I'm dreaming it up to be, because I feel like that happens a lot now. Someone paints a bear and then says, a bear means family, or paints a bear and says, this is directly related to, you know, the depletion of the bear population due to conservation officers shooting them because they're eating garbage bins or whatever. And all that stuff is really important. but what I think is also very important is continuance continuance we could bring forward even if it's difficult bring it forward

carry it with us share it what does a bear mean somebody might say what does that bear mean to you while I'm painting it and I'll say what does it mean to you because I'm not always in a position to share what it means to me because I come from a bear family and that means a lot of things and it's a very personal and it's very intimate and it's for a family to know and so bears will mean something different

to anybody and so that's why I ask what does this mean to you because it means all of those things absolutely and I think that that's so important for people to kind of see themselves reflected in the art because if we work too much on trying to get the right answer to the question, what is the art piece mean? You start to lose the value of the interpretation, the value of developing your own lens. And I think that that's, I started out, like before I started this podcast, I started out like I'm not an art person. And I think that that's like the wrong mindset to go into it with. It's like you have to develop for somebody who doesn't have that background, you have to develop that understanding that eye, to see what is being shared, to try and develop your

own interpretation of what does it mean to you and to try and grow that naturally from yourself and to figure out what things mean to you based on your own interpret, like, independent of what the correct answer, what the artist meant? What are you getting out of it? And how is that going to inform how you go forward in the world and really find a way to integrate the piece of artwork into your life so that you can when you see it you recognize it and you have that deep relationship but if you just go well this person told me this is what it is you're not going to have that same deep respect and relationship with the piece of work and go like this is something I'm proud to see every day or this is something I want in my house because I know what it means

to me and that's what matters. I'm also interested to understand more about how your family responded to your artwork like were you encouraged from all of them right? from the get-go, yes, you need to go be an artist, or I've had people on who've talked about how elders, kind of, like, Nina Zekis talked about how elders can be, like, guides for people and be like, this is where I think you're going, this is how I think you'll develop. So I'm interested to know what the kind of response was from your community in regards to becoming an artist. Yeah, no, not everybody's an art fan.

And I really have a handful of art fans to thank for the love and encouragement at a very young age. I grew up in a house primarily with the understanding that art was secondary. and that was reinforced so, so well, that I thought art is going to be my hobby. And I couldn't, like, shut it off the thinking in me that was like, I got to create something, got to make something, I got to draw, I got to do this, and the opportunities would come. Like I started, I think I did my first big wall mural when I was about 15 because a teacher saw the potential for that. And another teacher saw the potential for me to go to Emily Carr and she began having me prepare a portfolio to do that and took me over to Emily Carr School of Design to show that portfolio when I was 16. So there was a couple of teachers who really nurtured it.

And there was a couple of members in my family and extended family in the community who were always buying my work. And they thought they always would buy the work and say, this is going to be worth something someday. And that's so encouraging for a young person. And I really was always grateful for that. And when I graduated high school, I knew how to kind of make a cutout and hand-to-y-and-hand. painted t-shirt design and so i made a design that was special for those people and thanked them and i didn't know um you know where the art was going to go but i knew how much it meant up to that point and uh i always had a little art studio going you know i always had paints and canvases

and uh i did the hip-hop stuff for a long time and that kind of took over in a way they were of the same mind and I had a hard time doing both simultaneously. I joined an art collective in Vancouver at the knowledgeable Aboriginal Youth Association. I don't know if they're still going, but man, were they important when we were in our 20s? And we had an art space there

and we had an art collective and a handful of those people are still doing art today which is so fun to see. And then in So I was working with Teresa Warbis And we began to work in her home studio making music And I want to say

That was over 10 years ago And we're both so busy We're both running full tilt And we had small children and jobs and cultural responsibilities, and we're running all the time. And we said, oh, we better lock a day down. And she says, I started doing Mondays. And I was like, cool, I'm going to start doing Mondays too.

But Mondays meant I had to have this agreement where I could pull off working four days a week at my day job and keep Mondays working for art or music at the time and make up for the loss, The financial loss would be that I wasn't at work that day. So I had to make up for it. And I said, I'm going to go big or go home and say, I've got to make up for not only the one day, but I could make up for all five days. And I did that for, I don't know, like seven or eight years and thought, I wonder if I could take another day. And so my employee, my coworkers, part of me and my managers or whoever along the, way would try to kind of talk me out of taking mondays sometimes can't you just come in like we

always book meetings on mondays or they book meetings on mondays and i was like you guys know i can't do mondays and i get that like missing out feeling and um but i would just stick to it stick to it believe in it make it work and and began to really see it work and i just couldn't sacrifice it And so instead of dreaming about letting it go, I was dreaming about how to make it bigger. How do I make two days a week? How do I make three days a week? And last year, I said, if I'm going to make it three days a week, I've got to start booking things a year in advance. And so I started booking projects for all of 2021 in 2020 and then preparing my colleagues for two months in advance. I'm leaving at the end of March.

I'm done at the end of March. End of fiscal. I'm not going to be answering emails every day. I'm not coming to the meetings all the time. I'm going to be focused on my practice. And people don't always believe, even if they see the results of the work, which they were seeing, they didn't always believe in full-time art. It's like got a weird stigma in our society.

And it's that it's just, like, not going to tide you over. But I was proving myself in my own mind, and when I stepped out of my day-to-day work and really began to take the artwork seriously, I was seeing good things. I was seeing positive results, and I'm still going, and I'm still seeing good things and positive results. Right. That just reminds me of like doing this and I didn't tell anyone when I was starting this because I didn't want people to say, oh, but you've got law school. Like you really shouldn't be doing this. You really shouldn't be focused on this. But this was something like, like you've said, when you have like a vision and like you want to do it. It's like this started just

consuming my mind. I couldn't think of other things. I was like, there's so many people out there that are providing such a value that we're not hearing from. Like we don't know what they think. We don't know how they went about doing this and like I felt that growing up because my mom and I grew up off of reserve that I felt this deep disconnect from my culture from my community and this sense of lack of role models this lack of guidance on on who to be on where to go and that caused me to act out like negatively in my life and to cause problems and cause shenanigans rather than reaching my full potential and it was only at uFE where professors started going like you're really smart and you're just wasting away like falling asleep in class not taking this seriously and i have no

idea why like there's no excuse for that and that sense of responsibility helped me grow and this was just like an eager i can't not do this like these conversations are the highlight of my week because i learn so much and i i feel like this greater understanding of of how people move forward in the best direction and i think that like that story of overcoming that and having people kind of say like how are you going to make art a full-time thing. I'm interested to know how you handled that because, like, I don't think people realize that when you're going out and doing your own thing, that you have those people like nagging in the back of your head, taking away your confidence in those important moments.

And so I'm just interested to know how you've kind of handled that. I just don't respond. Yeah. And maybe that's what they want is a response, a reaction. And I'm like, proofs in the pudding, baby, like, I'm still going. I'm going to keep going, and it's not even about proving anyone wrong. And if it was about proving anyone wrong, it goes back to the intention. Yeah.

And the intention, it's got to be pure. It's got to be strong. And maybe that sounds like, oh, I'm really, you know, I feel like it's really important. I do feel like it's really important. I do. And when I sit down, exhausted at the end of the day, and I finally put my feet up and have a snack and watch Netflix. I feel like I've earned it.

Yeah. And I have to actively remember to rest. I am like a terrible never rest person, so I have to talk myself into resting and really just put it all down. And that's, that's a, that's a, there's niggers for that too. Like, oh, you're just going to sit around? Yeah, I'm going to sit around. I've been busy for like 12 hours. But the niggers are always there.

And I don't know what they want. But I don't really give them enough space in my head these days. I think I used to give them more. And it took time and energy to start to shut them out. Absolutely. And that's really good to hear. How has the response been more recently? because obviously you're booked up now and you're just killing it, in my opinion.

What has the response been like from elders and community leaders? Because I imagine that they view this is something that's pretty important for the protection and the sacred nature of our culture to kind of preserve and protect that. And so I'm just interested to know what their response is doing. I don't really get a response. And maybe it doesn't come up and I'm not asking. But if it comes up, if somebody wants to share that, I would entertain it.

I'd listen to it. I'd think I would. There's so many other things going on that it doesn't really, especially with family, my work doesn't come up. And sometimes I'm grateful for that because I can just be Carolyn and the house doing the things and not have to talk about work. Fair enough. I'm also interested to learn about how hip-hop impacted your life

Because for me personally, that was really how I kind of coped growing up, living in downtown, food unstable household, just kind of struggling in poverty. Those songs really spoke to me. And I think they speak to a lot of indigenous communities because I think there's a lot of parallels between what, like, the black community has faced and what indigenous communities face. And that story of resilience and overcoming things and facing adversity and feeling like we're down. and out and that we don't have that same respect. Like, I just feel like there's a lot of parallels and listening to individuals like Sean Anderson, I kind of modeled the photos after him, Big Sean, Eminem, these types of people, like they kind of talk about being the underdog and those experiences. So I'm interested to know how hip hop kind of entered your life and influenced you and how that

kind of whole chapter of your life transpired. Oh, I haven't done a ton of reflecting on hip-hop since we since I put it I kind of put it down and it had a really fun start and like a it was always challenging and fun at the same time so gang mentality moved in to community in the early 90s and it was so cool it everything from the way you talked to the way addressed and how you related to one another and what we were listening to. It was all a lifestyle at that time. And because I was in and out of the community, I was, it was almost like I wasn't quite in. I would never get all the way in. And there were, you know, my cousins

and them were like jumping each other into this gang life. And I thought, I don't, really want that. I don't really want all of it. But I thought it was so fun at the time and that they were all so real, you know, to move the way they did together and hang together and stay strong together. There was an appeal. And me and my adult brain are like, what are you thinking? But when I was a kid, I was like, there's a togetherness here and there's a solidarity here. And what we were faced with at the time with the leadership we had and the fishing rights being disputed by our people was we had an opportunity to put that togetherness and that gang mentality into action for a good thing. And so at the same time in the early mid-90s, our community was blockading

the railway, blocking the highway, hiding out in trees, scoping DFO and fishing. And I jumped on the boat and I learned how to fish with some really memorable folk who are no longer with us. And I honor them by continuing to fish. But this downtime that we had kind of turned into listening to beats and freestyling together. And I thought, I can vibe with that. I can write poems so I can kind of find the flow and the creativity and the rhyme patterns and stuff and the guys weren't like oh it's only for guys you know like they were they were open to the girls rapping and so we did some of us did and even though it was and it wasn't like about the same positive stuff and like the frame of thought that say rapture risen had

that was the beginning and so here we were tucked away in a room somewhere with like a double cassette deck and we taped the tops of the cassettes and record over top of whatever was on them and we just listened to them and encourage each other and like vibe out and time would disappear time would just go away because we were making music and when uh we only had so we would only have one tape with that one song and you had to go all the way through it to hear that one song, those moments are really meaningful. We couldn't just cue up our favorite song and listen to it any time. It came on, we had to really work for it.

And eventually I was at parties in Nanaimo, like after kind of 15, 16, without my family and friends from here. And without that gang mentality. and I had to stand alone and I really just wanted to rap all the time. I had the little bit of equipment at home or I was always like writing stuff down and I'd face a bad day and I'd just write in my rhyme book and stuff and I'd go to parties or hang out at school and just start rapping. And it was always an event to just for a girl to start rapping. and for it to be half decent.

People were like, they were invested. And I didn't really take it too seriously. I did a few shows here and there. And then when I moved into Vancouver, I did an open mic with some music peeps. And the music peeps in Vancouver at that time, like early 2000s weren't all about hip-hop. It was all the music people together.

And if there was an open mic, there's someone playing a guitar, singing a song, there's someone rapping over beats, there's someone playing a flute. Like, we were all together. And that was so cool. Joe's Cafe on Commercial Drive was like the spot. And then Chief Dan George Center, which is now the Bill Reed Gallery, had open mic night as well. And so it was just like one of the guys who had some DJ skills. playing the beats and like if you got up and you had your own or you use one of his you could

no shame hold up your rhymes and like read them out and everybody was in it together uh and and it evolved from there um the the music scene was so happening in vancouver that at the height of um the time trisa and i were working uh on rapture rise and we were either writing recording or performing almost all week and sometimes we're doing two shows a day like running from one show to the next and so there was just so much there so much space created for live hip hop and the music we were creating that we could we were recording at different studios and we were recording with different artists or uh doing live shows with other artists as well like it It was a long, it was like a long time because I think I started rapping with the guys and in the community when I was like 14.

And I didn't really stop doing hip hop shows until I was in my early 30s. Wow. And it was all, it was all live shows in good times. Like, it was great. That's amazing. I had no idea that it spanned for such an amount. of time. How did it compare or how does it compare and what made you decide to choose creating like art pieces instead? Like it feels like perhaps doing hip-hop spoke to a different

part of you like sharing the cultural side shares this part of you that's like encouraging the culture but music almost spoke to you in like the rough days and the tough days and being able to kind of like vent. So I'm interested to know how they kind of compared. And what led you down one path and not the other? I said, I feel like I said a lot. And I was starting to see less and less. I had less and less to say. I was, if I had written a rhyme for, you know, every day or every week between 14 and 30,

that's a lot, that's a lot of words. And it's a lot to say. And, you know, rap has changed a great deal. in that amount of time. I was never one to, like, do, you know, 36-bar verses or anything, but still a lot of rhymes. And when I sat down and thought about why I wasn't really doing a lot of rapping anymore, I feel like it was a practical decision.

I had a small child, and so I had to be able to get up and cook dinner or get up and clean up or pack them up and head out Um, and if, uh, if you, if you think, if you sit down and think about hip hop, you're investing so much time in, like, reflection in writing, uh, recording, rehearsals for shows, scheduling and administration for shows takes up a lot of time. And then doing the show itself, all of that wrapped up into a big package is a lot more, it felt like a lot more than I could do, uh, in my mom life. but if I could keep all my art supplies in a cupboard next to the table, I could pull them out after my son went to bed, and I could do that. Right. So I think it was a very practical decision. Yeah.

Yeah. And it really kind of switched from rapping to blues music in my 30s anyways. And so I felt like rapping was like so much of this young. It was like me when I was young. And like if I get up on a stage, like I could still do it. it. And it's still fun. But part of me is just like, it's really done, you know. And I don't even know who would listen to what I'm saying anymore in the style of how I want to say it. Interesting. I imagine that many people would be interested to come to a Carolyn Victor show. But fair enough.

How does music impact your artwork? Like, do you usually have headphones on? Or are you listening to the world around you when you're creating art? Like, what is some of your preferences? You mentioned the blues. Do you listen to music when you're creating? Not really. I put on movies and don't watch them. Just to have them on.

Yeah, it's just background, background noise. Sometimes I'll put on documentaries or series and I'll get like 30 shows into it and be like, I haven't even, I don't even know who these people are, like, but it's on. that's funny because I do the same thing when I'm doing on like a law school paper I just need something in the background I don't need to know what's going on I just need something to that's my show it's perfect for just putting on in the background that's awesome I'm also interested to understand more about like you're you're you're very well connected to the protection of the environment and I really I love that because I've read an article and you called yourself like a defender of the earth And then it was like the very next article that I read that was talking about your work with the Fraser River right near Sham First Nation and your work to plant trees, remove invasive species, and to reinvigorate the habitat for the salmon and the chum. And I'm interested to know that. And then we can also talk about your work with helping name certain areas after that. So this work with the, this environmental work and the title and rights related work was something that I think I was brought up into.

And so having my mom's husband at the time, all, he was in law school and indigenous studies, and so he was talking about it. I was, you know, listening to my grandma was chief for a while and counselor. And so there was these conversations happening around me, whether, you know, I was in the car while they were having them, or I had to kind of tag along to a meeting or something. So I was overhearing things. And they're so distant that I don't remember what they are. But when I hear them again, I feel like I've known those words for a long time. And when the fisheries department opened up for tracking and monitoring fish in the community, I took the job because I wanted a job at home in Chiang.

And I wasn't cut out for that work. Basically, we're taking the word of BFO that we have an opening and then sending our fishers out. They used to go out for like seven days at a time. And I had, I was supervising crews who were gathering numbers. So we would take these data sheets and put them into a computer and then fax them over to DFO. And I thought, this is what my, what I've come to understand as management for conservation and not a management for abundance. The fish populations were visibly declining over the years. and I thought, where better to go than the aquaculture division in Courtney and really see what's the problem with farming salmon?

It was a little bit off the track that I was on, but it was an interest area and I didn't have any tie downs, so off I went. I moved to Qualicum Bay with a distant relative and began working out of Courtney. I had a mentor through the Aboriginal youth internship program. It was the first year of it, kind of a pilot project. And I spent a lot of time following around fish specialists and biologists and decision makers at the Aquaculture Division. And then one day, I don't know if you ever read Red Wire Magazine. Red Wire Magazine was a, it was an easy.

East Vancouver and they'd put out articles. It's kind of an activist magazine out of the indigenous community in Vancouver. And I thought, I want to take this information that I've gained from following around people who work for the aquaculture division and turn it into an honest article. But I didn't think that was completely appropriate. I felt like kind of like I was spying on the province and then handing over the information to the indigenous youth. And like, yeah, I really wanted to do that, but was it legal?

And so I actually approached the deputy minister of aquaculture and a ministry of, he, I think it was called the Ministry of Lands, Agriculture, and Resources or something at the time. And he said, this sounds like a great idea. We're not doing anything that we shouldn't. Tell everybody what we're doing, yeah, and see if anyone else wants to take the article. And I was like, okay. And so I started to imagine what it was, again, the audience might want to hear. And a big part of the issue that I saw there in aquaculture was mortality and living conditions.

And, you know, we grow up with this connection to salmon. And having seen them in such a state as they are in these net pens, I cried the first time I saw it. They call them jacks in the fish farming industry where they might have a crooked tail or a missing fin or a big eye or deformations, essentially. and they swim head first into the net and balk into the net and they swim backwards and then they swim head first into the net and they bonk and then they swim backwards and then they swim backwards and they do it over and over and over again and I was like these fish are falling apart they're absolutely depressed if that's possible a lot of them maybe be like 400,000 of them schooling, just waiting to be fed. But part of the issue is that there is this catchment system for the dead ones at the bottom. And I'm not saying all farms do this, but I witnessed farms that collected the mortalities, dried them on a belt, mixed them in with food and fed them back to the fish in the pens.

And I was like, okay, the problem here isn't that we're eating these fish. The problem is that these fish are living in these conditions along with all the environmental issues that ripple out with the sea lice. And so I started to think about sea lice. And this article really described what I'd seen and the immense volumes of sea lice present in these farms, which were totally all. allowable. And then in fact that these fish were being just injected with medicines to prevent them from becoming too sick for the market. That was the line. They look terrible. We'll just

fillet them up and put them in a package. So there was a bit of work for the province. And I began to see where I fit. And in that internship program, they would, they would, ask you to look where do you want to be when you're done because it was partly funded for in the province mentorship and then the last three months of that internship or in community and they said where do you want to go and what do you want to do and I was like I want to take what I've learned here and apply it at home that's what I want to do and who says no to a paid intern so I I found a mentor in the community at the Stalo Tribal Council, and I packed up all the tools I had gained at the province with an understanding of how to apply those tools in the tribal

organization. But when I got there, our elder Kat Penaer said, oh, we don't respond to referrals. We're not treaty, and we're not looking for a treaty here. so what are you going to do and I decided to take the interest I have to gain an understanding put it into essentially words for non-technical folk and start to bring presentations into the communities so I did that for a long time and they gave me the title of community-based researcher And eventually there was five of us, and we were all working together to develop presentations on relevant applications on the territory, sum them up into nice presentations, and deliver them to communities. We'd offer a meal, we'd offer a presentation, maybe a few door prizes, and that was the way we were doing business.

And again, seeing a gap, what was missing was that we didn't have a way to manage the applications for development. on the territory and I thought we need strongly written letters not just lawyers but people in the community who understand our legal obligations and can write those letters so I started offering to write those letters that go back to the province because

the province will send hundreds of referrals and when they don't receive a response they simply say this band has been consulted and move on a lot of the times But we were always saying a non-answer isn't an answer. We are very busy. We're overwhelmed with stacks of referrals, and how do you prioritize them? Luckily, one of the ladies who is working at the Research and Resource Management Center here in town

developed the system in coordination with others that's now known as the Stala web portal. And so there's mapping, there's cultural sites, and there's applications and referrals all in one place. There's priorities. You can chat on the side. All your documents are there. All your contacts are there. It renews itself at 3 a.m. every day, and you get to see what else is coming in. So for a long time, it was my job to be a liaison for communities so that they knew what the applications were.

I'd gather their questions and their interests and we'd move over to begin to try to answer those questions internally so that we could have informed decisions being made. A lot of it ties into looking for the gaps and trying to fill them. And the gaps even still are just that there is incapacity there to follow through with kind of our side of of a referral i love it i love that work but i i burnt myself out um i think i saw through one referral that took six years six years to get a no response to the province and i was tired and we couldn't even begin to imagine how much it had cost the stalo to respond no to this it was a runner river hydro application on a creek with a number of bathing sites as well as regalia storage sites

in the area and we saw the engineer come in and cry about it literally three times he cried about it and it's so important to us to protect these bathing sites that we weren't going to give up and we weren't going to cave. And then within the same season that the province finally formally rejected the application, somebody else applied for a run-a-river hydro project on the same creek and the whole process starts up again. I saw one successful rejection through. It took me six years with a lot of other help.

And then the province just sent another application. Like, they forgot that we'd gone through this whole process of rejection. So I feel like the, what I guess what I'm seeing is that I've really gone through a number of different roles and positions, but they're all directly related to that protection and preservation. And kind of sprinkled in between are some really, really rewarding restoration projects. Yeah, and it sounds like you said such a good example by willing to take on the writing role and to start to put these, consultation opportunities together and to try and look for the gaps that are existing in how the conversation is going to make sure that action is being taken and I can't imagine how

frustrating it would be to get such a non-response from the government to have it all start back up again when it's like we just made it clear what our position is and now you're just like asking the same question again but can you tell us more about the work you did on the Fraser River and how that specific work of the invasive species and the planting trees. How did that exactly come about? So I was a community-based researcher in Chiam, and we received a proposal from a local biologist to scope out the area for presence of organ spotted frog, which is an endangered frog. And I picked up the application. It landed on my desk. It was, there was nobody else

to take it, I guess. And I said, wow, this is really beautiful thing. I know Blackberries are a problem Anybody in the Fraser Valley knows Blackberries are a problem but I didn't really know what to what extent they were a problem and so I was immediately interested

I love frogs as well and thought we'll call out this biologist and we'll see what you know what they want to do and so through those projects which were funded by Aboriginal funds for species at risk I began to know a bit about

invasives. I was already interested in learning about traditional plant use, so began to pair traditional plant use with the replanting where the invasives were taken out. Learned a bit about local amphibians and invertebrates and what they mean, what is biodiversity mean. Picking the brains of brilliant local species specialists and biologists and and and began to figure out that there's ways little small meaningful ways to give kind of give that revitalization to a space we clear the blackberries and we put in plants and then watch what happens beautiful things happen and over the years, I was working with a couple of crews and the Fraser Valley, Fraser Valley Watership coalition to do more planting. So supervising crews kind of off the side of my desk,

people who were going out and doing plantings. So always kind of tuned in to who's got the best indigenous plants locally and which nurseries, you know, have the best sales and stuff like that. And in taking the role of manager of Ayalstuk, Chiam's environmental consultancy, I inherited a couple of projects. And so I took this project to do some rock work in the Fraser immediately below the Chiam Fishing Village. And I thought, you know, it's really been burned into my brain that, hardening the foreshore of the Fraser is not always the best option. Sometimes it's the only option. Sometimes there's a mixture. I think they call it gray, gray green and green. Gray being

rocks only and gray green being a blend of veg and rock and green only being like setbacks and adding riparian plants and stuff. So I thought let's look at let's open it up, we'll talk to the fishers, who knows the river better than the fishers? Nobody does. Let's go talk to these guys. And I talked to a couple of fishers and the consistent messaging was that we didn't just need another new rock thumb sticking out into the water that we needed to restore this side channel. So it did the paperwork and provided the information and had the conversations and hired the contractors and it all started to happen, and it took a few years,

but we really are seeing the results now in that side channel. A lot of blackberries have come back, as they do, but what's exciting is that all along the banks of that side channel are mammal footprints. It looks like the eagles take swans there to eat them. I think I didn't even know eagles eat swans until I started to see. I didn't know that either. Eagle claws next to these swan carcasses and lots of fish. Of course, lots of fish.

They have lots of nice places to hide and rest and rear in that side channel now. And what it's done is it's proven Chiam's capability of seeing a project like that through. We harvested gravel during like a gravel removal moratorium. like there's no gravel being removed from the lower phraser. And we said this isn't for profit. We're removing this gravel because we're creating habitat. And this is the problem in the lower fraser is that sand, silt, and gravel is just moving in all the time. And we can't just ignore it and say we are managing the river.

we have to approach it from this kind of like multi-lens perspective. If we're going to restore sites, let's look at how it benefits not only the fish, but the fishers and the upland farm owners and the downstream folk. Because as soon as you begin to open back up slews and side channels and restore that soft green space where the flood water can actually move into, you're taking a pressure off of the downstream. And the pressure downstream is what's causing a lot of the problems. Hardened foreshores and rushing waters will just continue to beat into the river banks and erode them. Wow. Yeah. So a lot of it is about salmon in their habitat, but some of it is about flood management as well.

That's so interesting, and I just think it's such a good example because, like, I had Eddie Gardner on, who's an elder, and he talked about his work with Wild Salmon Defenders Alliance, and he's been committed that over 10 years. And I just, I love that because I think it's such a good example for others to realize that indigenous people do protect and act in the best interest long term of the environment and like that work was just it was so I was so grateful to read that because I've I interviewed Andrew Victor right along that river like I I'm in that area fairly regularly and to read that that piece by CBC on you and to see the work going in to try and protect the salmon trying to remove invasive species is just it's it's inspiring to me because

I hear about saving the environment so often but it's it's very rare that you get to tie it in with somebody who actually went out there and took action and helped make sure that the environment is taken care of. Can you tell us just a bit more about how Blackberries are an issue? I didn't even know that that was the case. Can you tell us about what invasive species you were dealing with and what that looked like? Blackberries are my nemesis. I don't think that they are doing as much good as they are doing damage. So they norm, from what I understand, blackberries in their natural habitat in the Himalayas, freeze in the winter, and so it stunts their growth. But they don't get cold enough here to freeze and stunt their growth. So they just go nuts. And they've progressed

over time. And as great as they taste, they just don't offer habitat value. The birds don't use them like they do other local plants for nesting and even hiding. Like if you see a bird kind of scooting into the bushes, blackberry bushes, they might not have, they might be frantic. It's not their first choice is what I'm getting at. But the blackberries here might grow into an area that's been cleared. rapidly and out-compete the natural succession of the plants, say, in the riparian that would serve a higher ecological value. And so we'll go in and we'll assess an area for, you know, are these blackberries preventing good access for species? Are they preventing good habitat for species?

creating not just an unstable bank situation, but sometimes the slope of a bank needs to be shifted. Like the angle and the slope of a bank can be shifted so that it allows for better runoff, like more sound runoff and less erosion into a creek. So pulling those blackberries out with heavy machinery and then following up with like a full rake and removal of the root balls uh root balls is is usually what it takes to get the kind of the worst of it out and then um installing local plants to and in hopes that they'll outcompete those blackberries a lot of times they both they both do well and they'll just grow to and if there's funds and capacity the blackberries get clipped down over time right and you're

also involved and have experience as a plant harvester can you tell us a little bit because I've heard that before but I don't feel like I have the depth of understanding of what that actually looks like and what plants perhaps are you're harvesting oh yep plants are plants are, I think plant are some of my biggest teachers. And in the last number of years, probably since my son was born, I've begun thinking about traditional foods beyond meat and fish. And what does that look like? Traditional medicines beyond just like kind of the Chinese traditional medicine.

what are what's in our backyard what's in our front yard how how we can live in the season and like what are the the ancestral recipes and plants in their power kind of beyond the them helping us through physical ailments they have power as well all all of that is kind of where I'm coming from right and can you give us like a little bit more detail on what those plans look like because I recently watched it's on Netflix fantastic fungi and that one like the part that I got the most out of and I talked to this with Brian Minter was that trees actually have lineages they have family members and if they feel invaded by bugs or there's not enough nutrition there's not enough water. They will actually push their tree lineages farther away from them to grow farther away if there's bugs attacking them. And that that's like a strategy and they rely on mycelium to communicate with each other. So fungi to have those conversations and to move there. And once I

learned that, it was like, okay, I don't know anything. I sort of thought that I, like, we have this kind of like mentality, I think, in Canadian culture that we're at the top of the pyramid and we run things and everything is like less than us and I think I like growing up off of reserve I had this mentality that I'm so much smarter than a tree and that I like I have this like life experience and that I'm better suited to make decisions and once I learned that trees communicate it was like okay like we have to throw away all my understandings of like what I think the world is and I think that it's very institutionalized to think when when you said like plants or your teachers it's like for the person in like academia that's like that's nonsense the book is where you get all your

knowledge from and I think that that's an error I think that we we too often go to the books and think that we're being more informed and as I said earlier John Burroughs is trying to show that like there is knowledge within these plants there's knowledge within life around us there's principles we can gain from that and so as a plant harvester I'm interested to know what you've learned through these experiences and like what you get out of those experiences. I started writing them down and have a bit of a book

going about what plants teach me. Routed people teach me. That's how the statement begins. And I don't have a perfect example to bring you right now. But there's a sense of um knowing your purpose and living purposefully uh and and uh sharing the gift that pairs with that purpose um i i was listening to some elders one time and and they said um you know our people

didn't ever have a word for being used our people didn't say you're using me a long time ago if you had something to offer somebody you helped them and you you lived in a way in a reciprocal way where you wouldn't just go around using people so uh i take that in i like that i like that that world view that that people are not for using um but that gifts are for others and Different times I've seen plants after I've harvested them as a medicine for someone. I've seen them work with that person so gently and so true that the Western medicine and the frustrations associated with the medicines not working have just kind of created a block to finding wellness, and the plants have a way of wiggling their way into our

hearts and our beings and breaking down the defense that says, I'm never going to be well. Nothing's working. I hear people say that. All I'm getting are side effects from these medicines. And so when I start to work with someone in the plants, I always say, you know, they're very intelligent. You might think you want to help, you want these plants to help you through your physical symptoms, but they're going to work through more than that. And they're going to help you. They might show you something, and they might dig deep. And so sometimes people let them, and they have this profound plant medicine experience.

And I celebrate every time, because I know it's possible, that and so much more, because they speak to us through our own understanding. I think plants can do that. But sometimes people have very doubtful minds, and they're coming to plant medicines as a last resort, and the plants will work anyway. And I celebrate again. And I guess the third scenario is that somebody's like,

oh, I guess I'll try this plant medicine now. Nothing else is working. And oh, the plant medicine doesn't even work, and it doesn't. So there's these scenarios and I'm always looking at what's the state of this plant and I had one teacher who referred to the doctrine law of signatures and that's that the physical nature of a plant

can indicate the body system it's useful for. And beyond that, their behaviors and the way that they interact with other plants in the space, the way they defend themselves or not. The way they interact with our bodies can teach us about ourselves if we're willing to look at them that way. Right.

And it's a type of intelligence to read the land and to read the plants and to see the spirit of something. And the plant is never looking at someone like, you know, you've got this smoking history and, you know, you've really been kind of fighting yourself about, you know, how you feel about a certain scenario and maybe you're judgmental sometimes. And like the plants just don't do that.

They're like, here's the sickness, here's my ability, let's work with you. And our medicine is pure when it comes from the plants. It's pure. And it's not to say there isn't dangerous. and side effects, there is. We need to know that there's contraindications and we need to know that we have to meet them with our faith and we need to be consistent with them. We can't just take something once and get better and that different people have different relationships with different plants. So my favorite example is that I met a woman who said,

that her mother-in-law works with a rattlesnake plantain because it's lucky and it's a really strong medicine and she never sees it. And I was like, huh, we have it all over the place. Like if you go up into Chilwack Valley or go to Skagit Valley or you head up anywhere where it's a little higher and drier, they're everywhere. What are my lucky plants, you know?

And so when I started, I started with like a hundred different plants. and the teacher who I was working with understood those plants a very specific way and I worked with a couple of other people and different people have different understandings about how powerful things are what they pair with who should take them when you should take them and really a lot of it comes down to what I like to refer to as a spiritual chemistry and so if I believe in a plant and its ability to work in a very specific way and I make a medicine with it

and I give it to someone and I say this plant works this way it has a better chance of working that way than if I just kind of go and read a book and it says this plant works for native communities across the coast as this like yeah but how many people are using it for something else

So went from a list of 100 down to about 15, 16 plants that I like to use. Devil's Club buds are at the top of my list. Devil's Club has a really valuable bark and root, but I love the buds. So that's from the Jinseng family. Wow. And is very abundant here. We're super blessed with it. So I put it in mostly everything.

I take it every day. Right. And this second flower, this is a flower that's primarily used as a spiritual protection. So this is cliff paint brush. It's also endangered locally. So I don't generally pick it. And Stinging Nettle is one of my favorites as well because it's food, it's medicine, it's fiber for tools. and it's so generous.

What made you choose to get them put on to your body? Like, what called you to do that? I drew them one day, and then I went and saw a tattoo guy who I thought could recreate my drawing, and he did it his own way. And, like, you were just like, I'm really proud of these. These are my faves. I want to see them every day. Yeah.

Yeah. That is amazing. I'm also interested to know how it came about for you to end up helping name the community for it. and your work with the E-Sector in Harrison Hot Springs, because, again, I think that that's that steward relationship with the environment and, like, really, just setting a really good example. So can you tell us about that process with community trails first?

Sure. The Staller Research and Resource Management Center has a web portal, and it was my job at the time to review applications and relay voiced priority points. projects to community. And trails don't land very high on a priority list, but an elder said to me one time that an elder from Chiam said, if you have a pristine wilderness or second growth wilderness, if you have a natural space and you begin to open it by putting a footpath in,

sometimes that footpath has a parking lot and then people gather there and then sometimes that footpath turns into a wider footpath and then you have motorized use and then you have people wanting to live there and then you have a whole town there or you have mixed use you have very very disturbing recreational behaviors that aren't mixing well with cultural and use, which never used to have a trail at all. It was kind of an invisible footprints into the space just due to the nature of whatever ceremony it was taking place there. So I took that with me and I said to my manager at the research and resource management center that I wanted to ensure that the trails were receiving the response they needed. I wasn't getting any help from elected leadership in the communities, but I said I knew that the area itself was rich with history already, and could I be the voice at that table? And they said, yes, but can you do it on your own time? And I was like, oh, this is kind of a funny mix between like work obligations and me not wanting to not do it and so I'm doing it suddenly doing it on my own time and then I found myself on the sitting with the um chelawak parks and trails society and then I found myself sitting at

the regional parks and trails table at the regional district and then I found myself with an invitation from the mayor to sit at the mayor's parks and trails table and was volunteering at all of them. And I know that we have this strike while the irons hot moment here where we can really begin to reintroduce place names or look for new ones. And so when they were naming these trails, the guy, Mark Grodanis, maybe you've heard of Mark, he sent me a map of where the proposed trail was. And one of them looked like a baby owl. owl. And I thought, well, let's bring out some of our understanding about endangered, threatened and endangered owls in the area because there's endangered spotted owls in the area. And it's

really great that there's this kind of low impact recreation happening here because we want to protect those owls. And so I looked into a name that could reflect something the baby owls do. And so when baby birds leave the nest for the first time, it's called Tzaltzet or Chalkset. And when I pitched that to Mark, he said, oh, that's what downhill mountain bikers do. Let's go for it. Downhill mountain bikers kind of kick off at the top of the trail, and it's this, like, reckless abandoned moment where you're just going for it. And I was like, that's really cool how we're able to relate Chalkset between, like, like birds, baby birds, people, and, you know, mountain bikers.

And then the second one was Pete Hill because we have kind of local stories about Pete Hill and where they fit into family stories, and they were finding these salamanders on the trail while they were building it. So we named one for what we found in place, and we named one for what they were doing there. Spotlam was just named Spottenham because you go like smoke when you're coming down the trail. And when it came to Lechquam, we had to fight a little bit. So the previous mayor was not up for it. She wanted to call the park Hack Brown Park. And anybody at the trails table was like, no one wants to call it Hack Brown Park. Where's the appeal? And well,

you know, there's some local settler values attached to something to do with Hack Brown. I don't know what they are. I suppose I should have educated myself on that at the time. But I was more interested in pursuing the use of Loquam because our elders all have said that whole mountain, that whole lower mountain has always been mossy. It receives very little sunlight. And there's something really special about the plants that grow there and how you have this unique ecosystem and who relies on it and let's keep that understanding. And when the new mayor came in, it was so exciting to hear that he was like, yep, we're going with Lekwam, out with Hack Brown. Nobody wants Hack Brown. Let's do it. And I was like, I like this. This is what we,

this is what we needed. And so we began rewording the signage, I suppose. Thankfully, the city's invested in this type of work. And we can show that, yes, people can learn how Kalimelam words. Yes, we can see for ourselves what the values of those places are. and look at places for for what is there and not always some man who put his foot down and said for the from this day forth this place will be known as like okay yeah some of that is cool but but let's honor what it is to know place names for what's present i think we're more likely to protect and safeguard and make observations about a place if it's named after what's there. Absolutely. And my partner and I actually went there as I was preparing for this just to kind of like, I take this role seriously. And when I saw that you were involved in that, I was like, I've been there before, but I didn't go into it with that mindset. And so you're right, it is mossy. And it was just, it was such a pleasure to view it

through a new lens that I hadn't considered. Because when you go somewhere, you're not necessarily thinking of like what it's known for by throughout history. You just go there. You do your walk and you leave, but being able to bring that mindset and that, uh, the perspective that you had shared through the naming ceremony and having it named that, we went through. And it was just a different lens that we got to experience the trails through. And I think that that's valuable for people to kind of change their perspective. And I think it's interesting that you say, um, Mayor Ken Popov played that role because that is something I'm surprised to hear consistently through having David Jimmy on, um, having Derek Ep on is that he has really, um,

worked hard to build positive indigenous relationships and he says it but a lot of people say that they're trying to build positive indigenous relationships and the proof isn't always there but being able to hear this from different people that it was it was so much easier to get that naming done with him I think just

is very encouraging to hear yeah that guy makes a difference you know I was painting at five corners district 1881 this summer and I had put out that video I felt pretty vulnerable painting in the same space

I put out the video because people could just walk by and there was no like in place security I was like I'm gonna I'm just gonna do it you know and and the mayor walked by one day and I was like oh he's passing through and he's like no I came to thank you for the video and let you know I shared it I believe you it's good to know the history thank you for sharing I like what you're doing

and it was he's just like ding ding ding like thank you sir thank you for taking the time out of your very busy day and for sharing that you understand what we're you know what's being said here uh can you tell us about that piece i think i know the one you're talking about about the historic um indigenous person who was wrongly tried and and uh held responsible for something he didn't do can you tell us that story sure uh so the man's name was Louis Victor and we're in my family there, the Victor family aware of what kind of a man he was and what kind of work he did. And the story comes in fragments. It came in fragments to me as I was kind of coming of age. and becoming an adult.

And it all really came in, came kind of narrowed down into one story when my late great grand-ante passed an ancestral name onto me and said, now you can go learn about it. And I went to the Coqualeza archives and picked up a box that had just loose papers in it. And twice I came upon this piece of paper that had handwritten history about Louisville. Victor on it. And the paper simply said that Louis had been invited by a doctor in Harrison Mills who had a son who had contracted smallpox to help heal his son. And I guess this ancestor, he wasn't taught to, he was taught not to say no. And he went to help that boy, but everybody knew. You don't get well from smallpox.

But he tried to help him anyway. And then when a boy died, was charged with murder. This is where the story gets mixed up. So the family story is that he was charged with murder and hung at five corners. And then when I was telling that to Jennifer Feinberg, who writes for the progress, she said, I'm going to go look for the story in the Chilliwack archives because they have old newspaper clippings. And so she sent me a screenshot of the newspaper clipping that was about him. And it said something along the lines of how he'd someone across the river in the

dark saw him hit a I guess an indigenous constable like over the head with a pipe and kill him and then Louis was charged with murder

and hung in New Westminster and his family was there and they took a steamship to get there and this is where the courthouse and the hangings were taking place at the time so there's this mixed up story but somebody took the time to write down in very nice handwriting back in this late 1800s what they wanted the family to know that countered what the newspaper had written at the time

and I know that the newspapers back then would have deliberately steered the view of the people towards colonial law being the most appropriate and upheld always. And so I don't believe the newspaper article. But what people seem to be upset about, some people seem to be upset that there's no record of hangings in five corners. And so if there's no record of hangings in five corners, they didn't happen. I've heard from a number of different people in and around a stalo community of hangings in five corners. And so it all kind of came about in the Algar Brothers Instagram post when they said,

we've got this brand new alleyway and we want to name it and what's your idea? And I said, hangman's alley because I'd heard it in a movie or something, but I thought it would be a way to start the conversation. Chilliwack, you have a dirty history. Stop celebrating District 1881 like it's the new cool thing because you've got a dirty past and you can't just put nice people on horses up there and not acknowledge the truth. Thankfully, Dave Algra was interested and he immediately contacted me and said, do you want to meet up? Do you want to chat? I'd like to hear more about this. And so at the same time, a couple of local friends and someone from Chiloac tourism

had said to the Algar brothers, like, you should get some of Carrie Lynn's art downtown as well. And I was like, why don't we pair the two? We can really talk about art that heals. And Dave Algra was like, yeah, let's do it. And so I said, before you guys do any building when I met with Dave, I was like, before you do like a lot of ground disturbance and building here, it would be interesting to discuss how do we heal in this space? How many people were hung here? Are there souls trapped here? Are

they going to haunt the new residence? I don't know. I don't know. But all I really knew was that we had this family history tied to this place and it was being largely ignored or called a lie. and that's not cool so we were going to have an oracle come in to the space at like six in the morning and try to reach our ancestor through that space and see where he was at did he need some help did he need a burning or did he need some clothes to help get him through to the other side we didn't know but we were open to it and the Alga brothers were also open to it and so that morning when everybody was getting ready to go to that ceremony the Oracle's truck broke down and it didn't it didn't happen and so we we thought well

maybe maybe everything's okay right like he was a strong spiritual man and it was you know, it's our human minds that often want to help spirit, but spirit is, you know, so much more than what we see and know in our own brains. So we thought maybe he's at rest and we can let this go. And then we began the discussions between the Algar brothers and I about how to put art into the space that reflected local history. And it evolved into Pete Algra designing that parkade and leaving space for four murals. And he said, we want to see something here.

Can you give us some ideas? And so I drew them ideas and ideas and ideas. And they were so willing to say no, this isn't it, this isn't it, this isn't it. And I really just wanted to reflect everybody. I wanted to reflect the play space-based history. And I wanted to reflect the Chalquake tribe and the Pallel tribe. And, oh, we got to do the kids and make sure the regalia is accurate. And it was too much.

And then Pete Algra said, just do what you always do with the shapes and the animals and stuff. And at first I was rubbed the wrong way. Like, oh, you think I have a typical style, do you? But I do. I do kind of have a typical style. And so I tried to just simplify it all down into. meaningful species, and of course, Louis Victor, a piece that would honor Louis Victor. That is a really, really amazing story. That was fantastic. I'm interested to know what,

we talk a lot about reconciliation, and it sounds like the Algra brothers and Ken Popov, they seem, from your telling of it, genuinely interested in that. What was that experience like for you to, like, when I imagine you're meeting with like a big corporation type name that things aren't going to go as smoothly. Like, I imagine it being somewhat like dealing with the government, that there's going to be a lot of pushback and shenanigans going on. Can you tell us what that was like for you to kind of have people, sounds like, support what you were doing?

Excuse me. Yeah, definitely the Algar brothers are approachable and they're very intelligent in the work that they do. I get excited when they have a new project. And some of it might be seen through different lenses, but I'm always willing to look at it through a lens of like when they're trying to bring people into functional space. And when we started to talk about artwork, they kept saying, you're the expert. But, you know, I say things like, you're the client. And so they're like, you're the expert.

I'm saying you're the client. And we'd kind of go back and forth like this until I really. genuinely understood that they trusted my artistic vision. They were super cool about it. And it was finally Pete who said, why don't you just paint something? Because we thought about stamped concrete and we thought about light installations and we thought about marble or mosaic, tile mosaic, and we thought about iron work and aluminum work.

And all of those things are just a bit outside my wheelhouse. And they were like, why don't you just do a mural? And I was like, okay, let's just do a mural. But they're super supportive and funny and kind all along, all along the way. That's fantastic to hear and really encouraging during this time where it feels like many people are looking at like how do I work towards reconciliation in a meaningful way and how do I bridge those divides and incorporate different perspectives. And I love that everybody was supportive of telling that story because I do think that art serves different purposes and can be used as a tool of education.

And I'm wondering, like, what has your experience been with this kind of, like, it sounds like, Amber Price has really been the driver of the Chilliwack murals and, like, bringing about the festival and stuff? What has that been like for you to kind of watch this explosion of murals coming to the downtown Chulawah? I, I'm an advocate for local indigenous artists. And to be 100% honest, I want to see more local indigenous muralists. There's not a lot of local indigenous muralists. There's plenty of carvers and drawers and painters and digital artists, etc.

But it's a very specific medium. So I understand that it's difficult to find Stalo muralists. But I think Vancouver Mural Festival is a shining example of using Muscoom's Slowethe, and Squamish artists as curators and as artists every single year. And so even though Chilliwack is a mix of indigenous people and, you know, maybe there's 70, 7 or 8,000 non-Stalo indigenous folk in and around town and there's important voice there, I think the priority here should be our story and our artists, that's my personal view. As far as what Amber's doing, bringing in artists and allowing people to watch

them work is so profound in a city like this where we've seen just a boring walls and even brick is more interesting than a plain old white wall. It's been a long time coming and for her to have that motivation to reach into her own quality time. and her own pocket and her own personal set of skills and stir it all up, like, make it happen is fantastic. I love driving. I never even drove through that part of town until recently. And, you know, art is so much more.

And it's such a quiet, powerful thing that it creates community around itself. And pieces live on in different people differently. but I wouldn't doubt that I'm not the only person who's taking a detour through downtown these days because they want to see their favorite mural for a second. Yeah, I actually had the opportunity to talk to, I think was Amber, and just talk about the Inez-Louie piece. And just one of the reasons I started this is because growing up, I didn't have any indigenous role models.

Like Stephen Point wasn't a huge name when I was growing up that I heard a lot about. and that's him and Jody Wilson-Raibald even more recently are like the two big names that come to mind when I think of indigenous leaders and I think the struggle for so many is that they're both in the more government colonial type systems. Jody, not as much, but facing those challenges,

I think that that can be tough for artists and like being able to show the vast array of indigenous leaders who set such a good example in other unique areas like hip-hop, like music with Inez, and knowing that there's that. piece in downtown at the school I went to Central Elementary and having an image of like an indigenous woman leader. I think is just so valuable for people to be able to grow as an experience from that and to see a role model daily when you're walking to school. I think hopefully

will make such a difference to the next generation. And I'm hoping you can tell us a little bit more about perhaps not all of your pieces, but some of your favorites that stood out to you or that came from your feelings or like a vision that you had. I love that one of Inez It's fantastic and so big And they added those lights to it And it all really came together nicely I can only imagine what else is coming

Because everything that's been done to date is so good As far as my work And You know, the biggest, let's start with the biggest challenge piece. And the biggest challenge piece was a metal corrugated wall on a slanted alley in South Granville last year. And the curator from the Vancouver Mural Festival who offered the wall spaces, I'm not going to lie to you, this piece is going to be difficult. but you have a style with the taping and the spray painting that would actually work here.

So come take a look at it and tell me what you think. It was super long and the sun would just beat down on it most of the day. And like, that's one of the struggles of painting. The sun is so hot because you have to work in the heat. But that curator said, just shoot me some ideas. and this is not just this one mural but many murals when people say that to me I really do I just shoot them some ideas that I think are cool

but often they're seen as a bit abstract so some of my work that I want to do is a lot of graphic it's very graphic it's very geometric it's a lot of shapes the shapes are meaningful to me but they don't translate well apparently. And that's frustrating. Like as an artist, like if you say whatever you want within reason and I produce something and then it's not what you, like, how about we're just clear from the beginning? It's not whatever I want. And I always appreciate when people can

kind of select something I've done in the past and say, can you recreate something that's in this style. It's really helpful. So this piece in South Granville, I'd gone through a few revisions and they'd all been very, very different concepts. And finally I landed on something that was geometric shapes in an animal. And I thought this would be really meaningful to me because when I see, I drive in between Rosedale and Chalawak and I see swans and geese kind of running across the ponds that form in the fields and they like kick up this spray of water that curls behind them and forms like a like a streak so if they're going fast enough they just leave like a streak and I think that's cool so I was like I'll try to do something like that and we like projected

the image onto the wall in the dark, and it was very, very blurry because of how far away we had to go to get the picture on the whole wall. So we just drew like a dot matrix with reference lines of where the lines crossed, and then we went back and used a level for every single line. Every single horizontal line we used a level. And if you put a piece of tape on a angle, on on a straight line up and down on a corrugated wall the destination you want the destination to be where you vision where you envision it but the angle at which you put the tape determines how far off of your destination you're going to line up and so we on the first day in the first hour we're like oh no this is going to be the hardest thing we've ever done um so you put a piece of tape

down and it's wrong and so you take it off and you put another you put it back down until you get it right but so by the third day in we had figured out how to sort the angle on the tape to get it to our destination based on the angle we wanted and the correlated wall and it was just bonkers but the result was so cool because you have all these very straight lines on on a corrugated surface. And because we'd projected the image from up the alley, a good 20 meters, if you move from left to right down the alley,

the picture shifts as you move, like the perspective of it shifts. And if you position yourself back far enough, you don't even really see the corrugated wall. You just see the flat image. So that's one of my favorite pieces, Not because it came from my own kind of vision, but because we were, we had an idea of what we were up against. We were completely wrong.

And then we managed to accomplish the vision in the end. Right. Yeah. That is incredible. And it just leads into a question of like, what is it like to make these murals? And are you ever nervous? Is it easy to put some? Like, I can't imagine it's easy.

So what is it like to look at a wall and go, how am I going to make this all size up properly? Do you usually have to use projectors in order to come up with a plan? What is your process? There's a few processes. And so if I've got a nice flat wall and it's small enough we can project. And so I'll draw, I'll take the image, sorry, I'll take the image from a photo, I'll take a photo, draw on top of the photo, draw the line work, directly onto the wall, take it to the printer and have them printed on a transparency and pull out the old overhead projector or digital projector and put it out. That's one way to do

it. It's not always successful. Other ways to do it are to do like a doodle grid. And so we use doodle grid on the Chiloac Middle School because there's multi-layered surface and there's kind of this like 10 foot drop between part of the facade and the building itself. And we needed the lines from the building itself to line up exactly with the lines that were like 10 feet in front of it. So what we did was drew shapes and letters and numbers in a really random pattern all over the facade and took a picture of it and then overlaid that picture with the design itself and reduced the opacity of the top image so that I could use those shapes as a reference. I saw it on Amazon Prime on a mural painting show on Amazon Prime and I was like, this is what

they're doing. This is what muralists are doing. This is how they get it so exact. And all over the world, they're using this doodle grid. And it looks like a total mess. One of the janitors came out of Chiluak Middle School. And he looked up at the doodle grid. And he looked at my partner and I.

And he said, what a waste? And we're like, what? And he's like, somebody wasted a lot of energy, and that doesn't even look good. And we're like, oh, are you under the impression that's graffiti? And he's like, well, yeah. No. We did that. And he's like, what? Oh, my gosh. Because it's such a messy process to, I guess, to the untrained eye.

But once you know what it is, it makes all the sense. It would be interesting to get his thoughts now. Right. And then, I mean, third and final is just putting an image on a wall. Yeah. Straight from the concept or a free hand into the space. And I know some people are really good at that. It might depend on what style you have, I don't do a lot of that because I really want it to look exactly like my mock-up. So I'll do a mock-up on an iPad and then send those mock-ups away to whoever's

making the decisions and they send them back and say, we like this one or we like this from this one and that from that one. Put them together, please, and we'll put them together. And so making, I don't get super nervous because the methods are true. The methods work. And it's a If we have the right weather and the right tools, we can make it real. Wow, that is just so fascinating to understand that, like, you've sought out, like, information you've learned about the medium of communicating the artwork. Is this your favorite form of art creation, or is this something that's just kind of come about?

Like, do you prefer different styles of artwork? What are some of your preferences? I think I like murals right now. It's super satisfying to the result is super satisfying. And it kind of feels like I have access to the work all the time. If I create a canvas piece or a print and sell all of that, I don't see it again. I don't see them. But if it's an outdoor piece, anybody can access it.

It's like accessible gallery space. here's this piece at Strathcona and here's this piece at Chiluac Middle and you could just drive by and see it any time. Yeah, I don't disagree and I think that it is again that way of connecting people with the culture and with a different perspective on indigenous people that perhaps when you're only told about Indian residential schools in the 60s group you miss out on the beauty of it. The other part I just wanted to ask about is not necessarily for yourself but for other muralists and indigenous muralists, what are some of the challenges in regards to putting a price on your

work? Because that seems like something I've consistently asked other guests who give and share their art is like, how do you place a value on something when it's your time, it's your vision, it's so many different pieces, and it seems like that would be something that would be a challenge. Yeah, it's a challenge until you have a system, I think. And people have asked that, other artists have asked that, how do you price your workout? And some people say, what's your price per square foot for a mural? But a different, if you have a different wall, you know, if you got a stucco wall, cut rock stucco wall, I'm going to price it completely different from an indoor painted drywall type of wall.

I'm going to price them differently because you're exposed to the weather and you're kind of cutting up your fingers. while you're trying to tape and paint that wall and, you know, shipping things in and out of Vancouver from my house in order to reach a wall, right? So there's practical, logistical expenses to do with painting murals that are easy to kind of price out. Here's the price of the materials, and here's my hourly design rate is something that's changed over the years.

I remember when my hourly design rate was $14. an hour. And I thought that was good because that's the equivalent of a part-time job. And so I would do design work and I'd price my end product based on $14 an hour. Over the years, I upped it. And I think it was Inez, who's a friend of mine, she's really believed in me all this all along through this and pushed me to know my worth. And she said one time, your hourly rate should reflect what you want it to be, not what you think people think people think it should be.

And that's tough, like tough, especially when, you know, you and I previously discussed the vulnerability. What is this worth? And if you say what you think it's worth and people don't think it's worth that, that's not a comfortable feeling but what has happened is that any time I increased my hourly rate to reflect what I thought the value of it was I've met it's been met with success in the sense that people receive it well people are willing to pay it if they're not willing to pay it somebody else is which is really good because I can't take all the project

anyways. But say for example, a school, a local school has a budget that's less than what like what kind of my standard mural rate is. I don't just say no. I say how can this is how we can work through it. So we can reduce the complexity of the design. We can reduce the number of colors that we're going to use, so less expense for materials. And through reducing the complexity of the design, we reduce the time spent painting the wall. And how do we use the space so that we can have good coverage and we can tie the mural into the space without covering everything? A mural doesn't have to be a blocked out wall with a landscape on it. A mural can be a ribbon of imagery that ties things in together. And that's kind of what we did

at Slesi. So somewhere like Slesi said, we absolutely want to have a mural. We have a modest budget. How do you work with it? I went in and looked at the space. I said, how about this? And it's just, it's imagery that ties in the colors and the elements that they want, but we really only spend about three days painting. Where Caltis Lake said, we have this massive wall. you know what's kind of the what's the minimum you think you could do it for and so for schools I give that I love to see them incorporating curriculum

into the pieces I'm working on honoring place with a couple of schools which is super fun and right up my alley and when I get an offer from say a marketing firm or something in Vancouver I just go full rate, and trust that if they really want me, they'll pay it.

And sometimes people say no. They're like, oh, our budget was, you know, a third of what you're suggesting, or they try to determine what kind of materials I can use. And I just say, no, thank you. I'm busy or I've got some priorities I'm working on. And I do, I do. And my priorities are that people, honor the practice and they're not trying to steer what colors I'm using because they think

they know what traditional is. Red, black, and white, sure, those were the available colors some day and age, but we're in 2021 and we've got all the colors now. So let's just use them. Absolutely. That is a great way to approach it. And I think hopefully we'll help other listeners who may be interested in this field understand more of the process. You spoke about painting in place. Can you tell us about what that means? Sure. So place-based values is a big part of like the plant work, the title and rights work, and the artwork. And it's something that I'm always willing to promote. And the example right now is that there's a school who asked for a land acknowledgement mural. And I went in and I looked at the space and I said, you know, we could kind of

copy the mountains that are outside the doors and that would be a place based because they're very iconic mountains. But all you have to do to see them is go outside the door. So let's dream up something with a bit more imagination. So we talk a bit about what land acknowledgement means to me and what land acknowledgement means to them. And in, you know, in my kind of think, in my thinking, that the children would greet the guests on the beaches as the canoes arrived with their open hands and they would dance. And if guests were welcome, that was the land acknowledgement. the acknowledgement was that you're met with open arms and so I said what about a little girl with her hands raised and she's a spindle world dancer and the school was like well we're thinking you know of a asking the parents and the grandparents hear what they think and I was like great so let me know what they say and so some of the local parents were talking about

place, local place names, species value to the community itself, and of course the school mascot, which is something that's meaningful for the kids there, and of course, like, the land base itself. And so when I start dreaming up how to incorporate these things, I always think about, not only aesthetically what looks good and what works in the space, but how do they kind of situate themselves according to each other? And so the biggest thing in this concept piece was the little girl. And then things kind of like move out of the little girl. Because she, in my thinking, is of course, the true land acknowledgement.

And if you want a welcoming piece, you want a welcoming piece, she's your door greeter kind of thing yeah that is that is phenomenal and it leads into like one of my concerns is just kind of seeing where land acknowledgements have gone in terms of just

lip service and I think like our prime minister has done a good job of highlighting the problems with lip service by his actions on National Truth and Reconciliation Day but just having people say the words and not understand what they mean or being too broad

about where they're acknowledging. Those have been some of my frustrations through going through university and having people say like, oh, like this general area. And it's like, I want, like, if you're going to say it, I want you to understand what you're saying

and not just repeat things that you've been told to repeat. To have that deep understanding, it sounds like the parents, you like coming together have really been able to try and bring to life the land acknowledgement in a way that has depth to it,

that isn't just parroting words. And I think that that's really important. when we're having these conversations about reconciliation. You also talked about Inez. She was a previous guest. Yeah, listen to the show. Oh, fantastic. Can you tell us about your relationship with her?

Because I really admire her work, but I also admire your guys' connection and knowing that individuals have crossed paths. And I do think that both of you are absolutely role models to so many people who are looking to do better and her being able to share her journey of going to UBC. and the challenges she faced, being disconnected from the community, you've sort of shared a very similar story of the challenges that can exist from being on and off reserve. So can you tell us about your relationship and how you guys met and that connection?

Where did I meet, Inez? I don't recall this specific moment, but I do recall the first time we connect. connected. And I had, we'd worked with each other a bit in music and stuff. And then I had, my car had been broken into and my rhyme books were all stolen. I had like my life in a laundry basket, essentially living in between Chalawak and Vancouver. And someone just took the whole laundry basket. Yeah. And I was just busted up inside from not having my rhyme books. Like they're not only were they rhyme books at their diaries. And so somebody had access, I don't know if they were reading it or not, but they had access to my innermost thoughts. And I was like, broken. And I was working down at the river in Chiam at the time. And somehow she contacted me and was like, you're alone. You don't need, you shouldn't be alone. And and I'm going to come down there

and I was like well I have a fish because I was working at the river and she's like okay well I'll bring a barbecue and she brought like a habatchi or something down there and we just like ate fish with our fingers and she helped me get

through that that moment and I think she's she's just a solid rock of a friend who has helped me and I've helped her and we've just leaned on each other in times when things are going sideways or you don't want them to go sideways but they're about to or you know there's life changes to be

made and just need to talk about it for a while um but to have a genuinely loving and honest friend is as a hard thing to find and um somehow we managed and we had kids around the same time like our sons are just six or seven months apart and they became friends over the years and so it's been it's been a good time raising our kids kind of alongside and learning from each other too right I'm also I want to lead into like you're really we've talked a bit about your your work with sham first nation you're from there and I'm interested to know I know there's an election coming up with Andrew. Can you tell us about growing up, having those connections, the community of Shiam, and I guess

your thoughts on this upcoming election? Well, the elected leadership has provided some really, over the years, some really strong routes for me in the kind of like land defense. and protection realm. I absolutely look to leaders of the past who have done that to, who have provided that leadership, sorry. And then there's been leaders who kind of sold out to the pipeline, and I didn't back it at all.

Between then and now, I said, I'm going to hold on to this money that they gave us. They signed a mutual benefits agreement and gave us money. And, you know, I don't believe in spending money from a place that goes against my principles. And because I didn't believe in this pipeline from day one, I held that check and I said, if I don't like what they're doing, I'm not spending this money. And right now, we're two years in without access to a number of bathing sites. And we could technically access those places, but we'd have to cross construction zones to get

to them, or go for baths in areas that are currently inhabited by pipeline workers. I just want to rip up that check and throw it at somebody. It's absolutely infuriating. And now we're seeing ourselves in the midst of an election again, and I think we're going to see a turnover in a number of roles, because some of the people who have been on an elected leadership team for years are stepping away. We're hearing things like some of these younger folk have been trained, and some of them just have the heart for it, you know? And as much as I want to vote for somebody who has the heart for it, there's a lot

of skill sets needed to occupy those positions. And I spent so many years doing the research to inform leadership teams. I've gotten familiar with different types of these, like what works and what doesn't. And that's a really personal, I think it's a really personal decision, who I'm voting for and how. But I'm delighted to see some of the names that are on the list this year. and I hope they get support and get in and bring that energy and vitality and drive that's needed. But most of all, I want to see people who are willing to work together. I couldn't agree more.

And the only reason that I ask is because I feel like it's a topic that doesn't get any light and then the opportunity to kind of develop your opinions and your thoughts doesn't really occur. Like I know with at least my community, Chihuacuanian, there's not like a lot of discussion that goes on, beforehand on what ideas we support, what ideas we don't agree with, what the positions of everybody are like those, that ability in like a municipality, people go up on stage and they hash it out and then you get kind of an idea of where people are leaning. That doesn't seem to happen as much in indigenous communities. And that's why I think it's valuable to kind of go through and understand the issues that indigenous communities are facing because I do

think that it's unfortunate with more rural communities that they're often faced with either you take on a pipeline and start to get your community members out of poverty, they start to get money from that, or you reject it and then you're left trying to figure out a different way forward. And I think that those are the types of things so many people don't realize in what happened with the Wetsuan First Nation, that there was like a fight between their elected council and their hereditary chiefs, and that those issues are alive and well, and there's nuance there of like there isn't a necessarily correct answer.

It's that we need to think these things through and vote our conscience the best way we can. And I think that that's important to encourage in indigenous communities. And it's just something I don't really, I don't hear much about. No, it's kind of a new practice to have platform speeches and forums. And this year we got to see a chief's forum and a counselor's forum. And it was put on Zoom. Technical issues, of course. but to have people also use social media

to answer the questions from the people is also good too. It means someone's willing to take the time to think about what they're going to say and put it out there, right or wrong. They're willing to listen to someone and I think that's a really important ability that someone needs to have

because when you're in a Stalo community, you've got left wing, right wing, and everybody in between and people who don't want politics at all. So you've got to hear it all, and you've still got to make your own decisions, sometimes really quickly. Yeah, absolutely. Can we also talk about the books that you've helped illustrate? Because I think that that's amazing.

I have stand like a Cedar. I'm very proud of it. My partner was like incredibly moved by being able to read the book and feel like she's, I think, really like attached herself and like taking a deep interest in our culture and understanding what's gone on in the past. and that book was incredibly moving for her and it's something like I'm very proud to hold these books and be like this is a BC author this is a Fraser Valley author like you can't get much closer to home than this

and then having you illustrate it how did that all come about and you've done other work with Sumas First Nation how did these opportunities come about the book with Nicola is kind of a long it's kind of a longer story in that we were living together

when she was writing her, or she had kind of coming to the point where she'd written her first book. And she said, I want to know if you'll illustrate this book. She was promoting my artist before I was ready. And they gave me time to, her and the publisher, gave me time to kind of sort out some photos. So I took out a disposable camera at the time and took some photos, Nicola and I together, of what she wanted, book to look like. And I didn't have the kind of discipline where I could sit down and make it happen. And I was trying to do like cut out collage style illustration. I didn't have any experience in it and it all kind of fell flat. And she had deadlines to meet and they found Kim who illustrated

that book and Kim took the photos and made them, made those illustrations happen. happen so beautifully. So we are seeing in the first book some of the images that were conceptualized in the beginning when Nicola and I were doing it. And I thought, I better get my act together so that I can illustrate a book someday and sat in on a couple of workshops online and thought, this would be a full-time job. It's way over my head. You have to understand so many different elements and it's there's an administrative side to it that's that's pretty hefty as well and when her stand like a cedar book came in she said are you feeling ready you want to do this again and you could really do it this time i said let's take a look at the contract let's let's have a look at

the timeline the schedule the scope the budget let's look at it all and i thought absolutely if we have a year to make it happen we can make it happen and And I produced a large body of work for that book and only a select number of the pictures were chosen. But I used my son posing for a number of images, other kids and adults, because I wanted to see, and Nicola really wanted to see accuracy depicted. I think the picture with the grandmother singing to the flowers, to the roots and the flowers, changed three or four times. And originally the flowers were very small, and then in order to kind of get the sense of how much they mean to the people,

I wanted them to be large in scale and kind of like giving the grandmothers the strength behind her. So we went back and forth and back and forth on every single image. And sometimes it would be like the first image that she'd be like, yes, this is it. And other times she'd be like, I don't really know what we need to do here, but this isn't it. And so I'd come up with something completely different. And that was just a good working relationship that we had. But the Sumas Lake Book was quite different. And we, the four of us, co-authored that book. The archivist, the ED, Chris Silver and I sat down over Zoom meetings and social distanced

in the Reach Gallery itself and started from Square One. Where are they going to be? And what are they going to do? And I took the draft copy to my grandma and I said, Grandma, I want to have you review this book that we're writing. And she's like, oh, babe, I don't know. That grandmother, I don't see myself in her. And that's all she really said. And I was like, oh, that's not what we want. We've got a stalo grandma in this book. And where is she? Right. And what is my grandma not? That's all she said. But I felt like we needed to work on instilling things.

that maybe stalo gremas actually do. And so we had to sit down and reflect and consult a couple of other grandmas along the way before we had something that was something we believed in. And all the while while we were writing, I was doing these digital interventions on archival photographs. So the reach got the permissions for the photographs, and I put them into my iPad and drew

with apple pencil on top of them. Wow. Yeah, and the crew that was writing the book would say yes or no to the images, but for the most part, they all came out pretty easily because of how descriptive the oral history has contributed to what I have as an understanding of that lake. Right. Can you tell us about that lake and what you gained from learning more about the the Sumas Lake?

Yeah. The lake itself, I guess, was, it was a way of life. And the people didn't have to go very far. They had everything all year long at their doorstep. And the people there lived with the seasons. They didn't impose their lifestyle on the seasons. Their lifestyles were formed by the seasons. And I always think that's such a beautiful thing.

And I try to emulate a bit of that in my own life to see the value in it. And so I drove around what would have been the lake bed a few times. But there was, I mean, there's a bit of history about the glass that was made from the sturgeon. It was like a type of glue, and it was like the only glue available at the time. And so the Samath people would harvest sturgeon and sell this product, and they were rich because of it. And also some of the tools of the day, like we didn't get to put everything we knew into the book. We just stack the book with history. But some of the tools used by hunters and harvesters in that.

in that long ago time, fascinate me. And to hear about how the Mount Baker, the waters that ran off Mount Baker used to run into the Sumas Lake, and they shifted direction. Like, that was really cool. Where the lake bed was itself and how much breathing room it had, so fascinating too. like the the lake itself didn't occupy that valley um that part of the valley full time but certain

times of the year it flooded it and so understanding a bit about um forested wetlands and uh marshes and bogs um i can just imagine how rich that space was with uh with really unique plants um but yeah i learned so much about the lake i've i've feel like we could write another book about all the other things we learned about the lake as well. The book itself, like, it's taking on kind of a life of its own. And we've printed more, The Reach has printed more copies than anticipated because there's a demand for it. We recently won an award for it. And to hear the conversations about kids doing theatrical reproductions of it or doing like walk and read events or that puppet show that happened like the

the offshoot products of this book are unlimited and it and it's super exciting to see how people connect with it in different ways absolutely and I think that that is again a testament to the impact art can have on individuals unexpectedly like I think that we sometimes underestimate the impact that like books like stand like a cedar which I've done indigenous cultural awareness where I bring that book up and say these are like the types of books to learn about the beauty of the culture not just like because often people are like how do I learn more about Indian residential school and it's like you can watch movies like Indian horse you can get understandings of like the negatives but it's also important that you show the positive

and the beauty to your children and to your family and incorporate that aspect because I don't want people thinking like of all the negatives when they think of indigenous people. I think that that does us more harm than good. And so being able to have that access is so valuable for people to learn more about that community. And I just saw another article about how Sumas First Nation is working with a biologist to try and again, try and protect the fish populations and working to figure out exactly how many are coming through the community. And I just, I find that work so inspiring and motivational to hear all the good positive work that's going on. Would you be able to tell us about

your website because you just created your own website recently. How did that come about? And what can people expect to find on there? I'm so pleased with how the website turned out. It's amazing. So exciting. I had avoided it and attempted it both and didn't manage to create anything I wanted to put out into the world. I know a website is very important. It's like your digital face. and your elevator speech and your business and your professionalism all kind of wrapped up and let alone like it's the gallery online. And Vancouver Mural Festival had originally believed in my ability to see a mural through in an outdoor setting and hired me back in 2017 and then hired me a few times since then

so supportive every time. So I had a bit of trust and faith in Vancouver Mural Festival to begin with. And they were the ones who called and said they had a, they had a grant from Rogers Communications and it was a two-part grant. First part being creation of websites for five artists. Second part being mentorship opportunity, which I haven't even tapped into because there's so many choices. So they paired me up with a project manager, and she said, do you have time for this? Because we are going to need you to look through all your photos. And I was like, you know, one of the reasons I haven't made a website is because I know I have a lot of photos and I don't even know what to choose. Like how do you choose the things that go on your website?

you have to say no to some things or I might have a really great photo of a piece that isn't my favorite and kind of a not so great photo of something that is my favorite and I want to put my favorite up and then how do I decide which one goes on and on? And she's like, I'll help you through all of those decisions. Send me everything. Here's a Google Drive. And so I spent two weeks, scouring all my USBs and putting photos together that I thought would make great space online. And I did a little bit of writing. We put in CV and bio and some pictures for download for people to easily find and use and if they just want to take them from online. Then we decided which portfolios to put up because I have a lot of personal work that doesn't make it into

exhibits or that isn't for sale, but like some of those are really meaningful. Those are the pieces that I kind of like, that like bark at me and call to me and like I make them, make them happen. And I think those ones deserve a bit of space on that website. Some of my favorite murals, but mostly a diverse range of space and style. So trying to feature the different capabilities in the practice. And then some exhibits. And my exhibit work is very different from my personal work and also very different from the mural work

because some of it is an installation. And for the most part, it's cultural resurgence. And so I'll community source the know-how and then put it to work and the product is the installation. And then, of course, commissions. So sometimes you've just got to put the business stuff in there, the logos and the books and things like that. Right. And where do you hope to, I guess, move forward with the website? Like, what can people expect?

Can they, like, try and book you through there? What is kind of the long-term plan for that? Right now. My use of it is to help people kind of sort through a lot of imagery in one place. And previously, I know people would try to kind of promote my work and they might say, I'm going to look on this Instagram and they go, you have a thing on Facebook or I'm going to Google search this, but I don't know if it'll show up right away. Now everything's in one place.

So if someone wants to book a mural, they can look at what's available. if they want to see an exhibit and maybe take that exhibit and extend on it or, you know, call me up and I can show those pieces in their space. They can do that there. If they want to see digital work, the digital work is there. And I think it's really partly about business, but it's also like kind of a gallery space. And so if people just want to look at stuff, they can look at stuff too. That's fantastic. A little bit of story, too.

Absolutely. The mural story is there about the downtown piece. Parts of it are there. Just did some like free writing on the website. Not everything has a story on the website, but some things do. Yeah. Where do you plan to take this over the next perhaps five years? I know you're booked up for the next year, but you've talked about how you've got some, like,

you want to make sure that you have time for your personal elements and to let those visions and feelings come through as well. Do you hope to be able to create more space long-term for the more personal works? How are you planning on moving forward with that? I don't know. Tough question. Yeah, I wish I could say like I was organized enough to have a five-year plan. Right. I'm not. I like to see what comes. I know I can't do murals forever. It's super physically demanding.

And there's a finite amount of space where I think these opportunities are available. So I should give that some thought. Well, and I don't know if that's necessarily the case because you've kind of shown that through these journeys, you take paths, that you believe in your heart and your soul. and that kind of leads the way in where these paths kind of turn and you've just kind of allowed that to lead the way and let your present thinking kind of guide you in a positive way and you're always putting in the work like I've seen throughout all of your stories that you put in the work when it comes to trying to protect the environment

in your community and rights and title you put in the work when it comes to your hip-hop and the work there you've put in the work in regards to the murals and having to retry and align that one like again and again And so the work's always there and, like, your willingness to grind and put in that energy in those 12-hour days, but you're willing to kind of take the path in which makes sense at that time. And I think that that also sets an example is sometimes I think we do get too caught up in five-year, 10-year, 15-year plans when letting yourself be open to the next opportunity is just as important as perhaps having that long-term plan. Yeah. Yeah, it's a, it's a bit unstable, but I'm, I'm pretty trusting in adaptability. Like, I've essentially got a few career paths, and I used to try to mash it all up in one.

And I could certainly go back to the title and rights work. I could go right back into it and sit at the desk and go to the meetings and, you know, do the site inspections. I could do that. and it feeds me in a way and it's important work but right now I'm just taking those art opportunities because it's something I've always wanted if I was five years old and I was writing I want to be a painter when I grow up and I saw me sitting here talking about how much I love being a painter I could celebrate that you know right share my cookie with me that's awesome can you tell us just briefly about your family life and your child and like that that aspect of your life.

Sure. I have a beautiful family. My partner and I have been together some eight and a half years and my son is 12 and we have a large house cat. Yeah. We live in the house that my mom and dad built when I was a baby and my dad passed and he left that to my brother. My brother built a house of his own and left me the house that we're in. We're smack dab in the middle of the community and I have a very family-centered neighborhood to live in with lifelong friends and family members all around. I spend a lot of time paddling in the spring and the summer. I call this Lake and my family is super supportive of that. My son will paddle with me when he's available and my partner's really supportive of my paddling and all the things that come with it and

recently taken up paddling outrigger. So kind of extending the paddling into the late fall and early spring and parts of the winter on occasion. And our, I mean, our house is small and it's kind of cozy, but it's full of meaningful things. Met lots of memories there. And, you know, we have kind of family, big, larger family dinners and events. They had a meeting there when I left. They're having an election meeting at my house, and I had to come here. And I was like, I'll catch up with that when we get back.

Because there's always something to do. And my cousin's house and my house are kind of like in the middle of, things um but well you know i'm i'm saving up to to do a big reno and build myself a studio uh and my partner wants to have a photography studio uh what do you call that a dark room film photography right so that'll happen and of course a shed for all the canoes and the boat uh but we we spent six days smoking fish and just wrapped up on wednesday and And that's something I absolutely love to do, put in the work, and then really use it for trades and thank yous and dinner and quick snacks and all of that.

You know, I'm in a same-sex relationship and it was a bit of a pivot in my life and I didn't feel the need to have a big coming out. And I don't know what my family expected of me, but I think they understand a bit of fluidity more than they used to. I think my family also saw my series of unsuccessful relationships and this currently very successful relationship and just know how to be happy for me. And everybody adores my partner and she's a fantastic parent, really invested parent for my son. And I think my son probably has his own struggles with having two moms. But at the end of the day, we're very happy. And he's growing into quite a young man.

That's amazing. Can you tell us how you met your partner? And what attributes you saw on her at that time? Because I think that that's the part. We sometimes like our society overlooks. We focus on the career. We focus on the education. and we miss out on the beauty of meeting someone and having that deep connection.

It was one of those, I'm going to hire you for a tattoo moments. She said, I have a tattoo I'd like to get. And I was like, oh, tattoos, you know, they, sometimes they're really meaningful and sometimes they're like shapes on the body. What do you want? And she said, trees. And I was like, oh, I love trees. let's let's see what we can get you um and and then it came to deciding what to do for a trade because

i prefer trades for tattoos um it's really hard to place meaning on some of them sometimes so i would say you know trade me what you think it's worth and she said well what do you need uh and i was like well i could really use like a root digger because i'm using a shovel currently and the shovel's really damaging to the roots like um here's a link to the you B.C. Archives. Here's what a root digger looks like. Let me know of something you can do. And she just said, yeah. She didn't even hesitate. And when we finally were going to do this trade, I met up with her at the Seabird Sports Festival. And she passed me this root digger. And it was just the most magnificent thing I'd ever seen. And I had only really given her this very small tattoo design. that took, like, less than an hour to do. And it looked like countless hours went into this root digger. So I think when I'm in a relationship with someone, friendship, partnership,

I place a lot of value on taking care of one another, in investing into the genuine love and interests of them and kind of setting aside your own sometimes. and putting yourself into an uncomfortable space without knowing what the outcome is, but you're just going to do it together or you're going to do it and that person can stand beside you. And so there was this exchange of the tattoo and the root digger. And I looked at her and I was like, you're awesome.

And when I, we walked around for hours after. that talking and I said do you want to go to fetch water sometime because I go to fetch water up at this place in the Fraser Canyon and she's like yeah sure and so we went for a long drive and you can get to know somebody on a long drive right there was no like distracting entertainment things and I brought her to the place where I get the water and really we just sat down and and visit it for the first time and didn't stop. This pandemic and being like locked in place.

I mean, our relationships have all been challenged, spending a ton of time together. And I've never been the kind of person who, like, misses somebody. I'll go days and weeks without seeing somebody and be like, oh, yeah, that person. And I'm sorry I forgot about you kind of thing. Like, I'm just so busy focusing on where I'm at and what I'm doing. But I went to the city without her one day, like a couple of weeks ago.

And I was like, gosh, like, when do we spend a day apart? Like, we're just, this last two years have been together all the time. And I hope it goes on like that, you know. Which is a really valuable part, which share a lot. I think that that's so valuable, especially, like, when somebody puts themselves out there and doesn't think of, like, her willingness to get you the root digger and not, we're, like, I assume that from your circumstance of being an artist, that one of the struggles is people have undervalued your work, and you've been in the circumstance of charging $14 an hour for your work.

And so, like, for someone to not know the work that it takes, but to give beyond what you think is the standard is just probably such a shocking, like, wow, I actually feel valued. Like, you weren't looking to get a discount. You weren't looking for half price. you weren't looking to, like, scapegoat out of this. You were genuinely grateful that I was willing to share my time, my work, my passion with you for your benefit. And, like, I think that that's just such an important thing that I think people can overlook too often. And I think it's just great to hear that type of story.

Mm-hmm. And when that root digger broke, like, three or four years later, I was so upset. I was like, I used it up, and it's so meaningful. and she immediately made me a miniature version that I could wear around my neck. So sweet. That is amazing. Yeah. Would you be able to tell people how they can find you online?

Yeah. Right now, I'm available at karylinvictor.com. And on social media, it's at Karelin Victor? At Karylind Victor. Yeah, I think I don't. I'm sorry, I don't know. No problem. It's pretty easy to find if you're looking for.

Carolyn Victor stuff the internet's working quite well. Okay, perfect. I really appreciate you being willing to share so much of your story and your journey from growing up to being involved in all of these murals. As I've said, I've been very eager to have you on because you've shown yourself as kind of like a jack of all trades. You've got experience with so many different aspects of the culture. And I think that that is the part we need more. That is the part we need individuals like yourself who are like stewards for the culture to share that with the community so that we can start to have a base in which to have higher quality conversations about reconciliation, about indigenous communities and to build, I think, capacity. And you've done that, like being

able to look through all of your work and knowing that you weren't looking for spotlight, you were just doing what you thought needed to be done, set such an incredible example because many people know you for your murals, but may not realize all the work you've been doing in the background for rights and title, for the environment, for the well-being of Sam and for the, for the well-being of the community to be able to do all of this work. I just, I'm incredibly grateful to have had the opportunity to sit down with you and learn more about all the work that you've done and never looking for that praise, just viewing it as your responsibility. I just, I think that that's amazing and I'm incredibly grateful that you shared your time with

us today. Oh, well, you're so generous with your words. And thank you for for sharing. I think of my own mother. I've heard you speak to the inspiration that your mother has instilled into you and provided you. And I have a very inspiring mother as well who basically took us along for the ride as she was like super driven and decided to gain an education and build a foundation and, you know, raise us in a good way. All, you know, she's, she's, from a settler family, but has always honored our indigenous family, always made space for it, always encouraged us to be who we are in every way possible. And, you know, you've got to keep busy. Got to keep your hands busy. Got to keep your mind busy. Got to use what you're given.

Those values are really strong and she's been very supportive. And the slew of aunties and uncles who've also been supportive in their own way. Sometimes it comes sideways. It comes in sideways as, you know, an offhand comment that almost could be taken as offensive, but it's their way of loving me, so I'll take it. Absolutely. And I think that, like, for indigenous people,

like talking to Andrew in that seven generations, I think is just so beautiful to think about who came before you and how to build on their legacy, on the sacrifices that they made. And I think you just showing such respect for the principles of indigenous culture is just something that sets such a pure way forward for others to think about who came before them and how to build upon their legacy. So I really appreciate you again for taking the time. Well, thank you. Thank you for the invitation and the talk.