Artwork I have created that encompasses Indigenous practices, traditions, teachings, or storytellings. All of which assisted me to feel more comfortable with my culture.
Indigenous Artwork
“Hope For a Broken Family”
By: Mackenzie St.Amant
I had created this painting and poem shortly after my family had been through significant devastation. To give some insight, my great grandfather and great uncle both had died in brutal ways and I had created this painting and poem to encompass them and our family. My great grandfather has always been seen as the bear (mostly because of his “bear hugs” and that my family is a part of the bear clan). My great uncle has always been seen as the weasel. In Indigenous culture it is very common for animals and other things to be used as symbolism for people or teachings. That is why I used a traditional Indigenous look to bring this painting all together.
Poem:
The loss of our weasel
caused our demise,
we’ve been searching for hope
but have only found pain and lies.
Our family is nothing but broken pieces
like shattered glass,
grieving and suffering
as the time continues to pass.
We reach out to our bear
the creator of our family,
he looks over us
saving us from this reality.
Our bear is our angel
giving us hope and love,
that he is with our weasel
somewhere up above.
“FAMILY”
By: Mackenzie St.Amant
I had originally created this painting for my great grandmother before she passed. It was a Christmas gift one year. The purpose of this painting is to encompass family, specifically my family. My family belongs to the bear clan which is why I had used a bear paw with a smaller bear inside of it and had used the quote “Family, the center of life’s meaning.”
Bear Clan:
The bear clan is known as Medicine People, the healers. These stories are passed down through the origin of an elder woman who had all of the knowledge on the medicine plants here on Earth. Because of her, we were given the gift of medicine (Oneida Nation | Clan Systems).
