a beautiful spring day out on the land with some members of the art collective i am a part of!
this is of two elk hunted by my friend d.’s dad that we have been processing. in january we fleshed one hide that we plan on tanning with the fur on and strung it up to dry while we processed the second hide (already fleshed and stretched). we sheared the majority of the thick hair and saved the nicer parts for tufting, that’s why it looks so short already in the video. it was a really mix of beautiful reddish brown and deep black. we used a variety of tools including some beautiful ulus (insanely ergonomic, such a wonderful tool, thank you to the inuit for those) but i’m actually working with a paint scraper in this video! after finishing for the day and leaving some scraping for other members of the collective to participate in we ate some delicious sausage made from the very elk we had been working on. there’s something grounding in it, honouring the animal and my ancestors and eating food prepared with love and culture in mind. my
the collective i’m a part of is all first nations, métis, and inuit artists and recently we have been focusing on wearables and completed a 2-month long residency at an artist run centre. we traded cultural skills and teachings, talked stories, and ate meals together. we have a show going up locally in may as well as a larger one planned in september for which we have been applying for grant funding. there’s so much love and respect between all of us artists and it’s been such an incredibly exciting and valuable experience. i can’t wait to share more of what we have been up too!!!!!
