When I worked on these paintings not long ago I couldn’t help but think of the atrocities done to our people over and over. The inner wars and burdens we now carry with us. My own seemingly irrational fears, not so irrational- but ingrained in me so deeply. The actual bloodshed, the tears, the lives tortured and lost. In any space, these paintings take over.
With all the protests going on in our area(s) over the new pipeline coming in. We get to see it all again. Sometimes only glimpses, but it’s all there. Indigenous peoples rights being taken away, overlooked, bludgeoned. The media not being allowed in, wouldn’t want anyone to see what’s really going on. Many only see that these Indians are disrupting people’s lives on their commute to work and that’s enough to let their racism run free. It doesn’t take much.
They probably don’t know that their was an alternate route offered by the indigenous people that would bypass the sacred sites and allow everyone to work together. They probably don’t know that people are being removed in the middle of ceremonies held for missing and murdered indigenous women. They probably don’t know many of the facts or they don’t care. No one wants to be run out of their home, no one wants to be arrested while praying at their place of worship. Somehow this is what’s happening. I’ve heard they took over a school and weren’t letting kids go home. Is this for real? This is a nightmare.
Any time the media isn’t allowed in should be a red flag that something is going on they don’t want people to see. There’s only partial stories highlighting how the Indians are holding up progress once again. How the Indians just don’t get it. Well- I don’t get it. I don’t understand why more people aren’t worried about our resources. Why more people don’t care that people are being forcibly removed from their own land. Why people aren’t concerned that for some reason the media isn’t even allowed in- what’s going on back there? Yes, everyone knows we all use fuel, gas, electricity. Blah blah blah. It’s not like we have a choice. The world isn’t set up for us to just stop. It’s been going on longer than most of us have been alive. I have no way of changing this. I don’t have large sums of money I can use to change my carbon footprint. I can only do as much as everyone else, go to work every day and hope our government makes good choices. Pay my bills and hope for the best.
Kalaya Point 