Wearing a traditional shawl called a Lliklla, a Peruvian Quechuan woman secures some colours from the Andes region.
Dawned in a traditional Djellaba, a Moroccan Berber adds a tile to the map. The colours of his djellaba decorate the Kitikmeot and Kivalliq region of Nunavut.
A tapestry of colour leaks from a Sindhi woman's Kutch embroidered blouse onto the Nunatsiavut region of Northern Labrador.
The Akan people of south Ghana interweave strips of cloth into various patterns with traditional significance and symbolism. The Kente is a respected cloth worn at important times and events as a sacred or royal display. The colours from this Ashanti man's Kente cloth spill into the James Bay Frontier.
A Ukrainian Hutsul is finishing the northern Manitoba portion of the mosaic. He's wearing a woolen Keptar which is a traditional sleeveless woolen coat from the Carpathian Mountain region in both Ukraine and Romania. The intricately embroidered ornamentation is unique between regions, as is the cut of the pattern.
Nearly a continent in itself, Canada is rich with diverse ecosystems. Boasting the longest coastline in the world, it touches the Atlantic, Arctic, and Pacific oceans. In the same way Canada is rich with vast cultural diversity. As a last frontier, Canada maintains a lasting reputation for welcoming refugees and immigrants. A plethora of nationalities decorate our map with a collage of foreign influence. Their colours are added to the earthy hues of the original Canadians who once made a living in almost every pocket of our nation. Pre-colonial Canada was a myriad of cultural wealth and it’s mosaic of colours is still being explored and celebrated by discovery and rebirth.
Early in the ideas stage of this commissioned piece I didn’t want to give the culturally contributing subjects faces. This story isn’t about any specific individual or culture, but rather it is metaphoric of the full spectrum of cross-cultural communities and families that have arrived to call Canada home. I randomly selected five different traditionally dressed subjects to represent the waves of people groups arriving at our airports and experiencing the complex integration among a foreign people. The areas which each character is adding mosaic tiles is fictional and unrepresentative in terms of the demographics of those regions or the trend of immigrating populations.
The basic blueprint for the various colour schemes roughly follows the territorial regions of different Indigenous tribal groups. While some spectrums are simply random metaphors of imagined migratory paths, wind patterns and nomadic corridors, other areas are intentional palettes referencing researched artifacts, textiles and artwork from various tribal groups roughly mapped into their recorded regions. This required a tremendous amount of research which is a common part of my work. The subtle gesture behind this idea was to show respect for Canada’s first people as the original caretakers of this country. In the same way it was intended to demonstrate a hope towards active decolonization and equality to all Canadians as new waves of immigration continue to add to the kaleidoscope of what it means to be Canadian.
Regional Connections is a local immigrant service that provides settlement and employment services, ESL classes for adults and offers community integration events and volunteer programs for newcomers to our area. This piece was commissioned for the feature wall behind their reception desk. It represents the colourful mosaic of cultural influence in Canada. Having had such a massive influx of immigrants, Canada’s ethnic diversity has had a huge impact on our global outlook. My small city of 10,500 went from a mostly mono-cultural farm town to a booming community representing people from 125 countries in just two decades. All of the countries represented by the five figures in this painting are among the 125 countries represented by those immigrants who have recently made a home in our small prairie city.
Sandwiched between Lakes Huron, Eerie and Ontario, the powerful Haudenosaunee Six Nations Confederacy declared a peaceful co-existence between the Iroquois and the Dutch in 1613. This treaty was recorded and sealed by the making of the two row wampum belt.
The Mackenzie River, Great Slave Lake region reflects tones of subarctic thorny floral bead-work which adorned the Dene's Caribou hide clothing, bags and moccasins.
Like many of the Northwest Tribes, Chilkat weaving was a textile manufacturing method in which mountain goat wool, dog hair, or cedar bark was woven into robes, leggings and coverings. In this case a Tlingit yellow cedar Chilkat robe inspired this region's colours.
Tones of caribou hides scatter the Kivalliq region west of the Hudson's Bay. The Caribou people were dependent on the Caribou for food, clothing and shelter.
Wampum shells and quill-work were common methods of beautification among the Mi'Kmaq. They obtained colours from various natural resources; yellow and red ochre from the earth, white from powdered or burnt shells and black from charcoal. When European wool was introduced the Mi'kmaq tailored a fashion uniquely their own. The woman's peaked caps were adorned with beautifully intricate and strongly stylized embroidery and bead-work unlike any other styles among Canada's Indigenous. The Nova Scotia region was coloured according to such a cap. a to
Salish twill woven robes inspired the colours filling the Fraser Valley and Squamish Lillooet regions while the familiar black, red and white of Northwest Coast art covers Queen Charlotte and Vancouver Island.
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Canada is not “…a melting pot in which the individuality of each element is destroyed in order to produce a new and totally different element. It is rather a garden into which have been transplanted the hardiest and brightest flowers from many lands, each retaining in its new environment the best of the qualities for which it was loved and prized in its native land.”
(John George Diefenbaker, “Notes of Speech by the Prime Minister, the Right Honourable John G. Diefenbaker, Q.C., M.P., on the Anniversary of the Ukrainian Canadian Settlement in Canada and in Commemoration to Taras Shevchenko, Winnipeg, Manitoba, 9 July 1961”)
