Hali Heavy Shield mentors RBC Emerging Visual Artists through Indigenous Storytelling and History
“Petroglyphs and pictographs are stories and art that tell visions of our ancestors. The old people say that Spirit beings make their home amongst the hoodoos and when we visit these places, we experience how rock art connects the physical to the spiritual world.”
Hali Heavy Shield paints a picture with her words, revealing a multifaceted perspective of Writing-on-Stone Provincial Park that goes deep into her roots as an Indigenous artist. Hali Heavy Shield or Nato’yi’kina’soyi in Blackfoot, which means Holy Light that Shines Bright, is a local multidisciplinary artist as well as PhD student at the University of Lethbridge researching Blackfoot art and storytelling. Her talk was part of a RBC Emerging Visual Artist Program virtual professional development session in early February.
The landmarks she spoke of were familiar, but she pulled back the layers of history and tradition to reveal a different side that is so often overlooked. When speaking about the Okotoks Erratic, the 16,500-tonne boulder deposited by the retreating glaciers over 30,000 years ago on the outskirts of modern Okotoks, she shared the Blackfoot mythology around how that rock came to be there, transported all the way from its source in Jasper National Park.
The Indigenous Blackfoot word for rock is “okatok” referring directly to this unique quartzite landmark. The legend goes that Napi, or “Old Man”, who is the cultural hero of the Blackfoot tribe, so enraged the boulder, that it pursued him from the mountains and, across the plains, only stopping when the local birds and bats fiercely attacked it.
“If we can learn about the land we live in, we cultivate understanding, compassion, and perhaps activism for some of the injustices that are a result of colonization,” says Hali. “It’s good that we refer to Calgary with its Blackfoot name Mohkinstsis and see the Treaty 7 land acknowledgement throughout the city, but we must ask ourselves: what does this really mean in our day-to-day? Does the way we live reflect humility, kindness? For me this is what being Blackfoot is.”
Along with sharing Indigenous stories and mythology, she ran the emerging artists through a number of activities designed to awaken a natural flow of ideas through words and poetry.
“My love of writing and text - visually - really stems from those stories and oral storytelling,” says Hali.
Morning Pages - an activity by Julia Cameron
One activity the artists did, you can try yourself at home. Get a pen or pencil and three sheets of paper. Sit yourself down somewhere comfortable with a good surface for writing. You’ll also need a stopwatch or some way to time yourself.
For 15 minutes, or after you fill three sheets of paper, whichever comes first, you write whatever comes to your mind. If you get stuck, write the same word over and over until new words come to you. Don’t judge your own writing. Just let your thoughts flow out onto paper.
For many people, the act of writing itself can be paralyzing, so activities such as this one can help free you from the expectations that you put on yourself and allow your creativity to flow.
Julia Cameron is an American teacher, author, artist, poet, playwright, novelist, filmmaker, composer, and journalist who is best known for her book The Artist's Way (1992) which supports the importance of creativity in your daily life.
Hali herself didn’t start using creative writing and journaling in her practice until graduate school, but once she started putting words to paper, she immediately saw a new side of writing and its role in visual arts.
“As visual artists, we may have an idea, a memory, or concept we can express visually, but it’s necessary to use language as a way to sort things out or communicate them to others. Sometimes it’s good to talk to someone about what your work is seeking to express. You are not only listening to what your work is telling you, but articulating it in a way that can provide further insight; it also helps us to tend to the professional development side of being an artist,” says Hali. “As someone who is Niitsitapi/Kainaiwa, I feel it’s a responsibility to teach and share what knowledge I have with others; it’s a way of giving back.”
Self portrait by Hali Heavy Shield
