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Land/escape | Terrain Gallery | Spokane, WA Sept 2018
yəhaw̓ | King Street Station | Seattle, WA March 2019
smɫi | Daybreak Star Indian Cultural Center | Seattle, WA Sept 2019
ARTIST STATEMENT
How do we grieve?
What do we value?
After attending the premiere of local director Derrick J. LaMere's, “United by Water” (War Pony Pictures) in Oct 2017, which shows the first tribal canoe journey and gathering at Kettle Falls since the Ceremony of Tears in 1943, I began to conceptualize a body of work that could hold the complexity of grief + pride the film left me with. Created during the summer of 2018 and ranging in medium + execution from gouache, charcoal, and carving to ready-made sculptural objects, these pieces are as much a prayer as they are a protest; a temporary memorial to beckon our deity the chinook smɫi salmon back home to our river.
All photos: Cody R. S.