The Point Artist-Run Centre’s (PARC) upcoming Indigenous Artisan Showcase was a long time in the making.
“We’ve been discussing this and wanting to bring it forward for a while,” says Linda Epp, a PARC board member from the Sechelt Nation. “We’re happy we can do this, and find it important and valuable.”
Kicking off with an opening reception on June 23—shortly after National Indigenous Peoples Day on June 21—the showcase will run until July 30.
“I’m really happy about the diversity within the Indigenous [communities] as well as the artistic expressions,” Epp says. “I think we’re going to get better and build on this.”
Artists include Lil’wat elder, crafter and storyteller Saopalaz (Lucille Joseph), who will showcase her inner cedar bark weaving; Lil’wat artist and crafter Geneva Wallace with her cowboy hats, caps, and fashion hats; Lil’wat’s Brent Wallace with acrylic on canvas paintings; Hul’qumi’num artist Trevor Fraser from Vancouver Island who will show his acrylic paintings that are influenced by his Squamish Nation uncles’ carvings; and Musqueam Coast Salish artist Chrystal Sparrow, who will display a cedar carving, painting, and self-portrait print.
For her part, Sparrow—who works in various mediums, ranging from carving, weaving, and beading, to painting, photography and metal—selected from what pieces she had on hand for the showcase. While she’s been busy with commissions, including public art pieces, for the last few years, she’s hoping to make more time for her own art going forward.
“A lot of the carving work I do is commissioned,” she says. “I get to work on personal pieces, like the ‘Mother Earth’ I have in the show. That’s a piece I had sketched out. I didn’t have it very long in my sketchbook, but my brother helped me realize that art piece. He helped me with the chainsaw work. He also collaborated with me doing the rough cuts. He added the salmon, which he carved, as a way to signify the connection to the Salish Sea.”
Sparrow and her brother both learned to carve from their late father, Irving Sparrow, a master carver.
“I grew up not knowing as a child and into my teens that I was actually learning about the art,” Sparrow says. “I didn’t realize I was learning a lot by watching and just by listening to my dad. He would tell me different techniques, he would show me techniques and tell me why, when you’re carving, you’d hold the knife this way or how you’d use pressure. I didn’t realize that was teaching until I got into my 20s. That’s when I realized all of that was being taught to me.”
Although, she’s also followed her own innate interest from medium to medium too. More recently, Sparrow has delved into working in metal, beading appliqué, and self-portrait photography.
“Like anybody else, it depends on my mood,” she says of how she chooses what medium to work in. “What I’m going through, what I’m thinking about, what’s going on in my life at the time. It could be something I want to express through self-portrait or build upon past work or look at what’s showing up for me at the time.”
While she has a diverse career background working as a drug and alcohol counsellor and at a women’s centre in the Downtown Eastside, before working on a master’s degree in expressive art and then spending years working at UBC’s Musqueam Garden, for the last two-and-a-half years, Sparrow has been a full-time artist.
“It was basically a sign for me when I was getting more commissions, getting phone calls for murals and private pieces,” she says. “I found I was getting swamped with more opportunities for art.”
The next opportunity will be at the artisan showcase, her first showing in Whistler.
“I don’t sell to galleries and haven’t been in many shows,” she says. “That’s something on my to-do list—having work in shows. And I’m looking at creating pieces that aren’t commissions. Where I’m at in my life right now … I want to express what it’s like to be Indigenous thinking of murdered and missing women, what it’s like being a female artist working in the Musqueam community, branching out and exploring different things on my radar.”
The opening reception for the Indigenous Artisan Showcase will take place at The Point on Friday, June 23 from 5 to 7 p.m. with music by Archie Peters, complimentary appetizers, and a cash bar.
All work will be for sale, with viewings and sales taking place on Saturdays from 12 to 4 p.m. and Sundays from 2 to 6 p.m. starting on July 1. Private viewings can be arranged by emailing [email protected] or by calling 604-698-5482.
