#006 Embark with me, Dion Kaszas, and the inimitable Gordon Sparks, as we weave a narrative tapestry that spans the personal and the cultural, the ancestral and the contemporary. This episode is a journey through the soulful terrain of Indigenous tattoo practices, where each inked line and curve is a homage to the stories that define us. Gordon, hailing from Pabineau First Nation, brings his rich cultural lineage to the forefront, illustrating how intuition and storytelling are not just facets of his work but the heartbeat of his identity as a tattoo artist.
Our conversation traverses the sacred landscapes of Mi'kmaq teachings, Gord's reconnection with his roots through sculpting and mask-making, and the broader struggles of reclaiming cultural identity in a world that often seems to have forgotten the past. We share the transformative potential found within ancestral wisdom, and how the simple, yet profound acts like participating in sweat lodges and talking circles, can offer solace and understanding in our communities. Every tattoo, every carved line in wood is a testament to the journey—one of healing, of discovery, and of paying homage to the elders who guide us still.
Through these stories, we shine a light on the power of visual language in Indigenous art, as it intertwines with our identities and the natural world we are a part of. We discuss the evolution of tattooing from its rudimentary beginnings to the profound tool it is today—a medium through which we chronicle our tales and honor the teachings of the land. Join us as we explore the importance of mentorship, the resonance of mask medicine, and the encounters that inspire a deeper appreciation of our heritage. This episode isn't just a conversation; it's an invitation to witness the profound connection we share with the earth and each other, through the art that narrates our existence.
I hope you have enjoyed this episode, and I am excited to travel the world of Indigenous tattooing with you as we visit with friends and colleagues from across the globe doing the work.
Check out Gordon's work at:
Instagram @gordonsparkstattoos
Check out my tattoo work at:
https://www.consumedbyink.com
Instagram @dionkaszas
Buy me a Coffee at:
https://ko-fi.com/transformativemarks
I acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts
#006 Embark with me, Dion Kaszas, and the inimitable Gordon Sparks, as we weave a narrative tapestry that spans the personal and the cultural, the ancestral and the contemporary. This episode is a journey through the soulful terrain of Indigenous tattoo practices, where each inked line and curve is a homage to the stories that define us. Gordon, hailing from Pabineau First Nation, brings his rich cultural lineage to the forefront, illustrating how intuition and storytelling are not just facets of his work but the heartbeat of his identity as a tattoo artist.
Our conversation traverses the sacred landscapes of Mi'kmaq teachings, Gord's reconnection with his roots through sculpting and mask-making, and the broader struggles of reclaiming cultural identity in a world that often seems to have forgotten the past. We share the transformative potential found within ancestral wisdom, and how the simple, yet profound acts like participating in sweat lodges and talking circles, can offer solace and understanding in our communities. Every tattoo, every carved line in wood is a testament to the journey—one of healing, of discovery, and of paying homage to the elders who guide us still.
Through these stories, we shine a light on the power of visual language in Indigenous art, as it intertwines with our identities and the natural world we are a part of. We discuss the evolution of tattooing from its rudimentary beginnings to the profound tool it is today—a medium through which we chronicle our tales and honor the teachings of the land. Join us as we explore the importance of mentorship, the resonance of mask medicine, and the encounters that inspire a deeper appreciation of our heritage. This episode isn't just a conversation; it's an invitation to witness the profound connection we share with the earth and each other, through the art that narrates our existence.
I hope you have enjoyed this episode, and I am excited to travel the world of Indigenous tattooing with you as we visit with friends and colleagues from across the globe doing the work.
Check out Gordon's work at:
Instagram @gordonsparkstattoos
Check out my tattoo work at:
https://www.consumedbyink.com
Instagram @dionkaszas
Buy me a Coffee at:
https://ko-fi.com/transformativemarks
I acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts
I would conflict pain upon myself, and if you take a knife and cut yourself, you're everybody around you. It says, oh, something wrong with Gord. He's trying to kill himself. Let's bring him to the hospital, get him some meds something wrong. I'm like no, there's nothing wrong with me, man, I'm just. What's wrong with me is my body saying you want to get this feeling out of you, conflict some pain, I'll bleed it out for you. Hmm, I'll give that blood, pain, sacrifice and you, all you have to do is focus on it and focus that negative energy that's in you, that's holding on to your spirit, and you tell it to get the fuck up. And it'll come up.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I'll the transformative marks podcast explores how indigenous tattoo artists, cultural tattoo Practitioners and ancestral skin markers transform this world for the better, dot by dot, line by line and stitch by stitch. My name is Dion Casas. I'm a Hungarian, matey and intercop book professional tattoo artist and ancestral skin marker. I started the work of reviving my ancestral Intlacopak skin marking practice over a decade ago. I've helped, supported and trained practitioners and tattoo artists here on Turtle Island. In this podcast, I sit down with indigenous tattoo artists and cultural tattoo practitioners and ancestral skin markers from across the globe, bringing you behind the scenes of this powerful, transformative and spiritual work.
Speaker 1:My name is Gordon Sparks. I come from Pavana, first Nation Down here in New Brunswick. I was told by my great-uncle that I come from the beaver clan, my daughter was a salmon, my clan medicine animal is the bear and we come from Turtle River and that's how I usually go when I go to communities, how I introduce myself to the people that are seeking medicine or that provide medicines, and that's what I feel like you guys are doing here. So for the people that are listening that are from the medicine world, that's who I am and my family relation comes from David Peter Paul. It's my uncle, gilbert Sewell, which is my great-uncle, and Marie Crisco, which is my auntie in. So those are the women and men that give me teachings in my community, and Steven Peter Paul, which is a One that sings and dances, were mostly sings for the people around here Awesome.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thanks, I'm stoked to Be able to visit with you. You know I miss you. I miss seeing you in the shop every day. But, yeah, I'm glad that you're doing the work that you need to do. You know, just when I think about the movement and the things that you're doing now, which is so exciting to see how, being in the right place and listening to that what would you say that intuition, it brings you to the places that you need to be, because so often we're like, oh, I should do that, and you're like, not, I'm gonna go do something else. Whereas you just listen to you know that intuition you're like, yep, this is where I need to be and you can see that this is where you need to be because of the Things that are happening in your life.
Speaker 1:100% that starts. I've always been a strong believer about that and by following that intuition and I remember when you were working on me and we're sharing our knowledge with one another and I was seeking knowledge and you shared that story with me With the bear and that fly and when that you know, no one will listen to that fly, yeah, and in the end, that fly was the one that had that song. Yeah, I was that intuition and that is exactly how I operate all the time. I'm always listening to that fly, yeah, and as well, I'm always borrowing eyes like the coyote and that, yeah, and the in the crow, yeah, and I share those stories on a regular basis with my clients. Yeah, they give them a perspective on things in life, right and how to, because I notice when people see me and they, I work with them and I provide them with that tattoo medicine that I'm here to do within my community now, with non-indigenous and indigenous folks, I share these stories with good intentions and they, they're, they open right up, they're like whoa, and I encourage them to continue to follow that voice, yeah, and not have that hesitation and, you know, start logically breaking it down into a society of how everybody's supposed to be, so Called normal, yeah, and being able to decipher the difference between yourself and the normality of society, yeah, and there's the normality of society is Non-existent. It's your own self and your own being being able to live here, you know, on, for me, it's in migamagi, you know, yeah, and living with that good intention and that understanding and realizing that All the, all the gifts we've been given as people Of the land, no matter what color you are or race or whatever you want to call it, we all have, you know, different feelings for different purposes. So if you have sadness, you got the happiness, yeah, you know. Yeah, the, the opposites that you have, the, you know, so-called Exities and all these other little things that come in. I encourage those things on my journey and that's how I'm able to move forward, because if I don't have the anxiety, then I'm. That's teaching me something for who I am and where I'm going, and then that allows me to tap into another sense of that I have. That's a gift, you know, and we all have them, yeah, and we just can't suppress it. So I use those things and I'm not using them. I'm listening to those and those are the voices that we all have. Yeah, and that allows you to make those decisions. It's just a matter of if you're gonna learn from it or not. So if I have a goal from point A to point Z and I know that I'm going to get to that point, I have to go through every human emotion to get there. And if I don't go through every human emotion, I know I haven't got there yet. Yeah, and then as soon as I go through all those emotions, then I'm able to set the next goal, and then all the one all.
Speaker 1:When I made the decision from point A to Z the first time, you know you, as you're going through that process, from A to B, you make a decision. Then A to G, you, you had many. So all those decisions between A and G you've made with the best intentions, with the circumstances that were presented to you at that time. Yeah. Then you move to, you know the next one, yeah. Then people will say, well, now I regret it, but for me there's no such thing.
Speaker 1:That's, that's your, your look back, that's your teaching tool. So you turn around, you look at it, go. Oh, that didn't work for me, so that wasn't a good decision. Yeah, no, not a regret. It's just it's there's good decisions and not so good decisions. Hmm, so you just move forward with the good decision that you know that worked for you. The one that didn't well, then you just leave it. That's your teaching, yeah, you know. Then you move on and then you continue doing that through that whole process and when you get to Zed, most people go. They reflect back. I like, oh man, why did I do that? I regret this or regret that? I said no, those are all teaching tools. Yeah, and you had to experience all those emotions in order to understand who you are. Yeah, then move on to the next step and that's all I've been doing. I've been. I just listened to that fly. That fly is always a yeah, awesome.
Speaker 2:Yeah thank you. Pretty cool. They see how you know those Different things that we share, that are important to us, and how they can really transform the way that we live and be in the world. You know, and it also for me, also speaks to the power of our Ancestral teachings. You know, those stories are stories from Into your Salish communities that were meant to do the work that they're doing is to help us guide our lives in the world Right, and so it's so cool to see how you know you, like myself and many others, like we're taking those lessons and going okay, these are the lessons I need for today, and then applying them and reflecting on them and making them real in the world. You know it's so cool to hear you share how those things make an impact in your life.
Speaker 1:Oh, dude, it's, it's been, and that's the other thing too is like always, like when I share the story, I always have to mention who, where the story come from, where. I learned right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and Occasionally I'll just say the story, because I've been saying it so often that I I neglect saying where the story come from. Yeah, but then again I'm learning that that's just that the time and place where it's been shared, you say what you need to say at that given point, yeah, and then whenever I step back and I that's where that you know I could say, oh, I regret it not saying it, but yeah, it's just teaching me, it's just reminding me. Say the name next time. Remember, you're teaching. Yeah, and that's what that is. It's and I love that. Right, and that's the same thing like with the mass medicine.
Speaker 1:So when I've been in Nova Scotia and I was out there learning my seraph, my, my, my roots through the art of sculpture, it brought me back home, I brought me back to to where I'm, where my community is, and brought me back to the list of Gusha, brought me to you were verbur, brought me to burn church and metabanagia all these are surrounding areas for me that I grew up, but not really knowing the connection of the above, my people in these communities.
Speaker 1:So the mass medicine turned to. Usually it take me about a month. You know the car one, yeah, then I went to list to Gush, since I've been back home and that was like a big connection between Matilda knockwood turtle woman from PEI, lenox Island she brought me because she brought one of the mass that I had that I made within her community and there was two. There was one that had the teachings of ceremonial teachings, star lodge, sweat lodge, medicines growing from the land, yeah, the and and also teachings of not to give up in your, your journey whenever even your own people Put you down where they look at you go. Oh, you're trying to be native again today.
Speaker 1:Yeah what's wrong with you, you know, and that's her own community members, yeah, you know, and looking down on you.
Speaker 1:So you're not only getting it from the non-indigenous, you get it from the indigenous and not and they're your own people, yeah, so she, she encouraged that, that those teachings that come from her were encouraging those.
Speaker 1:And then the man Was a person that worked with the communities where I've shared his teachings, shared teachings of the lodge, brought it to the prison systems but taught people that were down and out whenever they were told or a nothing, yeah, and then he fell off and he screwed up, but there's an. I'd never heard the other side of the story, I only heard what other people had told me. So I haven't had the chance to actually talk to the dude. Yeah, but he taught me what the mass medicine in the ceremony in the sweat lodge and brought that in, and I was a part of that, where that was part of my seeking and looking for the teachings that come with it. And the mass that was created was at a time where I was going through something that was difficult and that was bought back from 20 years ago and there wasn't the other side of the story that was being heard and I didn't have a platform to share it.
Speaker 1:Hmm and so for me as being a man and adjusting my life, and it changed into a better person, even though I recollect what I had happened back then and it's it's.
Speaker 1:I Needed a place to share it and I have my word, said yeah, and I couldn't do it in a, in the non-indigenous law and way of Doing these things.
Speaker 1:So we had a lady that came in and she had taught, she showed me the ways of our people and how we dealt with these situations, and we had a safe place, a gathering to come together To have men have their stories and share their stories in that talking circle with With the eagle, you know, with the eagle feather being present and having that conversation where we broke down and we had a chance to heal and move forward and have understanding from a man's heart and a woman's heart being in the same room.
Speaker 1:Yeah, not just all testosterone, it was a mix, yeah, you know, of a estrogen and testosterone to be able to balance it out and have those conversations, and it was a place of healing and being able to accept the person and Allow them to move forward and to have a place to be able to Reflect themselves and go look I'm, I'm moved on. Yeah, you know, I don't need to be Put in a room and isolated and yeah, not allowed and being told that I'm only this person's like I compare it to like you know we have. We have skin markings on our face right, so we're permanently marked for, you know, permanently.
Speaker 1:So you have to be careful where you go and how you present yourself everywhere that we go yeah because if you fall off once, say that, you decide that, oh, I'm gonna go smoke some crack today, yeah, first time. Yeah, you know, you just like you have down a note where you just want to try it. You go in a corner somewhere or on the side of the street. Someone sees you, hmm, they see you, the smoke in that crack. Yeah, maybe you're at it for a long time, I don't know. Yeah, but that person's always gonna tag you to that person that smoke crack, even though five years down the road, ten years down the road, you've been clean for five years. Ten years of that habit. And then you, being prosperous, you're doing your work, you're working with your community, you're doing all these good things, but you're always gonna be tagged as that crack addict. Yeah, and that's that's. That's a hard thing to deal. And then so those people that Don't have those skin markings but are still pointed out within my own community like they want to get clean, yeah, and then, all of a sudden, our own community members oh, don't trust that person. No, no, they're gonna steal from you. No, they're, they're gonna steal from you. I remember they stole maybe four years ago, hey, but they're trying, and we now got to bring and bring our medicines to those people yeah, then we're told that they cannot allow to be around us for four days, or something of the sort, you know, and have them with us within the ceremony. Yeah, we're, we just got to tell them look, this is the consequences of being the way that you are, but you're welcome to be, because I'm not gonna be responsible for a person that comes in and asks me for medicine. I tell them, no, you can't. Then they kill themselves that day because they need a liquid courage to come out and ask Me. Yeah, you know how terrifying that is, yeah, what kind of guilt that will bring.
Speaker 1:So With, with the skin markings, you know that connects us to who we are as a people. What I'm working on is connecting, you know, the basket makers, the quill makers, the boat makers and the people that make things, you can carry things and all these. You know they, all these gifts that these people have, the drummers, the singers, and they all have significant parts that I Want to bring into that circle so that medicine becomes even more powerful. Imagine tattooing someone with your, your, your ancestral songs being played and the new songs of today, yeah, being played, yeah, and saying why you're got your brothers and your sisters and your, your, your loved ones Surrounded you. Yeah, at that gathering. Yeah, talk about powerful. Yeah, hello, power, and that's bringing all that medicine that we, it seems like in our culture, is that one person does you know there's, they're so driven that they want to learn at all. This is, I'm talking, my personal, I'm owning this. I'm so driven to learn everything. Yeah, you, but I'm coming to a realization that I'm a carver and a skin marker.
Speaker 1:Mm-hmm as much as I want to dance, as much as I want to do these things and make quills and Make garments and clothings, to go with the mask and to have it up, moving and dancing and doing all that stuff, I need to invite those people in. I need to have those people with me making these things that know. Then, then, as you work with these people, then that's where when my talents come in to make a mask, by that understanding of who they are and what they do as a quill person. So, when that tree gives up its life to no longer provide us with oxygen but to provide us with the spirit of that tree that seen our ancestors for four or five hundred years, yeah, it now shows its face, it presents itself and says yes, yes, this is what I'm going to wear, this is how I'm going to dance, said.
Speaker 1:I learned this from a person in Kare-Kare when I presented to mass to them. There was a guy that does mass theater and he came up to me. He goes, you know what a mass, what mass does, right? I said well, you explain. Yeah, you're a philosophy, he goes.
Speaker 1:Well, your brain. Every day we get up and we walk outside, right? Well, and you hear of wearing mask. Well, what your brain does your brain dances, moves your body. Your brain moves your body. But when you put a mask on, your body moves for the mask. Wow, and that's the truth. Yeah, when you put on a mask, your body moves for it because you can't see it. So, yeah, and it just tracks on its own personality, its own Presentation. The whole nine, yeah, and that, just that was that. I understood soon as he said it. And that's exactly what it does. So it's its own living thing at the tree, is not dead, it's just. It has its other purposes to to move, provide that three-dimensional Form you know that oral story that goes with it and then to continue to move that forward for the next seven generations.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's awesome, yeah. So I, I just want to go, I just want you to you know, because I know you and you know so, but folks watching this don't know who you are, you know. Of course you.
Speaker 2:You know you have a story that brought you to the work of a skin marker and of A mass carver, you know. So those are the things that Connect you to the conversation that we've already been having. So I just want to give you an opportunity To share with those who are listening the journey that brought you to being a skin marker and a Mass carver, just to give more further context to the conversation that we've already. Yeah, you know, just because, yeah, people don't know you, but I know you, so I'm just giving an opportunity For those out there to know the context with which we are having this conversation.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I began tattooing when I was Eight years old. That's when I first started doing skin markings. I started off with sewing needles three sewing needles and Indiana ink that we stole from the local print shop. We wrap it up with thread and we use this hand stitcher hands. I don't lots of kids that we used to take Safety pin or not safety pins yeah, I did start off with safety pins, but we can pull over through. Then we went with Needles yeah, sewing needles and just stuck it through our calluses and we used to stitch ourselves, but not use an ink, yeah, and make designs. I had a friend, mindy Bushe if you're listening, you're crazy she had. She literally took thread and stitched it and left the thread in her like an embroidery in her flesh with ink on it, and it left it there. I'm like you're nuts.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, shut up to you, but that's starting way back. And then, of course, I went through a you know, back when I started it was, it was frowned upon. You know, it was only bikers and sailors and low lives that had tattoos. Right, we were considered nothing. And so I started off making a homemade tattoo machines. That I learned from a dude. I was one of my sisters were dating and I seen their tattoo mags and I seen when they got the pen he had it went. Freddie had Joker on his arm. I thought that was wild. I'm like, oh, that's cool.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and then Jerry had these two demons on his chest. I'm like you're like a, like a Paul boost style. Yeah, oh, damn, that's, that's what. That's awesome. And then they seen that I was always drawing, yeah. So then they're like, they encouraged me. They're like, well, drop the tattoo needle or the sewing needle, I'll show you how to make a homemade machine. So they, we made it. Then I perfected it and got it down, perfect right, and I called the rotary. That's what a rotary is now yeah.
Speaker 1:People that are using rotaries right now. The first rotary was a jailhouse top tattoo machine. It's the same damn thing. Yeah, it was run off a motor from a little remote control, put a guitar string on to it and unravel it. Put it on a big Pen 0.5, run your through, sand it down, connected to a power supply on a foot pedal. There you go, run on the motor and Just that. Now rotary is perfected with high-class metal, eric, playing metal, all kinds of stuff and worked it down. But it's still the same concept. Yeah, so it's really not that new. Then then I went from that to coils. Yeah, then when I went to coils, I Fast forward my life. I was always into still drawing. And then I got into the workforce. I was a dish pig dishwasher. Dish pig is dishwasher terminology In the restaurant business so.
Speaker 1:I, I did that. That was, I was in charge of getting Taking out all the pork skin. Yeah, so when the prep work would be done, they skin the pork, and then I was supposed to throw it in a biohazard bin. I end up taking it home stitched on a mannequin with like hellraiser with Code hangers pulled all together, put in a deep freezer. But I didn't. I'll start tattooing it because I knew that if I put on a shoulder, I'll. I'll be working, yeah, how to hold the machine on a shoulder, working on the torso, working on the back, working on an elbow and that gave me that opportunity. And then practice on my friends and then go back to that whenever, instead of going back. You know you tattoo your friends, they take off Back, then you go paint the canvas. I was always doing art, but I'll just pull it out from the deep freezer, keep tattooing it, yeah. Put it back in when it got cold, yeah, but my machine kept falling apart, was going. I didn't understand. I was tweaking it and I was making it worse.
Speaker 1:And I was in Halifax and I remember this dude he was this, his name was Paul Times and he's in the spirit world now and he taught me the tattoo medicine. But before he started teaching me I knew he was the man to go see. He was a Short little black dude he was with I'm pretty sure he had it was either black foot In him as well. He was so and he was. He knew the bear family, which I learned later, later, later on, and that's a significant part of the carving story. But so I went and I knew that he was the man to go see and it was the first dude I ever seen. I had facial markings right and I my face first facial mark.
Speaker 1:He started off with him way back in the day and anyway, approach him and I said look, dude. I said I just want to know how this machine Works. Yeah, I don't want to bear, I don't understand why, how it can work, how it works. He looked at me. It was all come tomorrow. He was and I'll show you. So I show up tomorrow. And there's a note on the door said show up tomorrow. I'm like, all right, well.
Speaker 2:I'm gonna show it up again the next day and he brought me in.
Speaker 1:He looked at me. He goes I've been waiting for almost 10 years for someone to come in and ask me that, because most of time everybody comes in, they want an apprenticeship and they just want to start tattooing. They don't want to know their tool. Yeah, and that's the biggest thing with this industry you could, you can just go buy one online and then they start using it, thinking, but they don't have no idea how to use the tool. Like you know, if I'm gonna buy paintbrushes for painting, I want to know what the paintbrush could do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, why am I using horse hair compared to bristle? Or why is it with this with the compared to a curve? You know carving tools? The same thing learn your carving tools is a flat gouge, curve gouge. What does all that mean? What does it do? Why? Why is there a 4.4 stroke to a 3.5 stroke to a 2.2 stroke? What? What is that? What's? Why is there a bush For the rotaries? It's a bush, bush drive motor to a Direct drive motor. What's the difference with that? Why is that there? Right? So do you work? So he's like yeah, so I went in and then back then we had to make all our own needles sterilized.
Speaker 1:You know what I'm talking about. That's. You know that was part of the Getting into the business where you make all the needles. I still complete to this day I'm going why would they give us the the responsibility of Steralizing all their stuff? But but I remember asking myself when I was doing it and I was so Aware of what I was doing in a potential, if I did it wrong, on the harm I can bring people. So I really focus on cleaning it, neutralizing the flux. You know, soldering all the needles and doing all that stuff. So put it in the autoclave and they can't be. Were ultrasonic, yeah. So then that's where my tattoo career started, for, like my professional career, right working in that shop called the fall and that went on for years and the burned down Paul and Abdi and later, and you know. But I kept tattooing in the tattoo world and that's what I'm still doing today. You know, skin marking it, but but that that was more of the Western approach of tattooing.
Speaker 1:The whole time I was doing I always knew that it was Something beyond that I do. When I tattooed myself, it was because I was healing myself through, yeah, you know the emotional sickness that I had with it. And then each time I had emotional sickness, hmm, I would conflict pain upon myself. And if you take a knife and cut yourself, you're.
Speaker 1:Everybody around you says, oh, something wrong with Gord. He's trying to kill himself. Let's bring him to the hospital and get him some meds. He's something wrong. I'm like no, there's nothing wrong with me, man, I'm just. What's wrong with me.
Speaker 1:Is my body saying you want to get this feeling out of? Yeah, conflict some pain, I'll bleed it out for you. Hmm, I'll give that blood, pain, sacrifice, and you, all you have to do is focus on it and focus that negative energy that's in you, that's holding on to your spirit, and you tell it to get the fuck out. And it'll come out. Yeah, and I'll bleed it out for you. And then we'll make a cut, we'll put some ink on top where we'll never come back, because it will give you that strength. Yeah, and that's how I was.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I kept doing that since I was a child. I kept. That's how I was brought to it, hmm, and then, as I work with people in the industry, it became more of like, of course, when we first started getting tattooed. It's because you want to be cool or not want to be cool. It's cool, yeah, and. And you get tattooed. And then you understand that sacrifice each time you go, and then I, that's what I get addicted to, that's that's what it was. It was like okay, I still to this day, I still get butterflies, I still get the, the emotions, I still have to bring my medicines with me. I still have to do all these things to prepare myself, because it's a journey in the tattoo world when you're getting your skin marking.
Speaker 1:It's a journey. You're going through a transition and you're coming out looking different. Yeah, you're being reborn. So, and it's just like one who into a sweat lodge. You go in, you come out different. You're going in, you're being reborn. We're going back into the womb of Mother Earth. We walk down the umbilical cord, we bring our grandfather's in, we sit in there. We do four rounds. First round we talk into all the women and children. Your second we're talking to you know all creation. Then we talk to all the healing, the bear, you know. Then we go up to our ancestors and forgiveness, so that then you come back out. After that's all done, you're physically, emotionally and spiritually worked on yourself. Then you're reborn. Same as tattooing.
Speaker 1:When I prepare to get skin marked, I do the sack. Same thing. I go in, I'm calling upon the ancestors. I've used the songs, I do my prayers while I'm getting work done and then I call upon the ones that bring me strength and then, when I'm finished, I'm stronger, I'm more wiser, I feel much better, my spirit is rested, my body is rested and I'm good to go. Yeah, and that's so. I continue to do that and it's so.
Speaker 1:But when I was working with non-natives, they were just who's the best? Yeah, you know. Yeah, you know. How clean is your line? Yeah, you know who cares? I'm not a machine, I'm a human being and you're going to get the mark that you're supposed to get, yeah. And then there is that, that, and so that's why working people asked me to ever go to convention. I said no. I said I haven't because I wasn't. I wasn't with my own people at a convention, and I was always with and as, when I say my own people, it's not just indigenous people, because it's it's people that think of Tattoo medicine the way I do. Yeah, that's what I'm talking about. If it was a non-native that thought the same way, well then we'll be hanging out together. Yeah right, it's how how I approach the medicine of tattooing. It's just, I never met anybody else but indigenous people that think this way. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:I'm not saying that they, there's not possibility. Yeah, but I just haven't met. Yeah, so I never felt the need to go to a gathering where it's a pissing contest. Yeah, and you know I could be further in you, and or my dick's longer than yours, or yeah, you know that kind of mentality. Yeah, why be part of it? Yeah, it's not healing, it's a fucking spectacle. Yeah, so that was tattooing. And then now, so to get away from that, that's whenever I was searching. I was already in the business for 20 some odd years. And then I see in your page, Hmm.
Speaker 1:I seen this dude he was kickboxer and he had this Sturch your Instagram and there was a you're coming down to share a seminar and revival of tacked skin markings. I'm like, oh my god, there's somebody out there. I'm gonna go find out who does this yeah.
Speaker 1:So I went out and my lock and window and my truck was broke. I taped it all up, thought for sure was gonna get robbed, but I went in away and then I went down and I seen you and you were telling your story. I was you, jordan and his woman, and you guys are on stage sharing and I had the need to bring you guys some gifts and feathers Because of the work just my. My intention was Just to give you, to give you what their intention is. It's a gift for sharing. Yeah, and that's what I had with me, and so I was like, okay, I really enjoyed the conversation, really enjoyed. I asked questions, answered them and gave me, you know. So I went home with that Okay, I'm gonna. I got some direction and then you came back and you had another seminar at the museum and then you then that's where we approached differently, where Another teaching that I learned is whenever you're in a gathering, have people introduce themselves as well, mm-hmm, and give them their space and time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and of course it came to me, and Then I asked you that magical question I bring up every time I talk to him. I said so, how do you come up first? Of course, I introduced myself the way I did earlier. And then I how do you come up with the idea of our skin marking? So how did our people do this? You know, how do you know the significant meaning of a design? Hmm.
Speaker 1:Hey, you just bluntly said this, something that you have to figure out for yourself. Hmm, hi, what? Yeah, you got to do the work and that's what it was and it's exactly. And At first I was like what the and so, of course, were surrounded by all these indigenous artists and people from New Zealand and Nahan and a couple other ones, and I'm just sitting there going like I was Intimidated almost, but but felt comfortable and welcomed. Hmm.
Speaker 1:And then, after that, I was stood up by the window and had that conversation with myself and Really started thinking. You approached me and talked to me and you know we've been friends ever since. So that's the tattooing where I'm at. You know, by reviving it, by listening to the land, listening to the four directions, looking at the four seasons, hmm, you know, I put myself in a time where, you know, look at our ancestors, if her ancestors before colonization. You know and even tell now, like I believe, as us, as as people, all people, our first language is visual, unless you're born blind. Hmm.
Speaker 1:All right, but our first language is visual. Hmm. So this microphone, I'm talking to right this, to shape, it stays the same. Yeah, right, no matter what. How do you say this in Egyptian? How do you say this in German? How do you say it in Italian? How do you say it in French?
Speaker 1:So that's the, that's the second language which would be the audio, yeah, which, on the year, we know, for the first year of our lives, we're living on the backs of our mothers and our fathers. You know, learning what's hot, what's cold, what sharp, what isn't, what the shapes are. So the tree, its purpose, you know, you know. So we learned, a purpose of all these three-dimensional forms and then the names that come with them. So what I realized, that is a holding, that's really, really powerful stuff. Yeah, and so I approached, that's how I approached it, and that understanding of Now, in order to get the skin marking. So if I was going back to my ancestors, before the new, new people arrived, the visual language we would have had was for a big mob, would have been our wigwams, our tools of survival, the things we carry things in, and our canoes right, and the ones that fly in the sky, the ones that swim in the water, the four-leggeds, the two-leggeds and everything that grows from the land. That'll be our visual language and that's it. So if I'm looking at artifacts that are four or five hundred years old, well then, those designs, and as people that create things, I'm going to be influenced by the surroundings that I'm doing it, and then you want to embroider that into the clothing. So then when I'm doing it, I'm also going to want it to be a teaching tool, as I'm doing now with a visual language, the significance of it. So then I'll look at okay, so now my studies right now, my research, that I'm doing now is that's why I'm back home. The language of the land starts off by being a good hunter. You have to be a hunter to provide food for your family, a gatherer. So as you do that work, you're outdoors every day. So now I get to see outdoors from the summer's perspective, the fall's perspective, the winter's perspective and the spring's perspective. So I'm going, oh, okay, so now if I watch this tree and with this tree, what bird lives in that tree? If it's hardwood, softwood, whatever it may be, okay, so what bird lives in that? And then what four leg it lives there and what plants live underneath this tree? And is it near water or is it near gravel? What's it near? So then that then you observe that through the four seasons, what stays and what does, what stays and what does what family.
Speaker 1:So if I'm looking at a motif and a design, if it's abundance of designing, I say that summer. If it's lacking design and it's very minimalistic. It's winter If it's spring and it has a lot of round things in it. Oh, that's growth. Yeah right, springtime If it's the fall, well then I'll have dead things and living things. So how would I portray that in a design? And that's where I'm heading now. So I'm looking at it that. So in order to do that, I have to go out and do the work. So if I go after a partridge, then I have to look at its innards. The inside will tell me what it's eating. Then it'll tell me what it's near. Where do those plants grow and is it near? So I know it's near certain waters.
Speaker 1:Now, how do you describe water? So if I look at ocean, then if I want to describe an ocean as a skid marking, I'm going oh, big waves, huge waves, because we got 50 foot waves, the stories of how big they are. Then you go if you want a lake, well then a lake will be middle. A lake doesn't get big waves, but they get decent. So I'll make those just so. If I'm near a river, which I walk all the time, you don't get big waves, so you just have almost like a ripple. And when you get to a brook, well, it's barely even moving. So now, when I see those lines on, when I do put that, so if I'm sitting with you and you're telling me you live next to an ocean, and I want to know, okay, first thing, I'm going to make a big wave Deion lives in your oceans, any kind of stories you have that come with that from the hardwood, softwoods.
Speaker 1:Okay, that'll be everything on for a big mom, a motif, or grow up on the sides, so that'll be all the trees, and then if you talk about what's on the land, well then that'll be growing from the land. So then that'll be a description of where you're coming from. Just within that design, then you've mass, then you multiply it by whatever it needs to cover that area. So that's what I'm seeing. So I'm like, oh, okay, this language of the land is working, and then these curves are really making sense. But I'm doing it in today's society, in today's world that we live in, by also looking at the infrastructure that was brought in that changed the visual landscape. So then I have to apply those designs into it as well, because the land has changed. But then, looking at that pattern, those ways that I go. So that's part of that research. And then now to get into my carving before you go there.
Speaker 2:I just want to hold you up in the work that you're doing, you know, and the reason I do that is to not only acknowledge the work that you're doing and, you know, say how proud I am, you know, to be a little part of that journey that you're taking, but also to highlight how important it is for people as a lesson. Right, like your story is not only the work that you've done, but also a lesson to those who are listening, and that lesson is that you have to do the work. Yeah, you do, right, and so you know. You asked that question and my answer was you got to do that work. That's your journey and I think that you really do. It would be easy to pick up a book and to start using those designs, right, and you wouldn't really come to that full understanding of what that design is until you've done the work to go out onto the land to figure it out right. And so just holding you up in that work that you have done and also highlighting it as a lesson for those who are listening to, you know, find out, you know a lot of people come and they go. Well, how do I find the language of my land, you know, or how do I find these things? And I'm like you have to go back, right, and that's what I say to my friends who are from, say, europe. Right, my French friend who comes and goes. Well, I want to be connected. Like I don't want to use indigenous designs, I want to use designs that are connected to my own community, and your story is really a lesson to those people to go back to their own communities, to their own land, right, like you're not going to, you know, find that in Big Moggy, because that's not where your language of your land is. The language of your land is in your land. And so you find those design, symbols and motifs that are connected to your community, your culture and your people, even though for a lot of people in Europe, that colonization, those indigenous ancestors, are fucking hello, colonized thousands of years ago, potentially, all right. And so you really it's about going back to that land and living with that land, spending time on the land, learning the lessons that the land has to teach you. And so I just wanted to pause that you know conversation and just highlight those things, because I think that is the importance of these conversations is helping people to not only hear your story but, you know, for me is bringing out some of those little lessons that I see from the work that you're doing, and so you know I hold you up in that work. And really, what would you say? Putting your life where your mouth is, so to speak?
Speaker 2:You know, a lot of times people say putting your money where your mouth is, but you're putting your life into that place, like that was your desire of your heart, was to find out. Well, how do I find my ancestral skin markings, how do I find out my ancestral visual language? And it's that journey, the journey of finding those, and maybe other people's journeys would be different. You know, for me, a lot of it was, yes, going out into the land, finding the pictographs, then going to the museums, all of those places. Yours is different but also fucking powerful, right, and I think, like going back as well, in those type of ways of like hunting and gathering and finding out. You know well, why would my ancestors draw that, you know like, why would they embroider that? Why would they, you know, stitch that with the quills, right, it's like, oh well, that's because that's associated with this, and if you hadn't taken the time you know, to put yourself in a place, in a position to learn those things.
Speaker 2:You wouldn't be here, so I'm just holding you up and saying like you know, you're an inspiration to me in the work that you do and the way that you do it, so I just wanted to highlight that before you continued on to your the rest of your story.
Speaker 1:That sounds. Yeah, I really. I give thanks for that acknowledgement for sure, dude, and it's the same for the work that. It's cool because I come from this background. I've always wanted to that and then I got into. I grew up not being a smart well in society's eyes. I wasn't a smart kid, you know in the colonized view horrible.
Speaker 1:In school I tried my ass off, put me in special classes, you know, and you know learning skills weren't that great. Couldn't read very well, all that, all that stuff. So it was a deterrent to go towards books or reading or anything. But mine myself as a visual learner you show me something, I'll pick it up and I'll learn real fast. No problem, right, but I have to. You got to show me it, I'll repeat it. That's why I'm a good photocopier.
Speaker 1:When it comes to tattooing, you show me design. Yeah, I could tattoo that for sure. I'm a photocopier machine. Go downtown and that's what tattooing was. And then when I met you, and then we had those conversations about when you, when you start, when you were applying for this grant, and also with Jordan hearing about his story, about you know, going to the museums and looking at the work and getting your hands on these objects, and you and I had that conversation because I heard about it, but I actually got to speak with someone that's in that transition. Then it's doing that work and it's like the purpose behind it and I step back and give you thanks for doing that and sharing that, because now that's what I'm doing.
Speaker 1:I have the confidence to go and go to these places, and that's the so. Right now I'm doing the work on the land, and then now I got to go do the work with the visual language by putting my hands on it. So what I'm doing is I was going. Well, should I wait and put my hands on the objects and take a look at all of? Them then go back and work on the land.
Speaker 1:What's happening is I'm working on the land, then I'm going to go look at these things. Then. So, with the knowledge that I'm gathering and what I'm seeing and what I'm creating now from my understanding as being a person that creates, and looking at the designs and patterns, and coming in and going, time traveling. So I'm time traveling to 700 years ago. That's where I'm going.
Speaker 1:People say time travel don't exist. Well, you're full of shit because it does, because we time travel as humans. We always time travel to the past and we time travel to the future. We're always planning for the future and we always look back in the past of what we did and we regret. Our body does, does not move, her body stays in the present, but our minds always go to the past or to the future. So I'm living in the present and I do that every single day. I make sure that I live in the present. So that's what I'm doing with that work. I'm going to be time traveling when I put my hands on it and I'm going to look and then I'm going to visual. So, from my understanding of what I see in the woods now, like does it? Does it relate at all, from the theories that I have and the understanding that I'm doing, and if not, that's okay. Yeah, because this is what it is now. Yeah, to move forward, because there's a gap in between that was lost. Yeah.
Speaker 1:But that's okay and it's, it's. I'm not going to be like Jurassic Park and fill it in from Dino DNA to a reptile DNA and then end up with the end. Right, I'm going to leave it blank.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but I am going to fill in that that spot for me and today and how I describe it and how I work on it and and but, as well as has the ancestral teachings that are there and that I see and that I understand, and you know it's, it's, I feel in my heart that that's where it's at. It's pretty neat to to work in that way and like that's like being with my uncle Mick. Do it as inspiration, like you wouldn't believe, but he's the, he's the hunter, he's a hunter gatherer, and now I bounce back and forth with him and my uncle and they know the language of the land without even realizing how much they know. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Because that's, that's that's their existence, right? Yeah, they know they went to the cities before and came back home. It's, it's absolutely amazing, so to and I look at it as like that, to I seeing approach right. So we got to go to the look at it as an indigenous way of life and then, as well as looking into the world that we live in today and then being able to move it forward into today's society, just as music is doing it you know our songs are changing, but they still have that same idea, ideology behind it you know to move it forward where you know being able to create new songs for today's time, just as George Paul did. Like, george Paul came up with the song, the honor song. Yeah, you know he's, that's, that's our national anthem for big mall people and you know, when I first heard it, I thought it was like a 500 year old song.
Speaker 1:It's not he went out and did the work. He, he did the work. That's his story to share. But I know some of it and you know he went out, did his fast, did his ceremonies that he needed to do, came back and that's the song and that's shared with everybody and that song is even evolving now. Yeah, you know it's evolving into Jeremy Dutcher playing it with the classical music.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, in that kind of environment, like it's just so, then I know it's okay for us to do our skin markings and move forward with it and to be indigenous and to you know, so we can tell our brothers and sisters from afar, you know, and go when I, when I see a big, more person, because I connect the design with the ancestral markings.
Speaker 1:So the visual language that I researched, like I'd learned from you, that's going to connect to the ancestors. So we are, because it connects us. Now, yeah, when you see the double curve motif like oh, big mall, yeah, or so that's an automatic connection. So when I root that, so now I put it on the hands, yeah, so that's rooted into the ground, then their story on their arm and then the double curve on top for their life. But their story in between Cool, and then that brings them to who they are. So when I see it from a distance, I'll be like oh, that person's big mall. Or then if I see a nonnative with it, then I'm going, that person is an ally. Yeah.
Speaker 1:They have a big mall story, yeah, and they're affiliated to the point where they were allowed to. They're honored to wear, to wear that, yeah, so he's, he's an ally, yeah, or she's an ally yeah, they're people. Yeah, I mean, and that's slowly getting rid of the, the naming of races, yeah, you know, we're just all people, yeah, and that's that's difficult because that's divide and conquer divide the people and conquer them, have you? Divide us maybe. Oh yeah, train choo choo. I was like what the fuck is that?
Speaker 2:That's a train.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Oh you see it by my host shakes Use to hop on it. He's the run out beside it and jump on it. Get to my grandmother's drop off, yeah, yeah, time to get the grandmas is like pumping 40 or almost. You feel like it anyway, and when you have to hop on it it pulls your arms or feels like it pulls your arms or your sockets.
Speaker 2:Oh fuck.
Speaker 1:Oh, that dude was crazy.
Speaker 2:Yeah well, let's keep going. I think it should be fine. But just in case you all are listening and you hear something in the background, it's a train right next to us, so I was telling the story of how that train's been in my life growing up here the whole time. Yeah. We used to hop on it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's my, my teachings of train hopping. Yeah.
Speaker 2:But yeah, no, and the other. The next thing I wanted to just highlight is that you were speaking about how you're connecting it to the land, spending time there, learning, gaining knowledge in that place, also then going to these museum collections. But I also like to highlight that there's another piece there where you're always checking back in with your elders and community members and other artists yeah, you know. So there's another level of level of research and double checking on the stuff that you're doing, that you're always coming back and going hey, you know, this is where I'm at, this is what I'm thinking, and you know people are sharing with you. So that's just another important level of you know when people are looking at finding ways of getting into this work is you know those are some important ways that that?
Speaker 1:happens it does, and the people from the communities around here are coming to me and supporting and the words getting out, like when people see it, they're like, oh, that's a Gordon piece, yeah, and that's really awesome, you know to know that that's being out there and like I seen your piece the other day, I'm like oh, dion did that and that was on a lady that works for Jedi and you know she got that's. You got the double curve mix in with her black work as your inner sailor's designs on to it too. So it was awesome to see, right, and that's here in New Brunswick, yeah, so, and they were coming to me and even the elders in the community. So when they come to me and we have those conversations and to work, to do the tattoo work, and then that gives me an opportunity to share them stories and what I'm doing, like I just did one in Kareke in a track at a residency there. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And I was at this old building. It was originated as a hospital and well leprosy, yeah, way back in the day.
Speaker 1:So, and then there was a war between the English and the French, and the French had leprosy and the English were here. They didn't want the French coming over because they had leprosy, so they built this fucking building to deal with it. Deal to French, deal with leprosy itself. So that was one particular spot. And then it evolved and turned into a place to take care of homeless children, which would be what would be the terminology for that An orphanage. Yeah, an orphanage turned into an orphanage for women, for boys and girls, and then it became a museum later on. That's part of the history, right? Yeah, and it still exists. So I was invited to go there and do this residency and to do printmaking. Yeah, I'm like, oh, this works perfect. I'm not going to be tattooing, but I'm going to be. I am because now I'm going to be drawing them and then printing them out. Oh, I've seen those, those turned out so good dude.
Speaker 1:And this gave me the opportunity to. So what I did is I went to the four directions on that ground, like on those grounds, and then I also had a class to teach with people and take them out. That was one of the days to show you, work and share. So I brought people outside and I showed them where I went. And each time we did like when I do that work it's always you bring your sage, you bring your medicines, you go north, south, east, west, and then you bring those teachings and those prayers, Like I said earlier, to the women and children and then to all creation, healing, and then forgiveness and her ancestors. So I did that with the people and I told them. I said look at the ground when you're walking and whatever speaks to you, that's what you're going to draw and then you're going to put that as then that's what you're going to use for your design. And because that's what I've done, but I didn't show them my work yet. The whole idea is what I learned from Ned Baradon If you're a teacher, don't ever show your work before you teach your students, Because then they're just going to compare. So you just want to teach them the skill. So I would use that philosophy with them and I brought them out and I showed them, and then, anyway, a couple of them, instead of just sitting there drawing, they ripped it out from the ground and they carried it with them and we're going to go up in the building and draw it. So it was funny because half did that and the other half didn't. So I finally made it all the way around the circle, the four directions, Then back at the east, and then I turned around and I said so, all those people that ripped that plant out from and took its life.
Speaker 1:So what did you give back in return? Hmm, they all looked at me like I said well, you just took someone's brother or sister or mother father. You ripped it away from its best friend that it grows up with every year. I said what did you give in return? Yeah, I said they're like, oh, nothing. I said well, go give them some spit or rip a piece of your hair. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Go give it something in return. And I said go apologize to its friends for taking its life. Yeah, you know, for you know it's no longer going to hang out, it's dead now. You just killed it, you murdered it. They just all dropped. They came and they ran back to their spots and they came back to me and this elderly lady came over and she goes thank you for doing that. She's like we take things so much for granted that we think we're above all. And she goes. You just taught me something very valuable. And she goes. I really thank you. She goes.
Speaker 1:I'm going to look at everything differently. I said, yeah, I said I do the same when I mow my lawn. I said are you apologizing to that grass? You know, it's no different when people get mad about taking an animal's life and they're like oh, I'm vegan and I'm this and I'm that, but you're going to go rip that carrot out from the garden.
Speaker 1:It's hard to tear out, isn't it? Yeah, you hear it. You're ripping its fingers, you're ripping its claws out from the ground and you're dangling and you're telling me that don't have a life that has equal life. It's a living. If it wasn't, it wouldn't be nice and green, wouldn't it? You know a difference between a live plant and a dead plant. You know the difference between a live animal and a dead animal, a live fish and a dead fish. Yeah, so you can't tell me it doesn't have a fucking spirit or soul, or you know it does and you have its friends.
Speaker 1:It grows up with that four leaf clover that grows with the glass, that goes with the medicine, and next to the dandelion, those are all medicines, one on one spot. So when I went to the east, that's where I drew. I seen the four leaf clover, I've seen the, or, I've seen the, the, the raspberry, the strawberry, the raspberry and its flower, and then the plants that grow next to it, the dandelion. So I drew that. That was all from the land. And then the tree above me was just buzzing with bees. It sounded like the tree was going to take off.
Speaker 1:I couldn't believe. I'm like I thought there was a bee nest. I really did. I looked up and I'm like, where is it? And then I looked at it the leaves and the flowers there was a bee on every one. I'm like, holy man, this tree is about to fucking take off. So I sat underneath it and drew it and that was the east.
Speaker 1:Then I went to the next direction, did the same thing and that's where I put it to the test, right, the theory that I was having, and I really worked on it, then printed it all out, then started combining them in different, different ways and, you know, to make a half sleeve. That was the furthest I was going to go. Then I did a chest piece, and this one here was I took the canoe and went canoeing in the, in the waters there, because I was allowed to do the resident anywhere. They just live in trackity and do what you need to do, and a week, two weeks time we'll see what you come up, we'll have a show, yeah, so I took the canoe and I fucking paddling, paddling, and then I haven't seen the distance. I'm like that's a little white tail. I said no way, as if I get a little closer. Right, calm, I'm looking all the way outside. I see I'm like it's a fucking deer Close.
Speaker 1:Close, close the stream, get closer, closer, closer. And then the deer finally stands up, sees me Trots close into the forest. So I'm like, all right, perfect opportunity to go to do some work here. So I fuck a paddle up that spot, get out, put the canoe up on the bank and I start tracking. I look down, I see the ground. I can see where the deer was, where I can remember where I was standing. I look at what I was eating.
Speaker 1:So now I see these shrubs, really fucking thorny spikes, all going downwards. And then at the top there was these kind of like starting to grow plants. But some of them were there. The other ones were all chewed right to the spikes. So like, okay, now I know it's food source. And now I knew the plant. So I drew the stem that grows and then drew the flower next to it that hung above. So then now I know what you look for there. Then in the center was the fir tree. So there was a softwood. So I drew the softwood. Then that was where the double curve started. Then that plant came up that it was eating, and then the tree that was surrounded by hardwood was the softwoods, and then that plant dangled.
Speaker 1:So then now I was like, okay, and then I put the deer. No deer was after, so that's what I drew. I'm like, okay, well, that's my understanding of this animal, of what it goes after. So then I put a design of a deer on top and then, with the tree, the double curve and then the line of water on the arms and the arrowheads that I was looking at, they had artifacts from Point La Tom which they found in the 70s when there were a bunch of arrowheads, big mouth, tools, slide, all kinds of stuff. So I took one of those arrowheads and then I traced it, I drew it to size and then used that as the piece that comes across underneath.
Speaker 1:So you got the deer on top, got the double curve motif with the food and plants that it eats and where it comes from, the arrows that you use to hunt it, and on the arms, lake water. So that's the identification of where that deer comes from. That's in my head. So I'm like, okay, well, that sounds like really good to me, but I want to test it. So I go up to. This dude that I'm working with is another artist that we're at the show and I'm sorry that I forget your name raw child. I know I'm pronouncing it wrong, but he was there and I was like, and he was from forget where he was from, like Nigeria or something like that. Yeah, I apologize, dude.
Speaker 1:But, you were there, you know what I'm talking about. So he came and I got him in the canoe. I said, okay, dude. I said I got a project here. I said I'm going to show you a design and I want you to identify if you can point out what's in this design. But I'm going to take you there. So we're getting the canoe and I paddle his ass over to, or we paddle together over to where I seen the deer and he's looking at me. I said okay, I said I'm going to get out and I'm going to stay in the canoe and you go up and you tell me when you find out whatever it is that you're looking at. But he gets out and he starts looking and he's looking, he's looking, he's looking. I'm like this design is not going to work. He's like this is the plant here. As I go out, I'm like, yeah, I was like holy moly.
Speaker 1:And then he's looking. He's looking, he's like this is the tree. Yeah, I said yeah, holy fuck. So he found the fir tree. I'm like holy fuck too, he's looking. He's looking, he's like let's have a hard time find the flower. But he found the stem that was eaten. But then I drew the top part of it next to it, but he couldn't find that one. So my placement in the design was wrong, because he was looking for something separate than from what it was, because of two not what one.
Speaker 1:So I knew that okay, so I have to be able to apply that. He found the flower that was dead, hanging upside down. So it did work. So the language of the land designed. Then he went out and looked for it. So he knows what to look for to find a deer, because the marking of the deer paw was there, the marking of the flower was there, marking of the plant that it ate, the shrubs. So that's when you're looking, when you're hunting, you're looking for what they eat. But that was one part of it.
Speaker 1:All the animals that have been hunting partridge rabbit, all of them, they all eat something, even moose. Now they pull things down so you look for the break. So now that's another design. So I'm going to be designing for the moose hunt that I'm preparing for. So it starts off with the bow, starts off with the tools that I need to get it, the work that I'm doing in between, then the footprints, then it goes to the surrounding. So whatever surrounding, I'm going to draw that piece and then, when I take its life, what's involved in that? That'll be the moose. Wow, dude, it's ridiculous, but it's all coming to me like, oh, like oh.
Speaker 2:Yeah man, but it's really inspirational to see how well, I think, probably what it does. This conversation is really solidifying in my mind the reality of why these conversations are important with practitioners, because so often people who sit behind a computer and behind a desk and write a book are the ones who are put forward as the expert. Yes, right, and so for me, the reason these conversations are so important is because those people don't have the knowledge that you have. You really are the expert and you're becoming the expert in your own experience of your ancestral skin marking and nobody else has those same experiences, and so they don't have those knowledges that you have, and there's no way that they could even access it.
Speaker 2:There's no way I could access it, because it's your experience, but it's also you living on your ancestral land, learning the language of your land, your ancestral visual language, like your ancestors would have, in a very embodied way, like it's not the way that you're doing this work is totally embodied, totally within your body, right? You're living it, you're paddling there, you're watching, you're seeing, you're observing, you're looking Like. All of that is a form of intelligence that I would say that a lot of people don't have, and so it was interesting as you were sharing about. You know you have this desire to be a dancer, to be this, to be that, and you know I have that same experience as like I want to do it fucking all yeah. Right.
Speaker 2:So so I can appreciate that, but then I also, likewise, on my own experience, have come to understand that those maybe aren't my gifts. Yeah Right, like I'm given certain. We're each given certain gifts and, yes, we can dabble in those things and we can become somewhat proficient, but we'll never be experts in those things Exactly.
Speaker 2:And so for me it's like, as I listen to you and I hear you, I can see that those are your gifts and that you're really in the place that you need to be. So it's pretty exciting to hear you talk about that and be part of that journey of you going like well, how do I learn this stuff Right? And so it's exciting not only to be part of it but also to be able to share it, because I think it's inspirational for other people too.
Speaker 1:That's awesome and it's true, it's, it's going out, and I believe that's where healing is right, like is being on, that Like when you I heard about all the time the language of the land, like, and you have to speak the language to know the language of the land, and that's another, another step that I gotta take which will take this to the next level, right, yeah, and when I'm ready to learn the language of my ancestors and to move forward with the understanding of the language that I know now, but doing the work with the understanding of that.
Speaker 1:The language was based on the purpose of everything that you look at Its purpose, not, you know, not the ownership of it, the name of it and its purpose, which is giving me a new inside look at how I look at things. Right, and that's like the mask medicine, so to to combine mask medicine with tattoo medicine. I've been learning from people from all over as well, from different countries, and asking them and they still practice ceremonies, and I was on that journey and to pull back a bit and to give people an understanding of mask medicine or how that journey starts for me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, important to maybe share a bit of that story of how you came into and what that means.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So coming back, like mask medicine I learned from. To start off, I was knee high to a duck and I was oxide. I was in my community and my uncle, david Peter Paul, came over and he's always used to stop by and visit and he was a cool cat and one day he was we're standing down by the band hall and he knew that I was always drawing and working in the arts and he just for some reason told me because he has a friend that he was. I got a friend that does artwork all the time and he cars, and that's all I remember from that conversation.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and then I went off, right, he took off, and then years went by and then I ended up in college and I got there by my uncle. I had just finished backpacking across Canada twice and then my uncle calls me up. He goes Gord, you want to go to school? I said, sure, he goes. Well, you're supposed to be there yesterday. So I fucking hitchhiked to Fredrickton, yeah, and then I go to school. I'm now in college, I'm sitting down in Native Studies class with Gwen she's in the spirit world now too and she was my Native Studies teacher and that's where I started getting involved with learning about our culture right when I really, because I never learned it in my community because of the wars that are within the community there was always a.
Speaker 1:Everybody knows that. That's from a community. There's a family war of some sort, whoever's in politics and who's not in politics, and all that fucking craziness.
Speaker 1:So now my teachings begin in school with Gwen and she starts talking about like I start learning about the medicine wheel, I start learning about just introduction to stories of sweat lodge, stories of chakras, stories of dream warriors, stories of these other things, right. And then one day I'm in class and I got my head down. I'm looking at this magazine and I'm drawn to it. I had this big card, face on it, had this big lip and I was just drawn to it. I was amazingly curved. And then I hear these words being spoken and I look up and it's Ned Bear standing in front of me, the dude that I heard about when I was a kid. And he's standing there sharing a story and the mask that I'm looking at is his that he carved, I'm like what?
Speaker 1:And I'm looking right at it. Yeah, so he shares his story and I went fast forward. I ended up dropping out of school and then I did the white picket fence thing and then I ended up becoming homeless and when I was ready to leave, I was leaving Moncton. I was like I'm getting out of here, I don't wanna be here anymore and I've been on the road for a bit. So I decided to go towards the highway, cause that's what I'm good at and I live on. For some reason, I was always living good living on the road.
Speaker 1:It was just it was natural for me. And so I get, I start walking and I see the shadow figure at the top of a hill and it's doing this right. And I get to that shadow figure, it's Ned Bear standing atop of the hill again, and this time he's carving. This time I'm wearing I had I got my facial markings on me more cause I didn't never have them in college and I'm wearing my Stetson hat, my black leather jacket, black pants, black boots, you know, black backpack, looking like a street kid. And I walk up to him. I was looking at what he's doing. He doesn't recognize me and I look at him. I said how do you come up with the idea for these things? He looks at me, he goes the wood speaks to me. I'm like in the back of my head, like artsy fartsy. Common is that wood speaks to you. Ooh. So I kind of went pinch his nerve I go.
Speaker 1:I said we're like gonna lay a little punk. You know you use power tools with that. And he looked at me. He puts his hands down. No, do it all the way by my hands. We start laughing, right Cause he knew what I was doing.
Speaker 1:We fucking laugh. And then he turns around, he introduces me to his daughter and then I leave that conversation saying that's gonna be me someday, don't know how, but it's gonna be me someday and I walked away. Anyway, I ended up moving back home to where I'm at now. Then back to Bathurst and I went seen my dad. My dad was sick, he was dying basically, and it just had a heart surgery, open heart surgery, and I stole a van. And when I stole a van I went down and I remember it was in the van there was Testament albums, cassette tapes Put that on and I also had in the tape deck was like Hank Williams or something.
Speaker 1:So I'm like what the hell is this? So I drive off to a Cannecon road and when I get to a Cannecon road, this is like when I go over my houses, you go down Brunswick Mines and you head towards the Cannecon. It's a shortcut to the highway, and back there is where I did my hunting and fishing, that's where I grew up, kind of thing. And so I decided to go down this road and I'm driving down and I passed Pavano Brook, just passed right between Pavano Brook and Cannecon Bridge. I see this movement in the grass. So I look up through the slowdown, I look, I see it's a bear. I look at the bear and I say, hey, bear, I'm going to the Cannecon road or I'm gonna do some fishing, as if you wanna eat anything. If I catch something I'll share with you. You know what I go? I'm talking about myself. Fuck it.
Speaker 1:I get out to Cannecon road, to the bridge. I get out, go do sufficient. I don't get one bite, nothing, not a damn thing. I'm like what kind of Indian am I? I can't even fuck catch a fish and my life's already down the tubes. Like everybody betrayed me and my family or my loved ones, a person, that's all that stupid stuff that was going on. And so I mean the lowest of the low possibly can like to the point where it's contemplating killing myself. And that didn't even work. I'm like you know.
Speaker 1:So I'm sitting there. I'm like, well, I might as well go back in the van then. Then I start driving back this time. I see the bear on the road and I comes out on the road. I get out the van, walk right over to him. I'm like he's gonna eat me. He's gonna eat me. Fuck it, good way to go. Yeah, I go right up to the bear and I start talking and I just spill my guts, man, like this is what's going on, this is all this. And the bear's just looking at me like it's my like mm-hmm mm-hmm.
Speaker 1:Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. And I kept talking and talking, and talking, and talking, and talking and talking and I'm about 50 feet away from the van now, yeah, and I stop all out of breath and then I just look at the bear. I said, wow, man. I said you're a bear, I'm a person. I'm gonna go back to the van now and I walk backwards, I don't turn around and I've given that respect to the bear right.
Speaker 1:You know, I'm aware of what it can do and I'm aware that it's allowing me to be in its presence and I want it to know that I have me no harm, forever thankful for this bear. Yeah, and I can see in his eyes her or he that it was feeling the same. Yeah, it was like a moment for that bear, like I needed to get away too, you know, like needed to have a conversation, yeah. And then I get to the back end, I cross the road and I cross the road, come by hand on the door and it crosses the road and it gets to the ditch and I swear to fuck man. He puts his hand up for her and I took it as I could have, took it as a wave or come here and I'm like I'm not pushing my luck, I'm not going, I'm gonna get in the van, see you later. I was happy, I was the happiest I ever been in a long time. Get in the van, drive home, tell dad it's the dad. I gotta get the fuck out of here because if I don't I'm gonna kill myself or someone else and I'm gonna end up in prison or dead. So he's like short son and I went to the train station took off, went to Halifax, got on community assistance and got my stuff together, met Elena.
Speaker 1:She was really cool. We moved in and then we started opening up a home business, went to a business mentorship for one year through community assistance. Yeah, so when you're down and out, community assistance does work. I'm telling you now it does. They do have things in there. Yes, they do look at us funny, especially if you're indigenous. But you've gotta get past that and then just do the work. And I did the work for a year, got a mentorship through this cool dude learned how to do the paperwork with a tattoo business, started in my home, started doing that and then I started doing carvings.
Speaker 1:One day I had a snow sculpture I mean a snow tattoo appointment canceled, couldn't do the tattoo. I had a choice I can go outside and shovel the driveway and be all mad about it because I didn't make any money, or I can go outside shovel the driveway, get a workout and go fucking play in the snow. Yeah, so I went in the house and I went in. I went in. I said Elena, I said I'm done carving. I mean I'm done piling snow, shoveling the driveway. I said we should go do something. Go play in the snow. She goes. I said I wanna do something. I don't know what to do. She goes, well, go carve, our dog.
Speaker 1:Harley. I said, fuck, yeah, okay, so I will grab a spatula and a machete, went outside and started carving up. My dog took some shots of it laying down and then I carved out. It was biggest is room man. Media started hitting it up, tension everywhere. I was like, oh fuck, this is pretty good, made some more tattoo business out of it. Made a little sign hanging out in the little box floating around in the air.
Speaker 1:Then more people, another snowfall next Wednesday, two Wednesdays at every Wednesday, for some reason started snowing. So I made a sculpture, made a dragon that wrapped around my house was fucking like 30, 40 feet long by 15 feet high. Took me a week to do it, big old teeth on it. People stopped in media. Fuck a social media, fucking global news, ctv news, fucking CBC, cbc radio station, fucking everybody coming after me. I'm like, oh fuck, right on.
Speaker 1:So did another carving, did one of my dog, harley, again with Papa Smurf taking him for a walk, went viral. I was like man. So then I said, fuck man, I'm gonna approach. I said you know what I'm gonna call the local politician, I'm gonna call the school. I wanna make a snow sculpture. That's gonna take me 316 kids to help me and we built a snowman assembly line. So now I got paid from the city and I got paid from the school.
Speaker 1:I said, fuck, I got free snow, build a box and I'm making selling them $1,600 a box for snow. I'm like, fuck, all I gotta do is ask. So that's when I learned all you have to do is ask, put it out there. So I started doing that, carved all winter, making money carving and making money tattooing and getting free advertisement from these companies, from the media, attention, all right, good bargain. Then time went on, the summer came, I started painting windows at the farmer markets, all places, and then fall came pumpkin. Then I started carving pumpkin. I was like I wanna carve something, carve. Little ones sold those for 40 bucks to 100 bucks a pop. They look like the goblins from the 1980s horror movies they're really greasy looking.
Speaker 1:I made those with horns on made, took sticks to make arms and legs arms, so they're looking like they're sitting on your patio looking to get up and walk away on you. People ate that up. Then they started approaching me. Dill Farm approached me for pumpkins that were 1,100 pounds 600 pounds. I was like massive, as big as this table, so I started carving those. Now I carve snow, carve pumpkins, so I was getting my teaching there and I didn't realize it. I was learning my tools.
Speaker 1:I was learning how to do, how to work with people, how to ask, how to do business. Next thing, you know, I'm going man. I talked to my aunt Rose, little Rose, she goes. You gotta talk to Jedi. And I'm like, well, I don't know what that is, she goes. I mean she goes. No, I mean Arts New Brunswick. Talk to Arts New Brunswick. I said, well, we only have Arts Nova Scotia. Go talk to Arts Nova. I called Arts New Brunswick. They said talk to Arts Nova Scotia. Then I met Enrique, so I apply for I go there, I show up and of course, I wear my artsyest clothes. I got all painted up.
Speaker 1:You know looking like I just came out of a, a dungeon of paints and he looks at me.
Speaker 1:He goes you really want us to know you're an artist. Yeah, he called me on it right away. I said yep, I do, and anyway we have the meeting. And he goes. What was it that you're here for? I said I don't know. I said I carve snow in wood and I carve snow in pumpkin and I want to move on to something else on the wood, something that'll last longer.
Speaker 1:Because with snow and pumpkin what I learned is like people, people always come up to me and this is another teaching that I'm. This is why I'm bringing it to the communities. So with snow, everybody goes. Oh, aren't you so upset that you put all that in? It just melts away. I said no same with pumpkin, they say the same thing. I said no.
Speaker 1:I said you know what's going on here. I said you're witnessing life and death in a weeks time, two weeks time, and you're teaching yourself that when you put your love and passion to something, it's eventually gonna go away, it's gonna die, just like your kids, just like your dog, just like your cat, any pet that you have. It teaches you these valuable lessons. So I put all my time into this. I invest all my time, all my energy, all my love, all my passion. And then it's right from the beginning that it starts forming and turning, taking shape. Then it's at its glorious time where, especially in winter time, the moon, grandmother moon is shining down on it, the glistening of the snow it's frozen, it's shining sparkly, like it's youth, and then it starts to decay. You know, grandfather's son comes out and beams its ways and it starts falling apart and then it crumbles back into the ground or back into the snow. So you watch the process of life. And it taught me that valuable lesson and the same at pumpkins, and that's what I share with them. And it taught me how to use my tools. So now I'm there wanting to carve wood because it's gonna last longer and if we take care of it with honor and respect, it'll last seven generations. And it has a visual language to share stories. And now I'm learning the whole teachings of oral story as I'm doing these carvings. I'm working when I'm starting to learn from people and I heard Stephen Augustine's story as I was carving snow and pumpkins.
Speaker 1:This lady, she always biked by. She said good job, good job, this is awesome, really encouraging me. Non-indigenous lady, she's just really cool, cat right. And this old lady. She was a teacher. She gave me all her psychopathy. I got at the shop psychopathy is set of all the great arts you know, from Michelangelo to Picasso, to everybody in between. You know all of them. She goes I've been holding on to this for years, but I know you're the one that have it and then she died like three weeks later and gave me her and she was an art teacher, gave me her fucking collections. Wow, right, and now I hold on to that. And so now I'm like, and then this lady stays, stop in talk to go online. This guy named Stephen Augustine is doing this. He's a dean of the Cape Breton University sharing these stories, and he's also teaching, like, not just stories but our treaty rights and you know all these things and all. It's a class that you can apply for and get a fucking a piece of paper saying that you've completed it. Yeah, so I tune in.
Speaker 1:First story is a creation story. Talks about the seven levels of creation the giver of life, grandfather, son, mother, earth and gluescap, gluescap's mother, gluescap's grandmother, gluescap's nephew. I'm all here, I'm all, I'm taken by it, right, yeah. And at the end of the story talks about the seven districts, about the seven Algonquin speaking families original. Another one of those families was the Mi'kmaq. They disperse in seven directions which make up the land of Mi'kmaqi right, oh fuck, I'm, I've. I find a few at home. Now I understand this philosophy. This philosophy works. That the other philosophy I tried before was you know, I wanted to be a living, breathing, walking demon. I wanted to be better than the devil. I'm not gonna look better too. I'm gonna have more rotten skin than he does. I'm not gonna be all pretty, I'm gonna be pimply pussy, as scarred as possible. I'm gonna live in your basement and fucking eat your kids. But I didn't believe in Jesus, so I can't. That don't exist. You have to believe in Jesus in order to fucking be the image of a devil. Yeah, so that didn't work.
Speaker 1:So then I learned the language of the land from where I'm from. Then my body suits started changing with that as I was growing. Then I heard that story. That started making me grow and then I started doing the tattoo or the carving medicine. Because now that I had that, I went and got the mentorship. Because I wanted the carve mask to honor those, the four that passed into the spirit world Gluis Kapp's mother, grandmother and nephew because the other three still exist the giver of life, grandfather, son, mother, earth still all here. So make the other four. So I went and applied for that grant. That's why I went there and he goes. Well, in order to get there, you need a mentorship. I said mentorship, he goes. Who do you wanna be mentored by? I said Michelangelo, and he laughs at me. He's like no, no, someone alive. I didn't know what mentorship meant. I had no idea man.
Speaker 1:So and I said Ned Bear, and his eyes just went and because he knew of Ned's work, he's been doing it for 30 plus years. He's a master woodcarver from St Mary's first Aboriginal ever graduate for community college of art and design and he's been doing this for years and that's the guy that I heard about. So now I applied for that mentorship. I ended up getting it. Now I work with Ned Bear. So I heard about him when I was knee-eyed to a duck, then I meet him in college, then I meet him when I'm homeless, then I walk with the four-legged bear, then now I get to work with the two-legged bear and he passes on 30 years of knowledge onto me that he developed and now I'm second generation woodcarver from that first story and that's what I do. That's where I learn the tech. I call it bear medicine, the tech, the mask medicine. And then I so then that's where my, after working with him doing the mask, I get home Grant's done learn how to make flutes and mask. I'm like, well, I can't just go kill a tree to go make a mask. So I'm just sitting there going, fuck, what do I do? Oh yeah, at the end of that story there's another part of the story. The seven districts Apply for another grant. I wanna do a mask for women and children, men and women in the seven districts.
Speaker 1:Then they gave me purpose. So now I started going to the communities, talking to the men and women in the communities, working with them, hearing their stories, and that tree that's been living in that community for four or 500 years, seeing four or five generations of people, and now its face is coming out to share stories, and it's not of the people that I walk with, it's the tree's life, it's what it's seen and what it's sharing and those stories that come with it and those teachings. And now it's evolving into being completely sourced from the community. So the one in Listy that I just did that mask has the teachings of the yellow birch, has the teachings of the sweet grass that comes from there, has the teachings of the cedar that comes from there, has the teachings of the lodge that comes from there, has the teachings of the moose hunt that comes from there. So usually it takes me about fucking getting excited.
Speaker 1:Yeah so it usually takes me about a month, two months, to carve a mask right At first, start to end. This one took a year and a half. Wow, because each time that I learned I go out and get the tree, I go home and learn where our trees grow, our yellow birch Language of the land, learning going to woods Okay, go back. Oh, the moose hunt's happening. Moose hunt okay, the outdoor education system put on out there, taking the kids out, taking the youth out, taking the other. They shot that moose themselves, they harvest it, they butchered it. They did all the work. Yeah, I want to know that.
Speaker 1:I go home, talk to my uncles. Oh, yeah, you. Well, here's my uncle, here's a shotgun. Go hunt here. This is the trails, this is what you do. He taught me how to dress a partridge on the phone. I'm in my home and he's like, yeah, just do that, dude, you did this. Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, because I was supposed to step on his wings and pull, but I left it. It was too cold now. So he's like oh, now you gotta do it, old school, you gotta puck everything. And then I learned from my other uncle how to stand on his wings and just pull the whole things in your hand. So I'm learning these teachings. This takes a while down home. Then I go back after I learn, and then I go back and then I learn about the cedar.
Speaker 1:I burned a fucking pot down at the La Billoise house. They're like go light the fire. So I go outside, I like the fire, getting ready for a sweat lodge, right, and I'm all like I think this is like my first or second time there. I'm really, I'm still, you know, pull back, just trying to get to know them and go light the fire. I go light the fire. There's a pot there. They didn't say put no water in the pot, they said light the fire. So I let the fire burn their fucking pot. Gordon comes out. He's like oh my God, what are you? No one told me to put water in the pot, they just said light the fire. You gotta be specific with me, man. Be specific. Don't assume I'm gonna put water in the pot. When you said light the fire, say light the fire, put water in the pot. I would do it. But anyway, they called me the one that burns pots now I guess. So what a name to have. So, but all that whole thing, right.
Speaker 1:Then the sweet grass. The sweet grass is from their community. So now I wanna know where the sweet grass comes from my community. So I went and see my auntie to wet no woods, learn how to pick it. What ceremonies do we have for the sweet grass down home? How do we approach it? How do we pick it? How do we, where do we spread the seeds? How do we? All these things right?
Speaker 1:So then it became that big of a teacher and then now applying our facial markings. So that's the research that I'm doing. Now that I have the research of the land, research of the visual doing the work, now it's to investigate our facial markings. I come along with it because a lot of people ask to make my facial markings. Is it isn't? Or blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Well, again, I believe it. So because if we think it, and, just as the elders would tell me, if you're on that journey and you're told or you feel that it's there, more than likely it's just sleeping and it's now waking up and you're doing that work, right, so why wouldn't we? It's all around the world. So, and then, if I was a skin marky, then damn right, I would. I know I would. There's a little doubt in my mind. I'm not just gonna do my whole, I'm gonna do everything Well plus the other thing is is it's fucking hella cold here In the winter.
Speaker 2:You're not gonna be showing your markings on your chest. No, in the middle of winter it's gonna be in spots that can be seen, so of course you would have had it on your face.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So now it's to do that work, and that's again that comes out. I see designs in the land and I see it. So now the project is to do the re, to get it's crazy Now that I have the mask.
Speaker 1:So, carol, she's an artist from Frederick, a non-native, and her and Ned were really good pals, right, and they've been. She makes things out of guts, literally real guts, like she takes intestines and makes things that she made a parka out of it. She made all kinds of things, a huge dress, she does all kinds of stuff and she worked with Ned and so she grabbed the seed from a butternut tree and planted it in the yard with the intention of him being able to carve a mask out of it, cause that's what his favorite stuff to work with was butternut. He's on his journey in the spirit world now. So she gifted me that tree because she knew that I was worked with Ned and I'm second generation carver and for some reason she was. She approached me and we hit it off and she gave me. She gifted me this tree with this intention to become a mask 30 years ago and is now going to become a mask still. Yeah, and my intention was just tree is to carve seven masks that have seven facial markings, with seven full body suits.
Speaker 1:Wow, that will talk about our quill workers, our bead workers our hunters, our medicine people, our storytellers, our medicine people like all these things. And there are gifts and there are singers or drummers you know like to. So then the natto, be able to tell the difference. You know, we'll see him from a distance and go that's a basket maker, yeah, that's a quill maker, yeah, that's a hunter. And so we'll be able to identify who we are and still be able to gather together in that and our medicine becomes that much stronger when we're together. It's strong when we're separate, but it's that much more when we're all together. Yeah, big time. And with that visual language, then we can sit down and be the storyteller of our journey and where it came from and how we developed it. Yeah, and that's the power of visual language and oral story. Yeah, mass medicine, the same, yeah. So if I think of, like, how did the colonizer or not even the colonizer, how were religion so successful? How are businesses so successful? What do they do? They use a visual language.
Speaker 1:Find McDonald's Whoop yeah, right. Find Canadian's hire yeah. Find Burger King how do you tell you the difference between your house and my house? Hmm, right. How do you tell the difference between a cat and? A dog.
Speaker 1:There's a visual language. Yeah, so a business will push their visual language as much as they can. That average. So we understand that visual language and that oral story that comes with it. So churches were the best at it at first because they made an infrastructure that was completely different than ours. Yeah, we're gonna build this infrastructure that doesn't look like our wigwams. Yeah, it's gonna have a high peak, it's gonna have a shape. It doesn't move. You can't even. It's not even mobile. We're like what the? It's kind of stupid. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, you call you gonna tear that down every time you gotta move with the season. Yeah, fucking dumb. But yeah, so we'll go. Then it's you mongous or you're gonna go. I'm gonna go walk inside and take a look. You get inside. You see this horrific fucking view of this dude being tortured. You're like, oh fuck, what's going on there, man? Yeah.
Speaker 1:Fuck, what happened? Did something real bad. So then you look at it. That's the second visual language. Hmm, so they used two already. Yeah, then they have an oral story. So now we're gonna use the oral story. We're gonna.
Speaker 1:You wanna learn about the dude hanging on the wall? You come in here, sit down in these things, we'll talk about that dude. And this is the building that you do it at. It's different than anybody else's. Still to this day, any city, any town that you go to, their infrastructure is still there and it's different than everybody else's. You can't build a house looking like a church because it's gonna be affiliated as a church. Castle is a castle.
Speaker 1:So that's how powerful it is, how strong it is. So I'm thinking myself. I said I'm gonna do the same fucking thing. That's the power of mass medicine and our visual markings. It's a fucking visual language that's attached to an oral story that can be carried on for generation to generation and we take care of it with our traditional values, our honor and respect and all those good things and the way that we share things and the way that we do it. It's gonna last and it's gonna continue to grow and it'll be in everybody's face, just as we are when we walk out in public. We're in everybody's face. You know why we have it up here. This is who we are. Yes, we still exist. We haven't disappeared. We live amongst you and now you can really see us, cause now we're promoting our visual language, and that's crazy what they did to it. It's like so as you're in there, you're looking and you're learning about their culture.
Speaker 1:Of course we're doing it with respect. You're like, yeah, cool, well, I got some oral stories too and I bring in my stuff and they're like, oh, wow, I really like your stuff. I'm gonna bring that home to my king and queen. I gotta show them your stuff. Then we're gonna bring our stuff and we're gonna replace it with your stuff. And we're gonna continue to do that until you have no stuff and it's all replaced with our stuff, and then we're gonna have enough people there that we're gonna be like fuck, now we're gonna take the land too now. And it was slowly, methodical done, but that's the beginning of it and it was fucking crazy, so it worked. So I'm doing the same fucking thing that worked, cause it's proof.
Speaker 2:Exactly.
Speaker 3:Here comes our culture. Yeah, yeah, yeah man, it worked man.
Speaker 2:Yeah, fuck it. Yeah, awesome. Yeah, well, I think we've been going at this a few minutes, so we'll cut it there. I'm just super honored that you've taken the time to share your heart, share your stories and share your journey. I think it's a important thing to be able to share those things and I know that it will inspire others, those people that are maybe asking that question how do I get started in this work and how do I find the meaning of these things? Well, your story will help them to do their own work, to do their own journey. It's just a little lesson for people to take that forward.
Speaker 2:And, as I said, I'm happy to be here, I'm happy to spend time with you. Being with you always makes me happy, makes my heart smile, so I'm super happy to be here and to spend the next few days. Actually, as I'm saying that I just wanna put out, I'm here visiting you for the Museum of Vancouver exhibition on the what is it called? True Tible Contemporary Expressions of Ancestral Tattooing right, wow. So, yeah, I just wanted to bring that forward because, of course, this is all gonna be going out as that is happening. Just remembered, you know been having that conversation, but yeah, so just super stoked to be here, thankful that you're. You know, being able to witness this journey that you're on is really a joy for me and, yeah, I'm super stoked that we get the next two days to continue conversations, but in different ways.
Speaker 1:Yeah, dude.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Tomorrow's gonna be epic. I got a buddy coming down and remember I was saying earlier it's the end off with, because I feel that it needs to be said.
Speaker 1:Yes, my buddy, adrian Francis. He's a dancer and he came to me and told me about a friend of his that dances with a mask and how we were talking about earlier and how that goes. Well, it's now coming, it is here, it is Woken, yeah, and I understand my part now as a mask maker and we're gonna meet him tomorrow. So he's the one that he's gonna be here. He's gonna be sharing his story. There's something very special that's gonna happen tomorrow that combines my vision on my fast and his vision that he had just had on his fast, and there's many things. Tomorrow is gonna be something very special and it's part of that medicine that's coming to our people here in Megamoggi and from in his community, my community and all communities, but it starts off. I'm still looking forward to it tomorrow and looking forward for him to meet you, cause I talk about him, I talk about you with him and where we're going. Yeah, so the mask medicine and the visual language and the skin marking is it's here to stay dude. Yeah, man.
Speaker 2:Fuck, yeah, and with that, thank you for coming out and for all of you who are listening and watching, we'll check with you next time and you know, next time I come around we'll do an update, yeah.
Speaker 1:Right on brother.
Speaker 2:Okay, cheers. See you all. Yep. Hey, everyone, thanks for stopping by and taking this journey with me through this episode. I hope you enjoyed it. I'll just ask that you would go and subscribe, if you haven't already done so and if you have subscribed, thank you very much.
Speaker 2:I appreciate you following this journey. I just want you to remember that, no matter who you are, where you're from, what you've done or what you've been through, that you were amazing, that you were loved and that we need you here today and going into the future so that we can transform this world for the better through our collective thoughts, actions, feelings and our compassion for each other as human beings. Head on over to next week's episode, where I talk to Tristan Jenny, a cre-artist based in Edmonton, alberta. In this episode, we talk about the importance of self-care and the balancing of family in a hustling and bustling tattoo career, and the last thing that I will ask you is to do me a solid and share this episode with somebody that you think will enjoy it. Thanks a lot and see you next week.