Truth, Art and Reconciliation: the Winds of Change project

By Daniel Elliott and Caffyn Jesse

The "Winds of Change" is a series of watercolour paintings by Daniel Elliott - a Stz'uminus Elder who is a healer and teacher in First Nations communities. The paintings depict the beauty and power of Indigenous culture and community, along with the ongoing trauma of colonization. This book inclu

• Language: English
• Publisher: erospirit
• Release date: Oct 13, 2023
• ISBN: 9781738121113

Book preview

Truth, Art and Reconciliation

the Winds of Change project

Copyright © Daniel Elliott, 2023

All rights reserved. No part of this book nor the images therein may be

reproduced or transmitted in any form, by any means, without the prior

written permission of Daniel Elliott.

Contact Daniel Elliott via email at [e-mail].

Contact Caffyn Jesse via email at [e-mail]

Paperback ISBN: 978-1-7381211-0-6

EPUB ISBN: 978-1-7381211-1-3

Book Layout by: Ravi Ramgati

Table of Contents

Truth, Art and Reconciliation

Anchoring in What’s Right

The Winds of Change Series Emerges

Art helps us access altered states of consciousness

Transparent Soul

Elders Watching

The Elders’ Gaze

I am the Elder watching

Spirit Dancer

Feeling Deeply Seen

Earning Regalia in Prison

A New Way of Painting

Silent Mountains

Witness to Ongoing Resistance

Gender and the Sacred

Shores of Indifference

Honouring Indigenous Women Leaders

Different Moral Compasses

Honouring My Own Trauma Journey

Ancestors

The Agony of Ongoing Indifference

Thuqmin

Revelling in Abundance

An Abundance of Spirit

Art Creates Access to Abundance

Smoke of Torment

An Intimate Agony

Artwork and Community Work

Sun Monster

I See You. You Can’t Hide.

Surprising Support at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission

Intergenerational Trauma

Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women: Ground Zero

Being With the Agony

The Kelp Doll

Cultural continuity, despite the violence

Red Herring

A Transitional Moment

Let’s keep on dismantling and decolonizing

Commitment to a process of continual awakening

The Transformation Song

Transformation

Having impact while we sleep

Conciliation

Oil and Water Don’t Mix

(Re)conciliation at different levels

Colonization

What is the colonization of life?

A collision of values and worlds

In Conclusion

Layers of Truth and Reconciliation

All Alone Stone

About the Author

For Sophia & Mason

and those that follow

Introduction

I first saw the Winds of Change series at a Vancouver Island University exhibition in 2021. I found the artwork deeply exciting. I wanted more time, so I could better contemplate the images, and engage with the complex ideas introduced on cards accompanying each picture. A mutual friend connected me with Daniel, and we envisioned this book project together. My role has been to record, transcribe and organize Daniel’s stories and reflections, and the exciting ideas that flow from him, as he talks about the paintings. My engagement with Daniel, and the artworks, stories, and deeply resonant ideas included in this book, has had a profound impact on me. I find this project mentors and resources me.

Truth, Art and Reconciliation is both challenging and comforting. This book asks us to understand many dimensions of Indigenous trauma. It invites us to feel our own – and each other’s – traumas more intimately. It also opens new possibilities for healing, alternate ways of seeing, and transformative well-being.

— Caffyn Jesse, 2023

Daniel Elliott, photo by Philip McLachlan, Discourse Community Publishing

Truth, Art and Reconciliation

Anchoring in What’s Right

I could paint for a dozen lifetimes about the pain of Indigenous experience, and never begin to touch on all there is to cover. But that is not my way. When I begin to work with people, I don’t focus on what they’ve done wrong, and what needs to change. I start by asking them what they care about. I want to help people anchor in what’s right with them. That was true for me as an artist, too. I spent many years painting what was beautiful about Indigenous cultures.

Winter Fire, 42.25 × 30

Before I began the Winds of Change series, my art was focused on painting scenes from pre-contact history. These paintings were important for me personally, as I reclaimed my Indigenous heritage. People responded with enthusiasm.

Winter Fire was the first of these paintings. My mum is Scottish and my dad is Indigenous. For a long time, I felt like I was neither. I was in this no man’s land, right up until I was in my thirties. I really was a product of assimilation. I didn’t have teachings from Elders, and I didn’t have language. This is all part of western colonization. I felt like I didn’t belong. And that was very designed. Probably tens of thousands of Indigenous people feel that same way.

Winter Fire was a painting about reclaiming my Indigenous identity. I started to find my way home. I can see my own loneliness in this image. It’s as if I’m walking towards something I don’t really understand, but I want to understand it. I’m carrying my burden, and that burden is also material to make fire with. As I come closer to the longhouse, and finally get through the doors, I realize that coming home to my Indigenous identity is about my own self-acceptance.

I just love some of my Elders. You’ll ask them something and they never answer you. They just absorb your question. They take it in and then the answer comes to you. I remember talking to Bill Seward, a highly-regarded Snuneymuxw First Nation Elder. I was questioning whether or not I had a right to participate in our culture. Instead of answering me, he turned it around, and asked me if I thought I had the right. I was asked to step outside of my own uncertainty and observe myself questioning. I could see then how ridiculous my question was, because of course I have the right – my father, and my whole lineage was there, just looking at me questioning. By not telling me the answer, Bill put me into my own process of undoing some of the radical assimilation created by colonization. Instead of just receiving his reassurance, I could actually witness the way colonization was working in me to rob me of a sense of continuity and entitlement to my own culture. At other times, when we were talking, he offered me reassurance too!

When I worked in prison, I ran a program for Indigenous men. Many of these men were part of the sixties scoop. They often had zero connection to their culture. They would question their right to participate in our program. I said, Just come. You’ll see. Then something remarkable happened.