By Don Urquhart, Times Chronicle
For Karen Goodfellow, who describes herself as an Indigenous eco-artist, straddling two cultures has been a life-long endeavour and one that’s not complete. “It’s been quite a journey,” she says. “Not always easy, but rewarding. It’s not the destination, it’s the journey,” she laughs.
Through her award-winning art – currently showing at The Art Gallery Osoyoos – she’s opened up connections she wasn’t even aware she had. “Sometimes I get kind of, you know, teary and emotional and I’m not really sure why but I think it’s just because I’m reconnecting back,” she says of her two very disparate cultural origins.
“My land-based art is part of my journey back to my indigeneity. I feel like an alchemist by blending elements of indigenous sensibilities, eco-conscious artifacts, and a touch of whimsy.
“My studio is a cauldron where creativity bubbles and golden possibility emerges from discarded treasures. No doubt that my ancestors, both indigenous and Austrian, are cackling while they watch,” she says.
Goodfellow was born in Vancouver to a First Nations mother (her grandmother is Squamish First Nations and great granddaughter of Chief Joe & Mary Capilano) and an Austrian father with gypsy lineage no less.
And while Goodfellow has developed an award-winning contemporary Indigenous style she acknowledges there is some conflict between her life and her art. “It’s becoming less and less conflictual,” she adds.
As it turns out we are speaking only two weeks away from an important juncture in her life. “In two weeks our family is entering back into the Long House, where we will get our traditional designations and names.
“So this is all very exciting,” she says noting it will be in front of 400 people of the Stó:lō Nation. “What I think is happening is it’s kind of waking up all of us in our family, a coming to grips with the fact we grew up totally assimilated and now we’re kind of finding our way back and claiming it.
Goodfellow’s spin on traditional ceremonial sticks.
“And that brings up different emotions at different times,” she says. “At times I’ve felt angry,” but she hasn’t felt that way for nearly 10 years, she adds.
“But I did go through this period and so my family kind of experiences some of those kinds of emotions, so yes I understand it’s in our lineage and the intergenerational resilience will also come with the sadness and grief of loss too.”
She says the anger comes from hearing the stories in her family. “They’re brutal. The residential schools, some of the things that happened both to me and intergenerationally.” But she notes that Indigenous culture is “actually pretty forgiving”.
She says she’s learning from the elders that you don’t have to live with the anger, the emotions can be put to better use, “so for me, that’s been helpful.” Searching for the word to describe the elders’ sensibility she describes it as “a gracious way of walking in the world.”
Over the last year Goodwin says her emotions of anger, joy and grief for instance have been transformed and “actually sparked a whole bunch of creativity”.
Creativity is something she’s never been short of, even as a child of eight she was busy drawing and colouring while her brothers pestered her to make up a shortfall on the team play outside.
At age 19 she was awarded a scholarship to study at Emily Carr University of Art & Design but with her father laying down the reality of her “expensive lifestyle” of skiing every weekend, clothes and so on, she put down her brushes and took a management course that saw her take a job at the phone company.
And she was successful, winning leadership awards and so on. “I was living everyone else’s dream but I wasn’t living mine,” she said. She bid adieu to that career and got herself a job at the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center that then immersed her back into the art world.
Her primary inspiration emanates from the sacredness of Turtle Island (aka Mother Earth). “I find an intersection between cultural reverence and environmental consciousness,” she says noting that sustainability is her ethos.
“I am inspired by the delicate balance between nature and humanity and I reflect this reverence in 2 and 3-dimensional forms,” she says. Her 3-dimensional forms are created from salvage, scrounging the flotsam and jetsam and repurposing and transforming the disposed-of artifacts to breathe new life into these forgotten fragments.
“In addition to delaying entry into a landfill, these altered pieces remind us that even the mundane has a secret to unveil, a story to tell, and a mystery to unravel.”
Working full time she can only do shows about every two years. “I tend to have shows every two years. I work a year and a half-ish and take off four or five months and dedicate myself to a body of work.”
She laughs over the fact that she used to “sneak” into the Osoyoos art gallery and not tell anyone she was an artist. That of course only worked for so long until she ran into her Anarchist Mountain neighbour Claudia Punter who happens to be the gallery curator.
One aspect of having shows every two years is that her work is very different. “It’s just the way that people are getting used to my work and I think that’s why I get people coming to my shows, at least in Squamish where I do shows every two years.”
Her current show occupies the whole gallery and she’s thankful there are two rooms because she has current artwork and art from a few years ago when she was going with bright colours.
She notes there is a substantial trend towards landscapes, something she brushes near with her nature focus. Right now she’s enjoying her “river” creations and says she will probably stay in that direction for a bit, but encaustics have caught her attention, she laughs.
Karen Goodfellow’s “Spirit of the Land” exhibition is on at The Art Gallery Osoyoos until Sept. 28. The gallery is open from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. For more information call 250-495-2800.
