ChokeCherry,  2015

Throughout my graduating year I struggled with the idea of culture, and the influences from ones community that make up a person. This piece was a mediator as I contemplated the meaning of my own culture, the concepts, practices and people that ultimately made me who I am today.

This piece developed quickly through the crafting practices, techniques I learnt growing up, coupled with the knowledge that I was finally allowing myself to explore. 

The resulting piece became a direct expression of my conscious knowledge of appropriation and preservation within the community that raised me. The piece expressed the connection I had formed with a culture that was not my own, by race, but one that I grew up in close correlation to, with the process of ‘preserving’ that much of western assimilated cultures have performed onto those of Canadian aboriginals, that sadly my ancestors were a part of.