Magnetawan First Nation artist works featured throughout Northern Ontario
By Rick Garrick
THUNDER BAY and SUDBURY — Magnetawan First Nation artist Autumn Smith currently has large pieces of her artwork on display at the Thunder Bay Art Gallery and the SNOLAB underground research laboratory in Sudbury. Smith’s eight by 16-foot Saabe Dream banner is on display on the exterior of the Thunder Bay Art Gallery as part of its banner series and her recently completed 12 by 20-foot Honouring Anishinaabe sky stories mural is on display inside SNOLAB, which is located at the Vale Creighton Mine.
“[Saabe Dream is] a dream I had when I was young,” says Smith, who creates artwork under her artist name of Mishiikenh Kwe. “I was at a church with my parents and the roof came off the church. Everybody went out and they left running and screaming away from that church but I was so scared I couldn’t move. I must have been four or five and I looked up and this big giant thing was looking at me and he picked me up and put me in his hand and he looked at me and then he put me down in the bushes outside, and then I woke up.”
Smith says she felt scared at the time but now understands the dream differently.
“I think he was coming to tell me something,” Smith says. “I didn’t like going to church after that dream, but I didn’t understand why and it wasn’t until pretty recently that I realized that was a really important dream. I think Saabe was coming to tell me I don’t belong in there.”
Smith says she would never have started painting or learning about her culture if Saabe hadn’t given her that message during her dream.
“I’ve been talking to people about this dream for 20 years now,” Smith says. “Most people think that whatever that big thing was that came to pick me up out of the church in my dream was [giving] me a message.”
Caitlyn Bird, curatorial assistant at the Thunder Bay Art Galley, says she discovered Smith’s artwork on Instagram. Smith’s artwork is posted on her Mishiikenh Kwe Instagram and Facebook pages and the www.legaleriste.com online shop.
“A lot of her work stemmed in storytelling and the colours were just amazing so naturally that’s why I wanted to encourage having Autumn showcased in this [banner series],” Bird says. “The piece that’s out now has such an amazing story behind it and we thought it would go perfect with the exhibitions that are currently on right now.”
Penelope Smart, curator at the Thunder Bay Art Gallery, says the banner series began during the COVID-19 pandemic as a way to continue creating art experiences for people while the gallery was closed to the public.
“We do about four [banners] a year,” Smart says. “We’ve been able to discover and talk to a lot of really interesting artists working in different ways to create spectacular banners. The whole idea was to get them big and get them outside as big as possible.”
Smith says she finished the mural at the SNOLAB, which features animals she thinks about when contemplating the stars or sky, on Aug. 9.
“They were kind of surprised that I free-handed all of it,” Smith says, noting that it took about 13 hours over two days to complete the mural. “I showed up with a pencil and started drawing on the wall and I painted right on the wall. Some of the paintings I do are six-feet tall, so it’s kind of similar except for when I have to get up on ladders or on scaffolding.”