Anishinaabe artist finds healing through artwork

March 12, 2020
Aamjiwnaang artist Jill Joseph explains the themes and symbols in her paintings to visitors at the opening of her art show recently at the Maawn Doosh Gumig Community and Youth Centre in Aamjiwnaang First Nation.

By Colin Graf

AAMJIWNAANG FIRST NATION— It took a lot of nudging and encouragement from family and friends to get Jill Joseph started down the path of artistic expression that has provided her with therapy, healing, and now, the opportunity to display her work publicly for the first time.

The show, held at the Maawn Doosh Gumig Community and Youth Centre recently, is showcasing a number of paintings inspired by subconscious forces and featuring sometimes-veiled images of family, natural locations, and personal and clan-based symbols.

Joseph only took up the brushes seriously in the last three years after a conversation with her younger sister Fiona who jump-started her thinking of creating her own work. She had just finished working with Aamjiwnaang artist John Williams on a mural that hangs in the community centre when Joseph remembers her sister saying to her, “‘Why don’t you do something like that for yourself? Go and get some paints and brushes. You are always promoting other artists and never yourself.’  So that’s what I did.”

Joseph felt she lacked the education and experience to pursue art, but that conversation with her sister resonated with her and is what pushed her forward.

“This has been a while coming. I didn’t think I had much talent,” says Joseph.

That inspiration continued even after her sister’s death from a drug overdose in July 2018. Joseph credits that blow with leading her to work in the field of harm reduction and social work.  Now enrolled in the social service worker program with the First Nations Training Institute (FNTI), the artist says painting has helped her deal with other challenges in life including post-traumatic stress disorder, chronic pain, and those including being a 24-hour caregiver to her son, who has had several hospitalizations with schizophrenia.

“It’s very healing, very therapeutic,” she adds.

Jill Joseph’s unfinished and untitled painting for her sister, who died in 2018. Joseph explains that the dragonflies in the painting were creatures loved by Fiona, who was always singing, dancing, and chasing dragonflies. Her sister Fiona can be seen in the foreground getting ready to cross over.

Joseph also credits other family members and her current classmates for encouraging her artwork.

“Sharing your work is showing a vulnerable side of yourself. I owe a lot to this wonderful, powerful circle of inspiring women and gentlemen for giving me the confidence. They have really lifted me up when I felt very worthless.”

She remembers as a child that creative expression was always part of family life.

“We were always doing some sorts of arts or crafts, somebody could pick or play, and we were always singing as a family. They called us ‘the Indian von Trapp Family’,” says Joseph, referencing the Austrian family who inspired the Sound of Music movie. The family travelled a lot because Joseph’s grandfather was a minister, living for a time in the US states including Mississippi, Oklahoma, and Texas, followed by time in Alberta.

Joseph feels she has been quite secretive about her works so far, with only a few family members seeing them. She feels her inspiration comes not only from the living, but also from her spirit family including grandparents and an unnamed figure, an old man spirit guide who comes to her in dreams when she needs guidance.  She relies largely on these forces and her subconscious.

“I never have a plan when I paint, I just pray and paint,” she says.