Centre Victoria pour femmes is proud to give $9,000 to the Spanish Indian Residential School Legacy Association. Thank you to everyone who purchased a print and to those who shared the project and helped spread the word. Thank you to Mishiikenh Kwe who made this project possible. Merci et miigwetch.
During the month of March, we invite you to purchase a copy of the painting ‘Community Care’ by artist Mishiikenh Kwe.
The piece represents the importance of community, caring for others and taking care of oneself.
Proceeds will be donated to the Spanish Indian Residential School Legacy Association, a fund to support survivors of Spanish Residential School.
About the piece
The piece is called “community care,” and depicts an elder sharing her heart medicine with a young woman, and watering that woman’s medicine with water from a copper pail. The copper pail and plants represent medicines, or gifts that we all have.
Self care is important, we must all learn to care for ourselves, but the way we learn this is through our families and our communities.
Community care is essential to our well being and our healing.
That’s what this painting is about: using our medicines, our gifts to take care of each other and allowing ourselves to be taken care of when it’s needed.
About the artist
Mishiikenh Kwe (Autumn Smith) is a 24 year old self-taught Ojibway-Odawa artist from Magnetawan First Nation.
Born in 1997 in Parry Sound, Ontario, Autumn has always had an interest in art inspired by her family, her community, their stories and the land around her. She began painting in 2016 while in college.
She studied to be a Child and Youth Worker (Technicienne en education spécialisée) at Collège Boréal in Sudbury, but decided after graduation in 2018 to return home to her community and to pursue art full-time.
Since then Autumn has used her time to paint, learn her language and spend time on the land with her 1 year old son Jiibik.
