A Seat at the Table: a multi-media exploration of food sovereignty, security and sustainability

Opening remarks by Tracey Kutschker, Curator.
Photo Credits: Kate Fagervik

Bonnie suggested that we go the opening of the show at the Salmon Arm Art Gallery on Friday evening: paintings, tapestries, mobiles, cedar baskets, local artists, snacks, drinks, live music, and conversation with fellow Shuswapians.

I like to do a quick sweep of what there is to see and then I go back and study the information on the museum labels in detail.

Tracey Kutschker, the curator of the show, gave some opening remarks.

Sara Wiens painting, "Agricultural Grid Near Mortlach, SK.
Photo Credits: Kate Fagervik

She drew attention to the label which introduced the show, and was high above the door.

It was a quote from Louis Thomas, Secwepemc Knowledge Keeper: “The plants spoke to me and said they were going away because the people don’t need them anymore”.

Some of the show is plant based.

The colours in the tapestries come from onions, cabbage, bark, thimble and salmon berries.

Many of the paintings are plant based, the one by Sara Wiens about land in Saskatchewan where she grew up: first indigenous land, then farmers, then industrial farms.

She has called the painting, “Agricultural Grid Near Mortlach, SK”.

Examples of birch bark and cedar root baskets.
Photo Credits: Kate Fagervik

I talked to Delores Purdaby about her display of cedar baskets.

 I own one of her baskets, a much smaller one than the small, medium and large ones she had displayed.

 She was standing by a basket, talking about it, a basket that might have had an 18 inch or more diameter and she was building the sides of the basket.

“I am going to go up about four more inches on this basket,” she said.

I was interested in the tools in the basket.

Two of them were examples of bone sharpened to a point which she pushes through the weaving to allow her to thread more product through the small openings between the roots or threads.

“You know, some women say they don’t like their mother-in-laws but I just loved mine.

This basket is adorned with cherry bark diamonds.
Photo Credits: Kate Fagervik

 She showed me everything I know about cedar baskets. I just loved her,” she told me.

I had gathered some information about basket weaving from the wall label. A red diamond design is a signature that a basket might have been woven by Dolores.

Gallery labels found on the wall beside an installation are typically 100-200 words – well chosen words where something I might not have known is printed.

 For example, there are only 2 weeks in June when the cedar will give up its bark without killing the tree.

Dolores had two kinds of baskets on display: those where the basket is made from a whole sheet of bark, and those where the basket is woven from roots.

She had examples of baskets for gathering berries (individual and then the baskets where all of the berries were kept), and baskets for carrying articles.

Example of the cherry bark diamond pattern, in the collection of Arta Johnson.
Photo Credit:  Bonnie W Johnson

She told me she had recently woven a basket to put a new baby in, but that basket has made its way to Quebec for a newborn there.

The Secwepemc Summer Gathering in Esketemc - that is where Bonnie bought the basket that she gifted to me. The price was $200.

 Bonnie only had $199 in her wallet.

 She did have a bag of candy with her that she had just purchased from another stall, and hid away for a late night snack.

A trade was made.

Dolores ended up with cash and a bag of candy and Bonnie with this cedar basket.

Examples of tools used for weaving.
Photo Credit:  Bonnie W Johnson.

I looked at the painting by David Wilson Sookinakin called “Bitterroot Harvest” trying to make sense of it.

 I have been reading the traditional tales of the Secwepemc people, as gathered by James Teit.

So I was looking for something about coyote, but this is a painting about the Okanagan people and their four food chiefs.

Community Collaboration, lead artist Susan Miller.
Photo Credits: Kate Fagervik

The label said that there are four chiefs: “the black bear is chief of all the four legged ones, spring salmon is chief of all fish, Saskatoon berry is the chief of all berries and the bitterroot is chief of all roots.”

This is one of the places in the show where I wish I could have listened to the artist talk about the painting.

One of Bonnie’s colleagues, a student from Victoria, was at the opening.

We gathered around the painting and since I had taken a look previously I began.

“Well, I see coyote in a number of places in the painting?” 

She asked, “If that is coyote, why is he wearing antlers?”

Sarah Hope with her painting "A Place for the Pollinators."
Photo Credits: Kate Fagervik

O.K. That is the first good reason to gather around a painting with someone who has different eyes.

Bonnie seemed to intuit that this piece was one of four – information she said she gathered from the label.

I read the same label but came away trying to find all of that information in the one painting.

If she is right, it will be a fantastic gallery opening when the other 3 pictures are shown in association with this one.


And that is why going to a museum opening with a bunch of friends can be a really great evening.

What is not to like about conversation with artists, conversation with friends, and conversation about Indigenous art that lingers long after the evening is over.

Louis Thomas quote behind us on the wall.
Photo Credits: Kate Fagervik

The show ran June 8 to August 3, 2019.

Arta