Last Saturday, I attend the New Sun Conference, at Carleton University - an annual conference I’ve been attending for the last 8 years. I started attending when my dad told me that it was a conference on Aboriginal Arts and being interested in art I thought it sounded really cool. I loved the first one – I was inspired by the artists and amazed by what they were accomplishing in their fields. Since the first one I have listened to artists from many creative areas, such as culinary cuisine to musical performance.

I feel revitalized in the presence of all their creative spirits and often feel ready to be producing my own art and coming up with new ideas.

This year there were a variety of artists, including Tom Jackson, now I have not often asked for autographs or asked to have my picture taken with someone at the Conference but I really wanted to meet Tom. When I was younger, I remember Tom Jackson being one the first (and almost only) Aboriginal person I ever saw on TV – from Sesame Street or North of Sixty – I always felt excited to see him.  When I first saw him at the conference the first thing I thought was, “Wow, he is REALLY tall!” (6′5 he told us) and he was very friendly and approachable with everyone. He tells people that he loves them and how nice it is to meet them and he hugs you like he means it.

The conference reminds me how proud I should (always) be about being Aboriginal and that there are so many people in our communities to look up to and admire.

The other wonderful speakers this year were:

Don Kelly – VERY funny and communicated a very important message about being an “urban Indian” and the values of adapting and adopting to live in our modern day world while retaining the essence of who we are. He showed clips from his show, now in it’s second season, called “Fish Out of Water” (on APTN) in which he tries to learn traditional skills and teachings of Aboriginal people all over Canada. The clips were very funny but it also exposed things about other Aboriginal communities that the viewer might not know about since we all have different traditions and teachings.

Steven Loft – an incredibly passionate curator working to promote and educate people on the wonderful Aboriginal artists creating both traditional and contemporary art. When he spoke about the lack of academic discussion in our schools and universities about Aboriginal art it reminded me of the gaps in my own art history classes. He was very well spoken and addressed a number of serious issues, for example artists living on the street, that continue to exist for Aboriginal artists but also the steps forward that the art community is making.

Shaneen Robinson – a young women who wrote a play entitled “Notay Kiskintamowin” (Wanting to Know – in Cree) who spoke about using writing as a creative outlet for real stories and pain. Her exerpts spoke of real problems in our communities and about losing and finding who we are. I felt as though she spoke from her heart and the stories she shared about residential school survivors was extremely moving.

Michael Massie – an triple-threat artist, who is a contemporary, traditional and silversmithing artist who creates incredible pieces. I thought his tea pots were amazingly unique – like nothing I had ever seen. His descriptions of his tea pots were insightful and helped the listener understand his train of thought into each detail. I was interested in his comments regarding his dislike for high polished tea pots because it reflected the area around the piece and took away the attention from the pot and what it was symbolizing etc…- this is why I dislike glossy photographs and prefer to not have glass over my photos in most cases (although not all).

And finally, Tom Jackson who spoke passionately about his work helping the less fortunate, his music and his brother Bernie. He also spoke about his own life struggles and how a man he helped save, saved him as well and lead him down a new path which focused on helping raise money for food banks and agencies meeting the needs of at-risk youth but also taking care of himself, which he does by taking time for himself everyday to compose music, write lyrics, poetry and whatever he is thinking about.

Resilience is defined as being able to rebound or recover quickly from illness, change or misfortune. The day was about inspiring resilience and all the ways that a person can go about doing that – being an inspiration to someone else, finding inspiration through artistic expression and finding inspiration by another person’s story, art, example. And the conference was a great day for me to reflect on what this theme means to me and the people in my own life who inspire me and teach me.

For more information about the New Sun Conference please visit  www.trickstershift.com

Tags: APTN, artists, Carleton University, creativity, Don Kelly, Fish Out of Water, Inspiring Resilience, Michael Massie, New Sun Conference, Shaneen Robinson, Steven Loft, Tom Jackson

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 3rd, 2009 at 5:59 pm and is filed under Other, art. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.