Saturday, April 27 marked the first art crawl stop for Kooshkopayiw, the Metis Arts Council in Ontario, whose mission is to ‘mentor, promote and identify artists throughout the Homeland’. “Metis people make up 33% of the Indigenous population in Canada, but only 2% of Metis artists are represented on a national scale,” says Kooshkopayiw President George Simard.

The artists were welcomed by the Muskoka Discovery Centre, where they have a year-round exhibit on the second floor detailing the history of Metis people in the area.

The art crawl hosted Metis painters, beaders and sculptors from Region 7. One of those artists is Joe Jesseau, who has been beading since 1974, brought his beaded leather vest with him to the art crawl and explains, “It tells my life story of going through the residential home system.”

Another beader told us of the important role beading and Metis art has had on her when healing from trauma, “I learned recently that repetitive motion is an antidote for trauma, and stress.”

Generational trauma is something that many Metis people deal with, and after discovering her grandfather's struggles it propelled her to continue pursuing her art. “You've got your feet in two worlds as a Metis in the white settler world and in the Indigenous world and who are you? As a Metis you straddle both. That photograph of my grandfather, it was like it gave me permission to own something that I knew was in my family. It changed everything.”

The second stop on Kooshkopayiw’s Art Crawl will be in Thunder Bay on May 18 at the Thunder Bay Art Gallery from 12pm to 4:30pm.