37 Heather Shillinglaw

Title: mâciw mikisin apakosis - Eagle Hunting Mouse

Dimensions: 23in x 16in

Year of Completion: 2019

Medium: Art Quilting (Mixed)

Estimated Value: $560

Courtesy of the Artist

‘She sees me with her eagle eye, and snatches me with her great talons catching my animal spirit Apekosis – mouse. I let out a loud squeak… as the eagle lifts me high into air. As everything I know I leave being lifted from my own reality, I hesitantly muse the awe of how beautiful the rivers, rocks and land look this is the great Okawimawaskiy –mother earth. I know I am the prey buy in all the wonder I know Deep in the cracks of the earth in the same moment this awe in fear of our land being devoured alike myself’

Heather Shillinglaw is a mixed-media artist adapating quilting methods, both traditional and modern methods. The  materials are culturally rooted in the oral histories of her family and ancestry as an Nêhiyawêwin-Cree Appetogosan.  The resolution of the agreement to the Truth and Reconciliation of residential school system caused the harm of her ancestors; Shillinglaw rediscovers her roots from the land using the philosophy and languages of the Anishinaabe. 

 A major component to date has been acknowledging and celebrating her Nohkoms (grandmothers) as healers. Family members, knowledge keepers, elders, historians, archivists, and the experience in the sweat lodge, provide ongoing teaching and great inspiration to Shillinglaw.  

Multi-layered narratives in her work explore the interconnectedness of the people with the land (water, earth, air and sky), whilst valuing the Anishinaabe connection to the ‘four-legged’, ‘two-legged’ and ‘the winged and water relatives’. Her desire is that her work creates and shares art in a ‘good way’ (a sacred endeavor that illuminates the connections between the spiritual and physical world).