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Installation photo of Native Artist Collaboration: Faye HeavyShield

Native Artist Collaboration: Faye HeavyShield

May 5, 2023–May 4, 2025
Location
The Donald Danforth Jr. Gallery 322

Among the leading First Nations artists in Canada, Faye HeavyShield belongs to the Kainai (Blood) Nation, a member of the Niitsitapi (Blackfoot Confederacy) with ancestral territories in southern Alberta. In a collections-based installation in the Donald Danforth Jr. Gallery, HeavyShield presents three painted hide containers from the early reservation era in conversation with a new visual work.

Niitsitapi artists adorned these envelopes, or parfleches, with geometric abstractions in the late 19th century. Painted on moist hide in a process akin to fresco wall paintings, pigments saturate the surface to achieve rich, vivid tone. Each artist painted the hide while stretched flat and envisioned where folded panels of the envelope will align to form a continuous design.

Niitsitapi peoples historically packed parfleches with a range of goods for transportation and storage, including caches of preserved food. Embedded in the landscape, the caches sustained populations across the Niitsitapi homeland. These parfleches have traveled beyond the borders of Niitsitapi territories. HeavyShield, however, recognizes their continued vitality. As containers of cultural memory, they continue to sustain Blackfoot peoples today.

This is the fifth iteration of a series where contemporary artists of Indigenous Plains heritage collaborate with the Museum to relate works from the historic Donald Danforth Jr. Collection to contemporary Indigenous ways of seeing. The series began with Arthur Amiotte in 2012 when the Museum opened the Donald Danforth Jr. Gallery.

Niitsitapi (Blackfeet); Parfleche, c.1890; hide, leather, and pigment; 28 x 16 x 5 inches; Saint Louis Art Museum, The Donald Danforth Jr. Collection, Gift of Mrs. Donald Danforth Jr. 105:2010

Learn More from Faye HeavyShield

Map

  • The map is an outline of the land base that was determined by Treaty 7. It is the largest land base of any Indigenous reserves or reservations in Canada. But I guess in a sense, speaking to the parfleches, I wanted to, in some way say that the traditional territory where they would have traveled is so much larger, but that there is which, you know, the land is still there.

Names

  • Sommitsikana is my dad’s mother, grandmother, Kate Threepersons.

    Akohkitopi, and that’s my late father’s name as well as my older son’s name. My oldest son is Chris. My dad’s name was Eddie HeavyShield.

    Iipiowo, and that’s my granddaughter Marley. And that’s Haley’s daughter and Iipiowo was given that name because she went to… she’s gone to several countries already just even from high school on. She’s traveled to Europe, Greece, all over the place. So that’s why she was given that name.

    Akokatssin, and that’s the name of our camp, each year in the summertime. It’s the sun dance camp. So Akokatssin just means the community camp.

    Issitaki, and that’s my mom’s name. Issitaki, it could mean… I guess a couple of different things. What I was told was that when she was a child, it was… you know when a baby is swaddled. That’s what that comes from.

    Ninastako which means chief mountain, and I think that you’ll see an image of it accompanying this at some point.

    And the next one down is my grandson Keelan. His name is Niitanna meaning lone chief which is the clan that my father belonged to. But it started out as when he was younger he was always the only guy in our group of women. So my one of my sisters called Niitanna, but it’s really fitting because it he’s sort of kind of grew into this. Now that he’s an adult… it fits with his great grandfather’s clan name, which is lone fighters.

    Mokowansiists, and that is the Belly Buttes. And that’s the site of the of the sun dance of Akokatssin, and that’s just to the east of where I live. And it’s… it’s just a bluff and then there’s you know, the sun dance has been taking place there every every… summer for as long as I know.

Continuum

  • And those names are, I guess, again, as with the map, just stating that, you know, there is that continuum of whoever… whoever touched those parfleches, or used them last,  it’s important for for them to have heard or to know, the Blackfoot language. To hear it and to, to know that their great, great, great whatever, that these ancestors have relatives that are, you know, in their 20s some have passed. But that sites, the sites that are significant to Blackfoot people that they’re still there, like Chief Mountain is still considered a very sacred place. And Akokatssin and Mokowansiists, they still have the gatherings every summer. So you know, for them to know that they’re not gone.

Process Photos

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