Faye HeavyShield (born 1953) is a Kainai-Blood sculptor and

installation art Installation art is an artistic genre of three-dimensional works that are often site-specific and designed to transform the perception of a space. Generally, the term is applied to interior spaces, whereas exterior interventions are often called ...

ist. She is known for her repetitive use of objects and writing to create large-scale, often

minimalist In visual arts, music and other media, minimalism is an art movement that began in post– World War II in Western art, most strongly with American visual arts in the 1960s and early 1970s. Prominent artists associated with minimalism include Do ...

, site-specific installations.

Background

HeavyShield, the third youngest out of twelve siblings, grew up on the North End of the Blood Reserve where her father managed a

ranch A ranch (from es, rancho/Mexican Spanish) is an area of land, including various structures, given primarily to ranching, the practice of raising grazing livestock such as cattle and sheep. It is a subtype of a farm. These terms are most ofte ...

. As a youth she attended

Catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

school at St. Mary's Residential. Growing up on the Reserve she spoke Blackfoot and English and spent quite a bit of time with her grandmother who told her traditional stories about the Blood and Blackfoot people. In 1980 she began attending classes at the

Alberta College of Art and Design The Alberta University of the Arts (AUArts) is a public art university located in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. The university is a co-educational institution that operates four academic schools. The institution originated from the art departme ...

but later obtained her Bachelor of Fine Arts at the

University of Calgary The University of Calgary (U of C or UCalgary) is a public research university located in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. The University of Calgary started in 1944 as the Calgary branch of the University of Alberta, founded in 1908, prior to being ins ...

in 1986.Lee-Ann Martin. ''Faye HeavyShield: In the Blood''.
Art Quantum, pp. 71–79. Eiteljorg Museum, 2009. In 2007 HeavyShield narrated and acted in "Legends of Kainai: Stories from the Blackfoot People of Southern Alberta" produced by the CBC.

Fine art career

''My art is a reflection of my environment and personal history as lived in the physical geography of southern Alberta with its prairie grass, river coulees, and wind and an upbringing in the Kainai community (with a childhood stint in the Catholic residential school system). The past, present and imagined make up the vocabulary used to realize my thoughts and ideas; responses and references to the body, land, language.'' – Faye HeavyShield

Upon entering the Alberta College of Art she began to explore artistic styles finding herself drawn to working with her hands through sculpture and large-scale installations. Creating these works gave her a feeling of immersion in the materials and concepts behind the pieces.

Sculptural installations

Many of HeavyShield's works are site-specific, such as ''body of land'', first created in 2002. Hundreds of small paper conical

tipi A tipi , often called a lodge in English, is a conical tent, historically made of animal hides or pelts, and in more recent generations of canvas, stretched on a framework of wooden poles. The word is Siouan, and in use in Dakhótiyapi, Lakȟó ...

forms are placed sometimes solitary, in couples, or in groups, on a wall. The forms are in shades of red, pink, purple and brown. The colors are obtained from digital images of human skin, magnified, then printed on paper. ''body of land'' seeks to show the permanence of environments, community, language and history. These works often display multiples, whether the forms in ''body of land'', boats, small squares of cloth, or other delicate and often hand-created objects. The creation of these pieces leads to repetitive tasks, such as dying clothing – this repetitive process is one that HeavySheilds finds meditative and exploratory.

Heritage

Always a major source of inspiration, HeavyShield's life on the Blood reservation and Blackfoot ancestry flow constantly through her work. In 2004 she created ''kuto'iis'' ("blood"), which consists of hundreds of small knotted balls of cloth attached to a wall, painted in red ochre. Similar to ''body of land'' in its chaotic placement of the knots, each knot signifies a

blood clot A thrombus (plural thrombi), colloquially called a blood clot, is the final product of the blood coagulation step in hemostasis. There are two components to a thrombus: aggregated platelets and red blood cells that form a plug, and a mesh of ...

. The repetitive pattern and ritualized act of creating the knots has been described as a "re-collection of stories, the sounds of language and song, of home." From 2007 to 2008 HeavyShield studied Blood beadwork in the collections of the

Canadian Museum of Civilization The Canadian Museum of History (french: Musée canadien de l’histoire) is a national museum on anthropology, Canadian history, cultural studies, and ethnology in Gatineau, Quebec, Canada. The purpose of the museum is to promote the heritage of C ...

, the Royal Ontario Museum and the

Glenbow Museum The Glenbow Museum is an art and history regional museum in the city of Calgary, Alberta, Canada. The museum focuses on Western Canadian history and culture, including Indigenous perspectives. The Glenbow was established as a private non-profi ...

. Studying the museums classification systems of these objects, she noticed they were stored in rows of drawers or on shelves and often with only small catalog tags. During this study she also thought about the people (mainly women) who created the objects, people whom she and her family are related to genetically and historically. One piece that came from this study is ''hours'' (2007); a book, with no text, consisting of twelve bound pages of woven white

seed beads Seed beads or rocailles are uniformly shaped, spheroidal beads ranging in size from under a millimeter to several millimeters. ''Seed bead'' is also a generic term for any small bead. Usually rounded in shape, seed beads are most commonly used fo ...

Christian symbolism

HeavyShield's Catholic education and the importance of Christianity on the Blood Reserve continues to appear in her work. Drawings and sculptures inspired by the

wimple A wimple is a medieval form of female headcovering, formed of a large piece of cloth worn draped around the neck and chin, covering the top of the head; it was usually made from white linen or silk. Its use developed in early medieval Europe; i ...

s worn by the Grey Nuns appear in the mid-1990s with ''heart hoof horn'' as well as addresses of prayer in the installation piece ''now I lay me down'', showing semi-abstract fonts placed on a wall reflecting Catholic rituals and prayers. ''now I lay me down'' was a part of her 1994 exhibit "Into the Garden of Angels" at The Power Plant in Toronto.

Feminism

In the 1990s HeavyShield was one of the fore-runners in the Canadian

feminist art Feminist art is a category of art associated with the late 1960s and 1970s feminist movement. Feminist art highlights the societal and political differences women experience within their lives. The hopeful gain from this form of art is to bri ...

movement. Numerous works during the decade reflected on femininity and womanhood. In 1993 she created ''sisters'': a circle of six pairs of

high heels High-heeled shoes, also known as high heels, are a type of shoe with an angled sole. The heel in such shoes is raised above the ball of the foot. High heels cause the legs to appear longer, make the wearer appear taller, and accentuate the ...

with the toes pointed outward. The installation, representing HeavyShield and her five sisters, symbolizes the strength of women. Utilizing shoes again in 1994's ''she: a room full of women'' she brings together twelve pairs of women's and girls' shoes

spray paint Aerosol paint (commonly spray paint) is paint that comes in a sealed, pressurized container and is released in an aerosol spray when a valve button is depressed. Aerosol painting is one form of spray painting; it leaves a smooth, even coat, unli ...

matte Matte may refer to: Art * paint with a non-glossy finish. See diffuse reflection. * a framing element surrounding a painting or watercolor within the outer frame Film * Matte (filmmaking), filmmaking and video production technology * Matte p ...

black. This piece is the first time that HeavyShield utilized her own words (eventually bringing her poetry into future work) with framed black and white panels over each pair of shoes, representing "everywoman".

Landscape

Growing up in southern Alberta, HeavyShield lived near two rivers: the Oldman and the

Belly Belly may refer to: Anatomy * The abdomen, the part of the body between the pelvis and the thorax; or the stomach ** A beer belly, an overhang of fat above the waist, presumed to be caused by regular beer drinking ** Belly dance * The fleshy, cen ...

. She used to play in the Oldman as a child with her siblings and in 2004 she began documenting the rivers with photographs, which she proceeded to create black and white photocopies of, titling it ''old man is a river''.

''Through digital images, writing and drawing, my time spent with rivers – their influence on our bodies and our histories – has been recorded and re-played. And through travels, this engagement with the idea of place and its texture has come to be site-specific.''

The piece, shaped like a

diamond Diamond is a solid form of the element carbon with its atoms arranged in a crystal structure called diamond cubic. Another solid form of carbon known as graphite is the chemically stable form of carbon at room temperature and pressure, ...

, consists of one half encaustic images of

Prairie Prairies are ecosystems considered part of the temperate grasslands, savannas, and shrublands biome by ecologists, based on similar temperate climates, moderate rainfall, and a composition of grasses, herbs, and shrubs, rather than trees, as the ...

grass and one half a large digital print collage featuring inscriptions of her thoughts. This work was displayed in 2005 at the Alberta Biennial. In 2004 she created ''camouflage'', an installation and performance-like piece that involved HeavyShield placing stones and twigs from the

Oldman River The Oldman River is a river in southern Alberta, Canada. It flows roughly west to east from the Rocky Mountains, through the communities of Fort Macleod, Lethbridge, and on to Grassy Lake, where it joins the Bow River to form the South Saskatchew ...

, which feature photocopied images of the river and text from the Blackfoot dictionary on them, on the shore of the St. Croix River. Releasing them to the elements, three weeks later most of the pieces had scattered or been carried away by the tide. This piece was created on the 400th anniversary of the arrival of Samuel de Champlain at the site – representing "themes of transplantation and exchange."

Exhibitions

* ''Hearts of Our People: Native Women Artists'' (2019),

Minneapolis Institute of Art The Minneapolis Institute of Art (Mia) is an arts museum located in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. Home to more than 90,000 works of art representing 5,000 years of world history, Mia is one of the largest art museums in the United State ...

, Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. * ''The Art of Faye Heavyshield'' (2022), 40-year retrospective,

MacKenzie Art Gallery The MacKenzie Art Gallery (MAG; french: Musee d’art MacKenzie) is an art museum located in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada. The museum occupies the multipurpose T. C. Douglas Building, situated at the edge of the Wascana Centre. The building holds e ...

, Regina.

Notable collections

Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art The Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art is an art museum in downtown Indianapolis, Indiana, United States. The Eiteljorg houses an extensive collection of visual arts by indigenous peoples of the Americas as well as Western Ame ...

Heard Museum The Heard Museum is a private, not-for-profit museum in Phoenix, Arizona, United States, dedicated to the advancement of American Indian art. It presents the stories of American Indian people from a first-person perspective, as well as exhibitio ...

National Gallery of Canada The National Gallery of Canada (french: Musée des beaux-arts du Canada), located in the capital city of Ottawa, Ontario, is Canada's national art museum. The museum's building takes up , with of space used for exhibiting art. It is one of the ...

Notable awards

*''Eiteljorg Fellowship for Native American Fine Art'', 2009, Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art

References

External links

''Robert Houle'' on Faye HeavyShield"Faye HeavyShield: Strength of the Kainai"
Mason Studio
"Faye HeavyShield's Calling Stones"
Galleries West {{DEFAULTSORT:Heavyshield, Faye First Nations installation artists Women installation artists First Nations feminists First Nations sculptors First Nations conceptual artists Kainai Nation people Contemporary sculptors University of Calgary alumni Feminist artists Artists from Alberta 1953 births Living people Canadian feminists First Nations women artists