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BIGGER THAN ME PODCAST
Get inspired by people who make a difference bigger than themselves with host Aaron Pete. From overcoming obstacles to finding motivation, these guests will inspire you to dream bigger and strive for greatness!
Popular guests include Premier David Eby, Vassy Kapelos, Brent Butt, Ariel Helwani, Rav Arora, Tara Henley and the Millennial Therapist.
BIGGER THAN ME PODCAST
162. Carrielynn Victor: Indigenous Wisdom and Nature in Art
Experience the vibrant celebration of National Indigenous Peoples Day with a live recording from our Art Show Interview, where Carrielynn Victor brilliantly connects art, nature, and cultural heritage through ecosystem restoration, intergenerational connections, and storytelling.
Carrielynn Victor is an artist, plant harvester, author, storyteller, mother, conservationist, fisher and medicines practitioner.
When We Die Talks explores life’s biggest question: what happens when we die?
Listen on: Apple Podcasts Spotify
Welcome back to another episode of the Bigger Than Me podcast. Here is your host, Aaron P.
Aaron Pete:How's everybody doing? Amazing, amazing. So each one of these, for people who have visited before, I try and make unique, and that's with the support of my partner, rebecca. We try and make these original. The first one was with Rebecca Session. We had music. We had music, we did pizza chips. We tried to make it a relaxed vibe.
Aaron Pete:This is an art show, so we tried to up-class things a bit with some more wine, charcuterie cups which I had to learn how to spell and so many other delicious foods. The delicious sandwich is they're a little bit smaller to make you feel like a big person, big person on the block. One piece that we ask is that anybody who's willing to we're hoping that you share this on social media. Record this, share it with your friends. Give them that thing. It's called FOMO fear of missing out that they miss out on the next one. We like to keep these small and make sure that there's a good group of people here, but we want other people to know about these because we're trying to raise awareness of really important people, and that's Kerry Lynn, that's not me. So we like to highlight those individuals and give them a platform where other people can hear the important things that they have to say. So I really want to stress that. The other piece that's really important is that we also have an opportunity for you to purchase her work. So that's the first time that we're giving this a try. We're trying to support her work and make sure that she has the opportunity to share her endeavor.
Aaron Pete:For those of you who don't know, it's a lot of work to become an artist. It's a lot of work to share your gifts, to dedicate yourself, and over the first five to ten years it can be an uphill battle. And then it's only now that you start to gain traction. People start to recognize. Some of you might be here specifically to see her, which is great, but it takes a long time to build that up, and we want to make sure we support her by doing that. So this is the way that you support her. There's information on how to do that. We hope that some of you may have done that. At the end of this, there will be an opportunity to re-go through If you haven't been to the second floor there's artwork up there for you to be able to go see.
Aaron Pete:There's artwork on the first floor as well. Some of you, I know, have already purchased prints, and so we're trying to encourage people to be able to get that experience so that we can raise awareness of the great work she's doing. So, as all of you likely know, our guest tonight is Kerry Lynn Victor, I'm so excited. We were corresponding three months ago about this and I'm super passionate about the work she does. We did an interview for those of you who don't know back in 2021, right before the Atmospheric River, and she has a lot of stories that I hope we get into tonight about the work she did prior about the Sumas Lake, and then, 20 days later, an Atmospheric River takes place and reminds us of that history, so I think that's going to be valuable. She is an artist, plant harvester, author, storyteller, fisher, medicines practitioner. Kerry Lynn, would you please join us? Great, how are you feeling?
Carrielynn Victor:Feeling good. Thanks for having me. Thank you everybody for coming.
Aaron Pete:I'd like to start with some things people might not know about you, which is your work with the environment conservation and trying to protect these ecosystems. As you can see, there's habitat restoration taking place and you were involved in that work. Would you mind taking us back to that? Many people understand the history of Indigenous people and they think of us as stewards of the land, and I thought this was a beautiful example of your work stewarding these lands. Would you mind talking about that?
Carrielynn Victor:Sure, this is an example of a successful project. There's a lot of kind of projects on a micro scale that take place, but this one was a little bit larger and we tapped into a recreational fishers fund that funds restoration works through CHIAM's environmental consultancy. I was managing the consultancy at the time and the original plan was just to put some big riprap against the foreshore and carry on, which is common practice when there's threats of flooding. But it's really really poor fish habitat and I've got my older cousin in my ear and he's always saying living foreshores, living foreshores, that's the way to go and recognizing that water naturally needs to kind of spill into these side channels, ponds, ponds, marshes, along the river's edge, where it builds habitat and sustains all kinds of species, invertebrates all the way up to mammals, right. So we took those monies and we went back to DFO and I said I've got another idea, Hear me out. And a lot of people, people said DFO is not going to listen to you. You know they already said yes. But we, we pleaded our case and and they said yes. And so we got to work reviewing the, the hydrogeology of a side channel in the river and decided to regrade the side channel, dig some new pools where there was already salmon fry present and put in some large woody debris and bring in some riparian plants and try to call that, which is a term that means like bring it back to the way it was.
Carrielynn Victor:It was a good. It was certainly a good exercise. It took three years. It wasn't like an overnight project and we had lots of help from local experts and various types of scientists at the province and in our community. And it was just like one of our fishers who said well, why don't you work with what we already have? Why don't you just fix up what we already have instead of going out there and putting big rocks on the foreshore? And what the hope is is that the fish come back right and eventually the project expands out further into the river and more salmon spawning habitat and we're keeping an eye on it and nature is certainly taking it back over. I go and I look at the footprints at different times a year and you know the eagles are eating the swans, and swans are eating the bugs and the coyotes are eating the fish, and or the otters are eating the fish and the coyotes are eating the otters, and the whole cycle is really, it's really happening down there.
Aaron Pete:What does that mean to you?
Carrielynn Victor:It means, to a certain degree, success. You know, it's one thing to want to fix habitat for human use, but to restore habitat and kind of take a step back and watch nature do its thing is it's certainly a type of success.
Aaron Pete:I'm wondering about how nature ties in with conservation and how you tie that into your artwork. I feel like this piece that we're looking at is an excellent example of tying the two together and that experience you had trying to restore the environment, having that understanding and then tying it into your artwork.
Carrielynn Victor:Yeah, the connections are definitely there. So this is a chum. An emergency management group asked for this piece because they were looking to reflect traditional fishing values with salmon, all in kind of all in one image. And so what's happening there is there's a tiny little board floating in the water and there's a fish bones on it and the man with the shawl and the hat and the gesture is a speaker, and that is a first salmon ceremony. And so if you've been to a first salmon ceremony, you kind of know what's happening there. But if you haven't been to a first salmon ceremony, it's an ancient treaty that acknowledges that when we up this part of the river I can't really speak for other groups who do their first salmon ceremony, but when we catch that first salmon, every single bone goes back onto a special platter and, through a special ceremony, goes back into the river. And that's part of a promise that's made to the salmon mother that will take care and respect and revere the salmon that come up the river. And so through that is this agreement that the salmon will continue and the the.
Carrielynn Victor:I chose a chum because they're super colourful and I believe that their colours do reflect environment, and so there's these splashes of mountains and trees, and I love the pink that shows up. I don't exactly know what that reflects, but it's fun. And then the two in the canoe are a reflection of the ancestors who come, and they help us with that part of the ceremony. So lots going on. I learned a lot about chum in the project that we were just speaking of and how aggressive and powerful they are, and so I had to throw the teeth in there too.
Aaron Pete:Beautiful. You are also a medicines practitioner and I'm wondering where this came from.
Carrielynn Victor:I love plants.
Aaron Pete:Did you always have that passion and did it start to develop when you started to understand the environment around you?
Carrielynn Victor:I have always. I've always had a passion. But you know, for those of you who've been in Chilliwack for a long, long time, like there was a lot, of, a lot, a lot of forested space 30 and 40 years ago and when I was growing up, we would just head out into the bush and do our playing, and certain times of the year, you know, you could suck on clovers or eat fresh shoots or eat the berries, or you know you knew which bark you could eat. I don't think we realized we were engaging in medicinal practices or seasonal rituals of rejuvenation at the time, but as adults those are kind of the terms we might give them. And so as I got into I was probably like 15 or 16, I got into following around a late elder in Nanaimo, snuneymuk elder Ellen White, who's passed on now, and she used to do plant walks through the university and I found it just fascinating how one plant could not just be useful or beneficial for one thing, but one plant could be, you know, it could have technological value and it could have food value and it could have medicine value, and at a different time of year it could be used for a different kind of medicine, and for men it could be useful for this, and for women it could be useful for that, like one plant. So super fascinating, um, and then I did a bit of herbology.
Carrielynn Victor:Um, I took a certificate program with Dr Jeannie Paul, some some of you might know. Dr Jeannie Paul, she's a naturopath, focuses on indigenous plants. Um, and Dr Jeannie Paul, she's a naturopath, focuses on Indigenous plants, and Dr Jeannie's focus is like oh, let's learn as many things as we can. But on a separate occasion, an elder said something that really hit home and said you know, working with plants is about relationships and it's not about volume. It's not about volume, it's not about numbers. How many hundreds of plants you know is good, but your relationship with them is the most important thing, because that's what you're sharing with the people who need the medicine. The more you know a plant, the better you can share it. And so I started to scale back back, back, back, back back, and now I just work with a handful of plants.
Aaron Pete:I just feel like this conversation is really important because we hear about, like this idea of grounding that you take off your shoes and you go out into nature and that seems like such a high level understanding of where you get to when you follow that through to its end, which is really trying to understand the environment and all of these different plants and there's probably so many to try and learn about and it just reminds you to be humble in your understanding of nature and to start to take those steps to reconnect and appreciate the complexity of the world around you and I feel like our world sometimes is simplified down so that you just take this pill for this issue, or you take that for this or you and it's a reminder that there's a whole world out there that we've interacted with for thousands of years and that we need to start to take those steps to reconnect yeah, humans in in general, have been using plants far longer than we've been using, uh, pills, for sure, and so our bodies are hardwired to know what to do.
Carrielynn Victor:Our bodies know what to do. Our body does a lot of healing without plants, right?
Aaron Pete:Yeah, this ties in as well. I'm going to tie everything throughout tonight with your artwork, and I loved this photo. It really stood out to me because it's a reminder of young ones being able to reconnect and start to understand and learn about how to truly nourish ourselves and not just feed ourselves, not just eat, but really nourish ourselves, both within our heart and within our stomach. So would you mind talking about this piece?
Carrielynn Victor:For sure. This piece is at Promontory Heights, promontory Heights Elementary and really this is a reflection of the work they're doing with their kids. They have a lot of times when I go into schools and I work with them for murals, they say, like let's work with our mascot. But their mascot is a black panther, which is not a local or regional species, and so their idea was to celebrate their kids and the work that their kids do in the local riparian um, re-establishing indigenous plants, and it's really cool work, um, and they wanted to kind of mark that moment in history.
Carrielynn Victor:So I walked up and down the little creek, made note of which plants were there and the bird species that were in there, and then just tried to capture a moment where these kids are doing that work. There is something like the nuance. There is that the cultural nuance there is that the young man is digging in red earth and it's my understanding that the red man is digging in red earth and it's my understanding that the red earth locally is the oldest earth, and so in this image he's like tapping into a remembering. And so I know there's a saying and I'm probably not going to get it right, but if your hands are in the earth, you're learning something, and so he's kind of touching ground on these old understandings just by planting a tree.
Aaron Pete:This leads into one of the questions I'll be kind of honing in on more later, but it's this like we need to reconnect to these things. Like it feels like there's high anxiety, depression. It feels like that comes from a sense of disconnect, whether it's from their elders, their community, the culture, the land. It feels like there's that disconnect and that importance of reconnecting with these things. Going for walks in nature, starting to point out those plants that you don't know and looking at them up I mean there's apps now that will help you find birds and plants and understand these things and it seems like that's more important than ever when we're seeing these epidemics of disconnect.
Carrielynn Victor:Super important, yeah, yeah.
Aaron Pete:We have to talk about this book as well. Right here, cool, stand Like a Cedar. I love it and it goes to this idea of disconnect and it being important to find yourself and stand within yourself. From your perspective, what does it mean to stand like a cedar?
Carrielynn Victor:Well, I just want to give a quick shout out to Nicola, who wrote the book. Nicola is a dear friend of mine and she's, like this, really expressive poet as well. She feels very deeply, and so when I listen to her speak or share a poem, I love to just let that kind of translate because I feel deeply. But I feel deeply in imagery, like. So it's a little bit different. And so I was hiking one time and the bark was falling off this old tree and the tree had grown like in a twist, and so we kind of made note of it but started to notice it elsewhere and really noticed it in the alpine, and it turns out that trees that grow in more intense winds will grow, twist like, they'll grow tall and straight, but inside they're twisted because it makes them more resilient and resistant to snapping right, um. And so I think that's one way to look at a cedar, but um, another.
Carrielynn Victor:Another way to look at a cedar um is through the lens of who, who the cedar tree is right, and so the concept of shuli, uh, life force, uh, within everything, and the, the carrying on of a life force within everything, and the carrying on of a life force is part of every single cedar tree.
Carrielynn Victor:And if you take the name for cedar in Halkomelem, it's H'pe, and so the root word of ch'peh is ch'ip, and ch'ip means a line, and eh is like the continuance. Ch'peh is the continuance of a line, and there's kind of two ways you could look at that. You could look at that like if you're pulling cedar bark and you create a nice long line, that could be your chuppeh. But if you look at the life force of the tree and how the tree was originally a man who was transformed into the tree, then he then becomes the continuance of his line, then goes through every tree, and so every time I approach that cedar tree, that chuli of that man is there and reminds us about generosity and reminds us about continuance In a good way, and reminds us about continuance in a good way, and so there's probably a dozen more ways that we could describe standing like a cedar, because I also think cedar trees dance, like if you watch them in a windstorm. They're kind of they all have their own way about them too.
Aaron Pete:So I was disconnected from my culture.
Aaron Pete:My mom was a part of the 60s scoop, so I didn't grow up and ingrained in some of this information, but I grew up in a Roman Catholic household where we learned a lot of those traditions and what you were just talking about the idea of the good man who is eventually turned into a cedar tree is very similar to me to the idea of Jesus Christ and the idea that the person who stands up for the community, who acts in people's best interest, who gives himself, who is willing to be generous to others in circumstances where they could act in their own best interest and that's something to be admired, that's a role model to look up to.
Aaron Pete:And that he was turned into a cedar tree so that he could continue to give back to people and to the community, and that we've relied on a cedar tree so that he could continue to give back to people and to the community, and that we've relied on the cedar tree in so many different ways, and that we were very intentional throughout history not to cut down the cedar tree but to take the bark off of it and to remain that lifeline. Uh, sunny mcclsey talked about the lifeline within the tree that if you cut it, will no longer continue to grow. It needs that lifeline into the ground in order to continue to live, and when we just forest, forest, cut everything down, we disconnect that and we start to kill off those things, and that's something that we shouldn't do, that we should aspire to keep these things living and stay connected to these things. Do you think about the, the drawbacks, and try and think about this in both a religious way as well?
Carrielynn Victor:I hadn't made that, I hadn't drawn that parallel for myself, but I can see where you're going with that.
Tim Srigley:And.
Carrielynn Victor:I mean to aspire to generosity and like. Centering ourselves in community is a pretty rich life, you know Rich in that you may always have what you need because you're always doing your job right, Taking care of others and they're taking care of you.
Aaron Pete:The other piece I want to touch on in this book is to me, you are somebody who stands like a cedar. You're willing to go out into the community. You're willing to look into a camera, sit in front of 65 people, have a conversation and talk about the things that you care about, that matter to you, that have arisen as something that's important to you. And some people shy away from that. Some people they want to do their office work, they're uncomfortable on a stage and that's challenging. To take up the embark of going in front of people and sharing your story isn't always easy. It's not always the most comfortable thing. So how has that applied to you? How have you worked to be able to be comfortable sitting in front of a group of?
Carrielynn Victor:people. Well, thank you. First of all, I was in grade two and I had a teacher who played the guitar and he was a like a happy, jolly guy played the guitar, um, and he had an exercise for us that was really interesting. Seven years old is supposed to be an age where your like gifts, start to show up. Um, and he's. He insisted we pick and pick a topic and present in front of the class and some of the children are just mortified.
Carrielynn Victor:But I was at this really multicultural school in Burnaby, edmonds Elementary at the time and I wanted to share my Indigenous culture with this class. There was no other Indigenous kids in the school. There was kids from all over the world who were like first-generation immigrants there, and I wanted to teach them about smoking fish, and so my mom and I did the research and she drew me this beautiful chart. She was in, she was going to BCIT at the time, so she had perfect font and layout and everything, and so I brought this chart in and I stood beside the chart and described how to smoke fish and brought some samples right, lock it in and I certainly I loved it, and then the teacher asked me to do another one and my mom and I made a little sweat lodge that was about this big and I had gone to my first sweat with my grandma at about that age and so we described like when the door opens and what happens inside and what it felt like and all of that. So I think there's a very supportive mother in and around the story there, but there's also a very supportive teacher who said we like you in this position, do it again.
Carrielynn Victor:And then I was always the host of things growing up, like the variety shows at school and I worked at a casino and I dealt craps and that's really loud and wild. And then I couldn't deal craps anymore. So I was the hostess for the casino. Like that was my full-time gig. I hosted the buses and the people. And then I had a nice little rap career for a while too, um, and then when we had live fights in Chilliwack, I did all the live fights, um, emcee, the like on ring announcer stuff, uh as well. And and so I've, I like, I think I like to be in front of people. There's always this nervousness about it, like I was in the back and I was watching all the cameras of, like everybody and I just, I think that there's a time and a place and I like to hold that ball in the air. You know, agreed. You must know what the ball is.
Aaron Pete:Yeah, I've seen the ball once or twice. We should tell you you're all being recorded right now.
Carrielynn Victor:There's no laughter cues in the ceiling.
Aaron Pete:The other piece that I think is always important on National Indigenous Peoples Day that we talk about is the idea of Tamiyak and this idea of seven generations. This is the Tamiyakuk and this idea of seven generations this is the tomyuk piece exactly well time I saw it and I was like that's tomyuk nice, we have to talk about it I knew what was going on. Would you mind talking about this piece and what tomyuk is?
Carrielynn Victor:well, this um, this particular piece, was commissioned, um, by, by a group who said that they wanted Tameyuk represented, and so I'm going to try to get this right.
Carrielynn Victor:Stapmok is your great-grandmother, okweok is the great-great-grandmother, tapweok is the great, great, great. And then I think, and so it doesn't just count like a line in a generation, it's like the ones and then the ones beyond, I think. But what's interesting about the concept and the world view is that it goes both ways, and so it's the great, great great, it's the great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandchild, but it's also the great, great, great, great, great grandparent, understanding that they're connected, um, and in this piece, the um, the ancestors, are in the clouds and the Tamiyuk generation is in the mountain, and so they're at this high place, because there's this sacredness about high places. A lot of the mountaintops are story rich and we look up and we see the eagle, and the eagle carries our prayers, and this concept of God being high was introduced to our people and it was accepted because we already looked up that way. And so this concept of Tamiyok travels in kind of both directions, in the imagery as well as it does in our history and our lives.
Aaron Pete:This is just incredibly beautiful. Like when I think about the idea. You illustrated it perfectly. How did this come to you? Did you just sit down and dedicate yourself to this? Was this in a dream? How did something like this come about, where it's so clearly depicted?
Carrielynn Victor:I wish I could say it was a dream. That would be super fun, but it's not. It's just from being outside and being on the land base and recognizing that you can dig deep and find your ancestors. You can go high into the mountains and find your ancestors. They're everywhere. Their memories are everywhere. Their objects are still there. The way that they left footprints on the land base is still there, and how it steered me is still present as well. And so it's just.
Carrielynn Victor:It was like faces. You know, we see faces in the mountains. We're not high, we do see faces in the mountains. And the water right, like the water coming off of the woman's hair, is important because, like I personally recognize that you know, this is the same water that the dinosaurs had, and so if the dinosaurs had this water and all the plants since, and then maybe our ancestors cried and maybe those tears are in this water, this water is me and this water is you and it connects us, and so to have a little bit of water kind of traveling through her hair is important too.
Aaron Pete:There's one piece that I want to touch on on this, and it goes back to that idea of anxiety and depression is I don't think most people are taught this and I think it results in people feeling like their life doesn't matter, like I feel like if you don't know that your grandparents and your great-grandparents and your great-great-grandparents did things so you could exist today, they might have traveled overseas, they might have had to fight a war, they might have had to done all sorts of things in order for you to exist today. But if you're not told that, then you have no idea that you are carrying on a legacy of sacrifices previously. That's why, within Indigenous culture, it's important that you learn your Tomeuk and learn the past things that have happened to you so you understand how you fit in and the significant things that have happened for you to exist today. But then the other piece of that which you were talking about is you also have to understand that you have to pass things on to your kids and your grandkids and you have to leave a legacy. You have to leave this world better than you found it for future generations. And so, with the discussion on rights and how important those are, I feel like this discussion of responsibility is equally important, that you have a responsibility to your ancestors and to your children and your grandchildren and to the community that you uphold.
Aaron Pete:And I'm just curious am I crazy? Am I missing something? Because I don't feel like I'm hearing this. Where don't you feel like you're hearing it? The news, political discussions? I don't feel like our politicians think five years beyond what's going on, and I know that there's systems in place that contribute to that. But, man, it would be nice if a news anchor said, like what is your legacy over the next hundred years going to look like? That would be a nice thing to hear.
Carrielynn Victor:You know it is few and far between to hear about it in politics or even to hear about it in the resource extraction industry. But I met a forester who was doing some harvesting on Sumas Mountain and he said he was passing his business on to his kid and so he was looking at a 30-year plan. And then he said and if I want my son to have a successful business, then I'm going to need an 80-year plan. And I was like that's great, and noting that the work that he was doing was very different. His behavior on the land base was very different than a forester who wasn't thinking that way.
Carrielynn Victor:Right, and we certainly can't paint all the First Nations with the same brush and say all the First Nations are thinking in Tamiyuk, it's not happening that way. And so when it happens and it happens well, we can celebrate that and we can move forward with that. When you have it in your heart, that's great. When we can talk about it on a stage with each other and maybe somebody new puts it in their heart, that's great too. The values you know through maybe colonization and the values of colonization are a little bit upside down.
Aaron Pete:Do you feel like there's a shift from maybe when you started to now that people are starting to understand these ideas and embrace them more than than previously?
Carrielynn Victor:when I started? Yes, I was having that conversation.
Carrielynn Victor:Uh, in the lobby I was um just minutes ago minutes ago in the lobby, um and and, about people embracing. And so I I spent a lot of time going into elementary schools, going into middle schools, talking about plant values. Plants are our relatives. I exhausted myself and I stepped away. I was hosting workshops how to make plant medicines. I exhausted myself, I stepped away and I was thinking like, well, who's going to do this work? This work's really important. I was working on the land base as well, and it's fuel for the fire.
Carrielynn Victor:Where does my mind rest? My mind rests in art. All my ideas go back to art, and so I thought maybe I'll have this like never ending well of energy if I just go and do art and I do I feel really motivated always, and also motivated by the young people in the community of all backgrounds, who are embracing that plants are our relatives and that we need to take care. And that's part of why the funds from tonight are going to the Park Society, because I believe in that curriculum, I believe in the connections that are made in the forest.
Aaron Pete:That's beautiful. What made you interested in murals and what got you excited about doing this work?
Carrielynn Victor:I think the I must have seen a mural. I must have seen a mural that just like that just hit home one day and I want to do that and so I started doing. I started doing murals here and there for daycares with acrylic paints and it was a real struggle. I didn't really know what I was doing and I didn't know how to scale up and I didn't know a lot about composition. And then the Vancouver Mural Festival asked if I wanted some help and offered a mentorship with an experienced graffiti artist and somebody who'd done murals before how to scale up, how to choose colors, how to work with environment and that was like the launch pad I needed.
Carrielynn Victor:And then I just stopped saying no for a while. You want a mural, let's go. You want a mural, let's go. Four stories high, let's go. Brick wall, let's go. Indoor, outdoor, upside down, let's go, let's go. And in that had some learning curves, but so um, so much experience in a short amount of time and I'm just now able to kind of scale down to the things that I want to do and the stories I want to tell and the kind of surfaces I want to paint how far, far out are you booking now?
Aaron Pete:Because I think the last time we talked, a couple of years ago, it was a year out.
Carrielynn Victor:I'm still, yeah, booking a year and a half in advance.
Aaron Pete:Wow.
Carrielynn Victor:Yeah, trying not to overbook right Like one a month, because murals always come with contingencies and so you need time to kind of work with all the things that could go wrong.
Aaron Pete:That's another piece that I want to touch base on. When we first talked a couple of years ago now you were talking about, one of the challenges is making sure that you do it both for the people that want it and they usually have requests, preferences, interests and that you do that piece, but that you also make sure you nourish the creative endeavor and making sure that you find that balance, because for me, it's like I need to interview, like I try and do one a week, but I also want to make sure that I'm excited about it and that I'm intrigued and that there's questions that I have that are honest and genuine. How do you make sure you strike that balance?
Carrielynn Victor:Well, I'll tell you guys, Chilliwack wants a lot of fish and a lot of chiam, and I'm saying to myself, how can I make a mural that I haven't grown tired of salmon and chiam? I love those. I love those too, and they're always connected. I love those. I love those too, and they're always connected and they're always. You know, but I keep. What I do is I've got a handful of images on my iPad and I cycle them and I make them new somehow, and that's part of the challenge. But what I've also done, aaron, is started carving Wow, carving. And so I'm, I'm using, I'm treating the mural business like a business and like a service and I really want the clients to be happy. And then I'm also serving my artist with a separate practice.
Aaron Pete:I love that and I can't wait to see it's working yeah.
Carrielynn Victor:Yeah, and eventually I think they'll blend together. We'll have mixed media, carving and mural pieces, which will be fun.
Aaron Pete:Jack of all trades.
Carrielynn Victor:Or a couple.
Aaron Pete:Yeah, the other piece and I have to confess this wasn't my question. Tim had a really terrific question, okay, and it was around. You do a terrific job of doing the geometry and there's a very complex thing there that's taking place that I get lost in. But then there's this other piece that's very like, more like relatable, and it's it's characters and you feel like you're connected to them, like this reminds me of the movie brother bear, if I'm, if I'm being honest. So how do you choose which style you're going to use?
Carrielynn Victor:That's a client request thing, Because I have a bit of a portfolio. When a client says I'd like a mural, I say, do you like the geometric abstract or do you like something more organic and flowing? And they immediately know what they want, or they say both.
Aaron Pete:Which is fun too. On the geometry side side, where did that come from for you? Because that seems unique, like, uh, unique among unique. I don't see a lot of that I love.
Carrielynn Victor:I think I was trying to create something 3d because I couldn't carve. I was trying to create something 3D because I couldn't carve. I was trying to make to use light and shadow in a way that would help things kind of hop off the wall a little bit, and so I really just started like studying in life how light hits certain surfaces. And these shapes in particular are just Salish woven patterns. Once you know what they mean, you can kind of organize them in a way that tells a story, and so they can either tell like a really rich story or they can just tell a kind of a straightforward story.
Carrielynn Victor:And so, in an effort to create something that's sort of 3D but also a nod to Salish weavers, this style came out and this particular wall with the swoose because we couldn't decide if it was a swan or a goose this particular wall had like one and a half, two inch depth to it. It was a corrugated metal wall and so we couldn't actually hand paint anything and everything had to be, uh, taped and sprayed, yeah, and then like the level we. So we used like a, we used a level as well, but I don't know if you've ever taped anything that's not flat. We would hold the tape and then put the tape on and it would go off in an upward or downward direction every time. But this was created through the limitation. That style of goose was created through the limitation of the the wall material.
Aaron Pete:Um I I probably would have opted for something with more salish design in it if the wall was flat so multiple questions, and this is the challenge of being a host or an interviewer is I have to try and pull back the amount of questions that I have? Um, but one of them is around the beauty of the geometric shapes falling, which is the water flowing as the bird flaps its wings. You told the story a couple of years ago. Would you mind retelling how you saw that and how you took that in?
Carrielynn Victor:Watching geese or watching swans take off and land sometimes it's really graceful and sometimes it's kind of clumsy and land sometimes it's really graceful and sometimes it's kind of clumsy, but at a certain point it looks like they're running on top of the water. And the effect of shapes kind of breaking away and tessellating in my mind. Our human self recognizes cycle within that. I don't know if we talked about this a couple of years ago but I love tessellating, kind of breaking away shapes, because sometimes our lives do that. But there's always like this forward motion in the piece not to create, like breaking away and falling apart forever, but like breaking away as a part of something new being created like a phoenix sure yeah yeah, the other piece that you mentioned and I just can't resist asking about it was when we first spoke.
Aaron Pete:You said something and it sat with me Like I think about it pretty regularly. Rebecca can attest to the fact that I bring it up pretty regularly and it's that you said you see things in your head in 3D and that you have a tough time putting it into a 2D medium. And a lot of people say, like everybody's creative, I'm not that creative, like I do not see things in 3D and I do not have visions of like ideas that you have for painting or creating that you do. I might think of like an interview question that I have, but it's it's nowhere near that sophisticated and I'm just interested in that creative endeavor. When you see something you talked about how you try and sit down and draw it and write it down as soon as possible. Where does that come from for you?
Carrielynn Victor:Where does it come from? Oh, I don't know. So this, I've got this idea that came. There's okay, here's this. There's a place. Maybe you go there You're almost awake but you're not quite sleeping and you think something or you see something. There's so much nodding that we go there. Uh, I don't know, I do not go.
Carrielynn Victor:I don't know what the no, it's like the space, the space between breaths, right, um, and what do you call it? Liminal? Thanks, mark. Um. So inside this space, uh, sometimes when I'm waking up or like if I'm actually relaxed enough, um, there'll be a concept that kind of pops out, and it pops out as like a whole picture and I might only see it for like that long, but if I feel it and it resonates, I'm gonna try to hold on to it. And the bear upstairs with the volcanic explosion and the bear made of ash, like that piece, came from that place.
Carrielynn Victor:And so these kinds of pieces, they, they hold space a little bit differently than than the pieces that I'm like conceptualizing, like the eagle that's next to it. I love that eagle. I spent countless hours painting the light and the shadow on the eagle, but I just seeing things now for the first time, because I've started carving. I'm starting to see ideas in wood, but I can't produce them. I don't have the the skills or the capacity to do them, so I just have to hold on to it until I have some of those skills. I think that's kind of what I like to do, is hold on to them.
Aaron Pete:What a gift, like, what a unique ability to have that I just, I really cannot resonate with. Like, I'm just in awe of this idea of being able to see something before you go to sleep or have an idea that you want to bring out into the world, that you only have moments to put together, like, for the most part, it's like I'd like to interview that person. They said something interesting. It's not, it's not this deep or it's not this like risk of losing something.
Carrielynn Victor:There's risk. Yeah, yeah, it's a really upsetting to have an idea and then be like, oh, what was that idea? And anybody who writes a song or writes a poetry and you're like, oh, that's a really good line, or you hear a riff and you lose it, it's hard, you might never get it back, you might never get it back.
Aaron Pete:And the value of that in comparison to what somebody says they'll pay you for. It feels like it's really important that you cherish wherever that's coming from. Beyond the opportunity somebody says they want a mural painted like. It seems like that's something special that you have that other people don't have as a gift. Do you agree?
Carrielynn Victor:I cherish it 100%.
Aaron Pete:I do yeah yeah, can I ask the audience how many other people have creative endeavors that just flow into their mind at random?
Aaron Pete:times and how many people do not, and they just go to sleep and they have a great night. Most people, I feel like, are not in that boat. That's why I find it so important that we recognize you for that, because as you were talking about with young kids is like they often have a gift, and eddie gardner did the best job of kind of highlighting the role elders can play, of going into community, going out and watching kids and saying they're going to be a great leader, they're going to be a great artist. They see these things and these are the things we need to cherish within, like when we say culture. These are some of the cultural components that I think are so important. I mentioned it in the preamble In 2021, you were illustrating this piece weeks before the flood Isn't that wild.
Aaron Pete:I cannot. We interviewed weeks before this. Yeah, and then the flood.
Carrielynn Victor:With our masks on, with our masks on.
Aaron Pete:Would you mind talking about this piece and did you perspective like it was right in this moment, like two weeks later, you draw this piece, you're talking about this piece and did you prospect like it was right in this moment, like two weeks later, you draw this piece, you're talking about the Barrowtown pumps. Then, like a couple of weeks later, we have an atmospheric river. That really, I think, changes our understanding of the community we live in, of the risks we face, and we're still working on trying to get flood mitigation to protect the valley, and we're starting to have this conversation around how do we do we bring the lake back? Do we leave the lake the way it is? Do we try and protect our communities? What was it like to create this piece and then see it a couple of weeks later, have this impact?
Carrielynn Victor:It was wild because the REACH offered us these archival photos and so I was sifting through archival photos and the pieces are these interventions, digital interventions on the archival photos, just to kind of like offer this modern flashback? Right, and all the things about the lake that I thought it was were kind of disrupted when we were making the book how shallow it actually was, how seasonally large it was, but when it was out of season it was quite small and where the villages were in relation to where the villages are now very different, to where the villages are now Very different. But getting to know the lake through the photographs and then watching it show up on social media was crazy yeah.
Aaron Pete:Do you think it should come back?
Carrielynn Victor:Personally, I think the lake should do whatever it wants.
Aaron Pete:And in some ways it will, I guess.
Carrielynn Victor:Yeah, the lake's going to what it wants and what I. One of the things that I thought was interesting when I was I was drawing this um uh map that shows up in the back of the book. Uh, and there's an outflow, uh, and that's precisely where the dike breached. The dike breached where the outflow historically was and was flooding back in back towards the lake, right Back towards the prairie, and I thought, wow, you know, like our elders say, the land remembers and it sounds super epic and like romantic. The land remembers, but the land remembers and it sounds super epic and like romantic. Or the land remembers, but the land remembers, the land remembered exactly right, like the substrate would be the same and the pressure point is the same. And boom, the breaking point of the dike was precisely where the outflow was. I just finished this piece last week.
Aaron Pete:When we talk about land acknowledgements I think I mentioned this when we talked the first time I feel like they're so often just disconnected. They're just names of communities. They're not talking about what that relationship was, what their responsibilities were, the place names that were important to the community. They need to have these pieces and I feel like this piece so well illustrates the importance of understanding your connection to the land and understanding the pieces and those place names. Would you mind talking about this piece?
Carrielynn Victor:So what you're saying here, it teases up a bit of feelings about land acknowledgements and I just want to offer that it's important that we have some grace and that we're adaptable, Because when something is new and we're navigating it together, it's going to change, it's going to evolve, we're going to make it better, and so we're kind of in the beginning of land acknowledgements and they're already changing, right. I was at Coquihalla Elementary yesterday and the grade one class had a written land acknowledgement and the teacher was holding it up and the kids were reciting it line by line, was holding it up and the kids were reciting it line by line. When I was in grade one, we looked up at something on the wall and we recited it line for line, but it was God Save the Queen. I didn't see that happening at this elementary school. I saw them reciting a land acknowledgement that they wrote with the local Indigenous community. We've got to take a moment and step back and be like, okay, this is going somewhere. You know, these kids are growing up recognizing value in place history. The people are still here, they're thriving, they're surviving. There's difficulty, right, and so I just wanted to offer that briefly, right, and so I just wanted to offer that briefly.
Carrielynn Victor:This piece was hosted by AD Rundle and the principal had a concept that was chiam and salmon and it was beautiful. It was beautiful, it's still Chiam and Salmon, but it's the Palau Salmon, Shohuyam and the Shohuyam like this is. You know, it was carried forward into a time when things started to be written down and then I picked it up from the archive, the Stalo Research and Resource Management Centre archive. I connected to it. The characters are under the Japanese maple there. You can't quite see them in the shadow. The characters in the canoe are going down river to steal sockeye baby and then when they steal sockeye baby, they come back up the river and they're throwing the dirty diapers into the creeks and those become sockeye runs. So that's the long story short.
Carrielynn Victor:But the figure in the dress is a few things. If you're driving down Hawking you can see it from like all the way down Hawking and that was the principal's plan. Like she pivoted to this because she wanted to have, she wanted to have this representation there and so we're calling it the biggest auntie on the block. But what she's? She's wearing a red dress and that's important Right now. That's important for those of us who have lost loved ones and the grief is very real and the trauma is very real and the fear of being an Indigenous woman alone in a parking lot is very real, and so we're having her in a red dress for that reason. But she's wearing paddles and paddles are growing in popularity and culturally they still have a strong symbolism to them, but you're starting to see them more in public now and to me that means that the world is getting to be a safer place for these paddles and maybe someday the meaning of those paddles will start to surface into the public as well.
Carrielynn Victor:But there's a bit of debate about her gesture. So when you have a woman and her arms are raised out and she's not holding any weapons, you're welcome, right? Or she's grateful. I understand that the gesture's a little bit different for a man, Like if a man's arms are all the way out. It means something different and that's why the house post at the tourism centre has one arm, kind of elbow, tucked cultural nuances like that. But she is welcoming back these salmon coming up the river because that's part of the ongoing work that the people are doing to have these first salmon ceremonies as the springs come up the river. In the background you can see faces if you look closely. In the background, you can see faces if you look closely, because Hiltike has three daughters and those daughters are always close to her, and so the faces are kind of tucked in as well, and there's like a tiny longhouse there as well.
Rebekah Myrol :Yeah, Did I answer your question yeah absolutely.
Carrielynn Victor:This piece is so powerful, I feel, because the school didn't just say we want a Latin acknowledgement, they didn't just say we want a story mural. They said we want to learn the story, make sure our kids know the story and carry it forward that's what that's.
Aaron Pete:What I love about this is that there's depth to it. What is it like to know you were talking about this? Uh, I think you have a story of the one on mill street. Ken popo, the mayor, was walking past. He's like I love that and you understand some of the vision there, but you start to see other people have their interpretations. What is that like to have your vision and then have other people have their own interpretations of your work?
Carrielynn Victor:That's art. I think that's just art. Yeah, yeah, for sure. I hope that the interpretations are close to my intent, but sometimes they're not.
Aaron Pete:You talked a little bit about this the willingness to go wherever the work takes you Go big legs.
Carrielynn Victor:Yeah, sometimes you got to go big legs.
Aaron Pete:This is remarkable, the size of this is absolutely remarkable To see you stand and see the scale of this work and to take this on. What is it like when you hear the opportunity and you go okay, I'm gonna try and build this and and bring this to life. And it is gigantic it's fun.
Carrielynn Victor:um, sardis elementary asked for a mural and said whatever you like. And I was like, cool, I want a. Like let's do a heron because they have that little pond, um. And then we did the heron and and they said, no, we think we want like a canoe and, um, some mountains and stuff. And I was like, okay, let's do canoe and mountains. And so I had this heron kind of sitting in my portfolio and Tyson came in and said they wanted the chiactyl, the weir, the fishing weir, and I said I'd love to do a weir, but a weir is not a super strong focal point. A heron would be a really strong focal point and they agreed, right, so long as the salmon and the weir are there, that they were happy. But it needed. There's also a hummingbird in this piece. They wanted a hummingbird as well, but there's a subspecies of the blue heron locally that is, I believe, a threatened species, and so that's what this is. This is depicting the great blue heron. That's um threatened locally incredible.
Aaron Pete:I just did species cannot believe the size of the work you're doing it's so fun.
Carrielynn Victor:It's fun to see another.
Aaron Pete:this is ufe. Yeah, another piece I wanted to talk about is I think what's becoming more known is is this idea of the four directions, and I had the opportunity to speak with Roy Vickers, who does this work, but he's from a remote community up north and I love that. It's something that's consistent and you brought this to life, as you said, in UFE. Would you mind talking about this?
Carrielynn Victor:I actually learned something recently that contradicts the four directions, and that's that the halkamelum speaking to halkamenum speaking people don't have cardinal directions and that the word that we have that describes to the west is about going downstream, and the word that the islanders have, the Cowichans have, to describe east is to go across the water. So it's reference based or it's like geographical, where your position is kind of over the mountains or the south wind is referenced as something that's a bit warmer, and so you know the south wind is referenced as something that's a bit warmer.
Aaron Pete:Right.
Carrielynn Victor:And so that would connect to the south rather than having cardinal directions. Wow, this piece is about seasons and the discussion that led to this piece was about foodways and the importance of eating in season and how that helps sustain connection and ecology and continuance of culture as well. So the colors there blue is about winter, red is about summer, yellow about fall and green about spring.
Carrielynn Victor:It's absolutely beautiful this piece is done in acrylic paint on like a six-foot PVC circle and then we just inlaid it and put some epoxy over it. It was their, it was their big plan. I thought it should be vinyl and I could just draw it digitally, but the the people who ordered it said hand-painted has quality that vinyl never will have and that's it.
Carrielynn Victor:I, I 100 agree. So we hand painted it and it's yeah, it's got. It's got a good, it holds a lot of space that was the other question tim had was around.
Aaron Pete:How do you choose what utensils you're going to choose? How do you, how do you develop that?
Carrielynn Victor:um, just be kind of picking things up along the way. Um, I recently started using like a semi-brilliant exterior paint and I like the way that the gloss, or the subtle gloss, kind of picks up texture on the wall. That's kind of fun. If a south-facing wall or like a wall that gets sunlight most of the day, is to be painted, I'll order the highest quality paint I can get, because I don't want my work to fade. I want to see these things last a long time. If I'm doing something indoor, I'll definitely pick a high quality indoor paint as well.
Carrielynn Victor:I use Deluxe for everything and that's not a sponsored shout out, but I do believe in their paint and the Vancouver Mural Festival was helpful in steering me towards their paint. But if it's geometric pieces, we're going to use tape and spray paint. I just want to shout out to Deb, who does the geometric work I'll design it and she's got the patience to paint it and the precision to paint it as well. But we use Montana MTN 94, which is an artist-quality spray paint, and the finish is fantastic. So it really a lot depends on the surface or the exposure, things like that.
Aaron Pete:Fantastic. I want to talk about the impact that the murals are having, because I do think that they're a part of the shift in the conversations we're starting to have. What does it mean that you have so many murals? You're having such an impact? People are here tonight to hear your voice because you're the one leading the way on being able to change the culture and start to share the gifts of first nations throughout the valley I don't know, I don't.
Carrielynn Victor:I don't have those conversations. We'll have them. Right now are now, are you having them without me? You know, my brother asked me the same thing and he's doing his good work in the health field and I feel I do feel a responsibility. I'm completely thrilled that I get to do this work. It's such a joy. It's really physically laborious work and I don't think I'll be able to do it forever. So I'm in a mad rush to do as many as I can, and they should make a bit of a ripple in the conversations that we're having. Make a bit of a ripple in the conversations that we're having.
Carrielynn Victor:Representation matters. Our kids, seeing their culture and, you know, their regalia on a wall makes a difference in their life. And in a very, very colonial landscape, the one that we have, every single piece of art makes a difference. You know, even the way that we have every single piece of art makes a difference. You know, even the way that we become allies and how we dress ourselves and how we approach our, you know, our young people makes a difference in their lives. And so I'm at these places and kids are pretty shy. They say all kinds of things but for the most part most part kids are. Kids are pretty shy. Um, they don't. They don't have those conversations, but I'm having a lot of conversations with neighbors and teachers, um, parents who are dropping their kids off, who are open to asking those questions why are you doing this, uh, why are you doing this here? And so I've got to have those answers prepared.
Aaron Pete:I love that because growing up I wasn't particularly proud to be First Nations. I visited the First Nations room, but there wasn't the sense of pride. Now, being able to see your murals throughout the community gives me that sense of pride, being able to understand some of the land and even being able to embrace the idea that that my ancestors have been here for 10 000 years. It's still something that doesn't. It doesn't click like. It's not easy to process the idea that when sunny tells me that my great great grandfather was hunting grizzly bears and and the process that he went to to hunt that and and he's explaining to me who my family relatives are, it's still something so much to take in and be able to see leaders like yourself and go like wow, it's such an honor to know her. It's such an honor to be able to interview you tonight and to be able to have these conversations.
Carrielynn Victor:Well, thank you, I'm really grateful for the space, the space to share a little bit more insight into what's going on kind of behind the scenes. Share a little bit more insight into what's going on kind of behind the scenes. This, this picture, is interesting because the, the schools were doing something about like six, um, like six animals and they were relating those six animals to healthy qualities and characteristics in children. And I said this really really is kind of like sitting uncomfortably in me and really close to spirit animal, you know like, and we're trying to get away from that. We're trying to get away from that kind of tokenism. And it was probably two years.
Carrielynn Victor:I went ahead and I painted these figures and I was like it's okay, it's your job, you know, we're just doing what the client wants and representing however I could. And then that curriculum was stripped from the system because it was inappropriate. So there are a few schools who still have those figures on their walls but they're no longer telling that narrative. Right, like, yeah, of course we can look at animals and and find characteristics of strength and admire those and adapt them for ourselves. Yeah, that's very human of us. But we can't say they're all the same, right, like a bear will mean something completely different to you than it means to me. And it probably means something different to you, know our grandparents and our great grandparents, and so we can't just say a bear means this, yeah.
Aaron Pete:One of my favorite parts about this is your ability to really pull out these ideas of geometry and shapes and culture and start to share that, because the idea of that three dimensions that you were talking about initially is really interesting. That that's one of the challenges of this 2D medium is trying to figure out a way, and doing this geometry is a way to get there. When you are creating something, how do you address these problems? Where you have this idea in your head and you want to bring it to life, how do you start to adapt to that?
Carrielynn Victor:Light and shadow, I think, is an important part of it. And it's funny because when you know when we're looking at something, we don't say in our minds light, shadow, light, shadow, light, shadow but we know when it's off and if so, if you see an art piece and it's off, something feels off about it, right? So the dark, um, the dark part of these shapes all appears either on the bottom or the left side of them. It's just consistency, yeah.
Aaron Pete:I really want to appreciate you because I think the work that you're doing reconnects us and it's been such an honor to be able to speak with you. But it's just an honor to know you and to know that there's people with different understandings, like I feel like your philosophy is incredibly deep and your willingness to dive into these issues and topics and understand them in a more meaningful way is something that sets the example for the rest of us, because I'm still learning about many of these topics, I'm still trying to grow and I think all of us are trying to figure out how to learn about these things in a good way. And you, every time I talk to you, I learn something new. But I also feel like there's such grace, understanding, patience.
Aaron Pete:When I see somebody trying to pronounce the language or something and somebody jumps on them, I'm always like like we're learning, like we're all trying to move together and paddle this boat in the same direction and we just we have to slow down and support those people who are still learning, who are still growing, and I feel like that's what we can really embrace during National Indigenous People's Day, national Truth and Reconciliation Days.
Aaron Pete:We're like we're on this journey together and we're all committed to the same end goal, but we're all at different stages on that journey and I feel like you're so good at protecting those people who are still learning. You're very patient in your understanding, but all of this work that you're doing allows us to understand and start to see like, wow, that's incredible and I want to learn more about that, and I feel like art is really that starting place for people where they can start to go. I want to learn about the language, I want to learn about the culture, the history, all these things. That's the starting place for so many people and place for so many people and you're a beacon for so much of that work and I just I feel like we all need to give you a round of applause because you're the person in the Fraser Valley that's really setting that example.
Carrielynn Victor:I appreciate that. I appreciate that and everybody who's willing to go out, like out of their comfort zone to help make those ripples bigger right, it does require us out of our comfort zone and that's one of the things that maybe our culture needs more of. Our Canadian culture needs more fumbling and holding space for others while they fumble their way through a learning process. We really have a high expectation to get it right the first time, but we're human, right? I spent some time with some Japanese folks on the peace boat.
Carrielynn Victor:I don't know if you guys know the peace boat. Trav circumnavigates the globe and they stop in 18 countries and it's really cool. I was doing workshops on the peace boat and people are so willing to just do something they don't know how to do, even if it looks completely foolish, and I was so inspired. Look how much fun you can have if you don't care how you look while you're learning. Yeah, but thank you for for holding space, for making space and for the kind words well, I do feel like we're all lucky to be able to discuss this.
Aaron Pete:I mean, the pieces to be able to hold up are just incredible and I'm so grateful that we're able to share this with everybody. After this, we're going to have another opportunity to go out, look at the artwork through this new lens, where I feel like it's important to give people space, after you talking, to go and look at those pieces again and see it through the lens of the work that you do and how you choose composition and setup and shadows and all of that, and be able to see it through that new lens. I think we should embrace that and continue to learn, and so I'm so grateful that we were able to share the time together. I think we have something else coming up. Uh, we will do a few questions, if any. If anybody has any questions for carrie lynn, just raise your hand, and we have rebecca with the microphone, and it's important that you speak into the microphone, uh, because we are live recording this so people can hear it. We have one right in the front here.
Tim Srigley:Thank you so much for this. It was a pleasure to listen to. I had a few different topics that maybe you might want to talk on. You can choose one or more if you'd like. One was about plants, it was earlier at the beginning. Another one was about art, and another one was about plants. It was earlier at the beginning, uh, another one was about art and another one of it was about, uh, mentorship.
Carrielynn Victor:If any of those interests, let's talk about mentorship uh.
Tim Srigley:so my question, for that was you had mentioned, uh, I think, at the for the vancouver mural festival, you uh were introduced to a mentor who did graffiti primarily and helped you a lot with it, and I think Aaron touched on it briefly during this. What role have mentors played with your either First Nation history and or art, and do you mentor at all, or how do you see that role or your responsibility in the future to help other people do this fantastic work?
Carrielynn Victor:cool. Um, I believe in mentorship and and, and mainly because I think people learn so differently from one another and and I'm I'm kind of I'm a person who doesn't do well in a classroom setting, um, but I can watch somebody do something and then try to do it myself and like, don't try to help me, um, but I can. If a teacher is really good, I can. I love to learn from them as well, and so I've had um some um plant practitioner mentorship, um, minimal art mentorship, but I'm currently in a carving. I have a mentor for carving and language as well, and I really believe that the life experience and the kind of the moments that go like in the moments that go in life along with learning, are important as well, and those don't always happen in a classroom setting, and so when someone can offer practical advice, I love that, I love to. I'll just eat that up.
Carrielynn Victor:Last year, the Reach Gallery and Museum in Abbotsford asked me to mentor four young people to do their first mural. That piece is at the Aurora coffee shop in the alleyway, and so start to finish. We did a mural together there. I really enjoyed that, but it's a whole different way of thinking than to actually just start a mural and do it myself. Um, I opened up my practice this year to, uh, friends and relatives on my social media, come by my wall, I'll teach you how I do this. And then I want to start handing projects over to other people as well.
Carrielynn Victor:Um, nobody's quite ready to do it. I don't think. Nobody came through. I might have to ask again. I might have to ask a different way. I might have to grab somebody by the wrist and pull them along, identifying, of course, that this is not just like sitting down with a sketchbook. It's, you know, it's spatial thinking, it's physical labor, it's mostly project management and then, of course, public relations, right, serving clients who don't speak art. We know what we want, we know what we don't want, but we know what we want right, and so all the moving parts right, and finding somebody who can pick up all those moving parts and move with it. That's what I am hoping for, because there's an abundance of work, and so I want to share that. Yeah, young people, though I'm teaching a little bit of work on the iPad, so, sketching on the iPad and kind of where that can go as well, I'll do workshops for that as well. Yeah, Wow.
Aaron Pete:Other questions for Carrie Lynn. Anybody One at the? How do you choose? Like you're a rapper, you're a painter. You draw you card, wild wool, is it just the flow? Is it what draws you? Is painting the thing that kind of brings you the most joy?
Carrielynn Victor:Painting's paying the bills to be honest.
Carrielynn Victor:Okay, that's what I'm talking about, but I don't know. It's almost like an energy inside If I look at my wool and I'm like I don't have. It's almost like an energy inside If I look at my wall and I'm like I don't have the energy to do that. Or I look at my carving work and I'm like I'm not in the right head space to do that, because cedar responds differently. Sometimes painting, because the materials aren't as alive. I can just sit down and do it anytime, but I've usually got a list of things that I need to kind of get through as well, and so I'll tease myself by doing the things I have to do so that I can get to the things I really want to do. It's like housework, thank you, yeah beautiful.
Rebekah Myrol :Any other questions, because I'm ready to okay one more so the pieces that you've brought, there are several that are not for sale, and it seems to me that there's a difference between how you feel about those, what they mean to you, and some of the other works that are happening, and I'd like to know the difference.
Carrielynn Victor:The pieces that are not for sale belong to people already, yeah, and so the portrait pieces that you're seeing.
Carrielynn Victor:That's my new work and I'm just beginning to explore that and right when I start doing a new style. I don't like to sell it right away because it takes me a long time to produce like the piece that you see in the little hallway over here was probably close to about 80 hours, and so what I'll often do is gift those pieces or trade for those pieces with people who I can then go and borrow them from when I have a show or something. I do feel differently about those pieces and I'd love to do like a print run of them someday, because they do have stories, and I caught up to a few people in that little hallway and we were talking about what the layers of earth and sky mean and how they represent in that painting, and so they're story richrich pieces, but it's not obvious. So I'm still working through the process of how to share those stories on those pieces. They are stunning, thank you. I'm hoping to go like launching in that direction of kind of realism or whatever it is.
Carrielynn Victor:Yeah, thank you.
Aaron Pete:On that note, I'd just like to really appreciate you. When I brought this idea to Carrie Lynn three months ago, you were like, okay, I have some work to do in order to get ready for this event and I'm gonna have to do some work to prep for this. So, a lot of the work that you're seeing, we were working, you were working on and leading the way on trying to figure out how to share this, this artwork, with people so that there is something to share, because you're so, uh, busy with so many things that when you embrace this and said I'm gonna figure this out and start to get the pieces ready, I was I was very grateful for that cool.
Carrielynn Victor:Yeah, special pieces for the show. These ones over here, um, these little carved necklaces, um, up up late at night chipping away. Just a lot of love for stones. Stone beads inspired those pieces a lot of times, um, and I haven't done a run of prints in a long time and these two really pushed me to get them ready and, um, I worked with the printer over here and they had them done in a matter of days. So, yeah, I appreciate the push to put some things out into the world again. Yeah.
Carrielynn Victor:And thank you to everybody who's bought something.
Aaron Pete:Yes, Round of applause for Carrie Lynn Anything?
Carrielynn Victor:else, all done, all done. Okay, we'll see you guys outside, yes.
Aaron Pete:Yes, we will have Carrie Lynn out there, hopefully with the balloons I'm hoping some people can get some photos with you and we have our wonderful photographer, alex Hart, so hopefully she'll be there and be able to talk more about the prints.
Rebekah Myrol :And before you do all of that, unlike the two of you, I am not comfortable being in front of the camera, but for this situation I thought it was worth it. I don't know if any of you actually know why it's called the Bigger Than Me podcast. So the Bigger Than Me podcast name comes from wanting to do things that are bigger than himself, just like his grandma, Dorothy Kennett. So Dorothy Kennett made a long legacy of helping others and ensuring that she did right by her community, and that's exactly what Erin does. Anybody who knows Erin knows that for sure. When you walk into a room, everybody is in awe of you. Everybody listens to you. You do right by people. You inspire people. You talk to people who inspire you. You're always going above and beyond.
Rebekah Myrol :Yes, exactly, let's give a round of applause for that. I mean, that's absolutely true. And as you unravel this, this gift was and works with Carrie Lynn, so I can't take all of the credit for this. As you unravel it, you'll see the significance of this. Again, it has to do with your grandma.
Rebekah Myrol :I know that she was a very special person to you and Carolyn and I tried to work on something a little while ago and she remembered this, so I thought it was very beautiful. If you want to hold that for everybody, there it's a beautiful red cardinal which was your grandma's favorite bird, so she will always be with you right there, and I thought it was so nice that Carolyn decided to do that and carve it out of her memory and she remembered that from the last time that we spoke. And you're so special and I want you to know that that you're my biggest role model and you inspire so many others, and this night is not just about one thing. It's about all that you're doing for everybody and how they make you feel. So let's give a big round of applause to Aaron, pete and Carrie Lynn, victor, for doing this. There we go, alright, and if you have any words, aaron, you can take it away.
Aaron Pete:No, we're all done here. Thank you for coming. Yeah, my grandmother was one of the most important people to me. She set such an incredible example and my mom's right up there and I don't think her or I would be here without what she did, taking my mom in, and I'm incredibly grateful.
Rebekah Myrol :You're incredibly welcome.
Aaron Pete:Thank you, carrie Lynn, thank you, rebecca. Have a good night everybody. We're all done here, thank you. As I said, there will be opportunities to take photos with Carrie Lynn outside. Alex will be right there ready to go. Thank you all for coming. There will be more drinks available, more snacks available, so please enjoy. Thank you all for coming and we will see you shortly. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
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