pihkohow (they free themselves by breaking away or breaking loose)

cyanotype treated jacquard cotton, 8/0 czech seed beads, teardrop beads, dentalium, white sage, sweetgrass. 8.75×11.25″

The final piece in this series is a piece that surprisingly brings me great peace to look at, especially considering the image of St Michael’s is still present.

When creating this cyanotype exposure, I used the image of St Michael’s, an abalone shell which had white sage in it, burning, an eagle feather, one of the pressed violets, cedar, chaga, and my grandmother’s bingo chips.
This piece has a sewn braid of sweetgrass, dentalium shells, white sage, seed beads, and teardrop shaped beads sewn onto it. It was also during the creation of this piece that I decided to sew the pieces onto felt using my sewing machine. The sewing, beading, and textile work are all things I learned from my grandmother, and in that way the whole project ties her to me through the act of creation itself.

I wanted to put medicine down, heal, break the chain of intergenerational trauma, let go, and prop my grandmother up as the beautiful soul she is. The things she experienced and the trauma she was a victim of did not make her who she was, and I often think of who she may have been if she had not had those experiences. This piece is about letting go, grieving, acceptance, and peace.

In my mind, pihkohow is the only title for this piece. Not only is it indicative of breaking the chain of intergenerational trauma and the healing involved in that, but it also ripples up through the generations, to the point where nôhkompan freed herself by leaving her homelands in search of a better life.