Porcupine quills and goose droppings: new Indigenous artist in residence gets 'messy'

The City of Edmonton named Melissa-Jo (MJ)Belcourt the 2019/2020 Indigenous artist in residence in March, but it will take city staff a bit more time to find her an appropriate studio space.

"I do a lot of big messy things so they're trying to find the right fit," she told CBC Edmonton's Radio Active.

Belcourt'smaterials include animal hides, moose skin, moose hair, porcupine quills, and sometimes duck and goose poop, which she uses for painting.

Belcourt, who grew up in northern Alberta, identifies as Mtisand has Cree, Mohawk and French heritage. She learned the traditional methods for hide tanning and paintingfrom Elsie Quintal, a celebrated Mtis artist from Square Lake,Alta.

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She studied with Quintal as young adult looking to reconnect with her Cree and Mohawk heritage.

The skills Belcourt learned are methods that were passed down through generations of womenwho traditionally took on the role of hide tanning and painting in their communities.

"It's without chemicals," she said, "so everything's done with the natural things brains and things like that to create a beautiful piece of hide."

Animal brains are boiled andthen spread on the de-haired side of the skin to help soften the material.

Her red and yellow paints are made from ochre, and she uses goose and duck fecesfor green.

She then transformsthe material into bags and moccasins, which she decorates with ornate bead work and porcupine quill work.

Depending on weather conditions and the detail of the decorative work, she said it takes about three weeks to make aparflechebag, a satchel made from rawhide.

Dangerous work

While Belcourt waits for her new studio space, she is preparing for a year that will includeteaching classes forIndigenous and non-Indigenous students, as part of her residency.

She will be leading a one-day porcupine quill work workshop at the University of Alberta in April.

It's a craft that comes with perils.

"It can be dangerous," she said, "There's little barbs on the end of the quills so you have to know how to handle them."

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Belcourt is gathering some of the materials now.

"I'm looking for porcupines, so if anyone sees any road kill I'm putting it out there," she said.

Belcourt will receive a monthly stipendandher work will be exhibited in a gallery in March 2020, at the end of the residency.

Over the next year, she said she would like to take that time to create a mentorship program to teach more young women traditional art, and continue part of a legacy that Quintal passed on to her.