LauraGrier

These DIY printmaking tools are made using Dene Aesthetics (joy).

Hįdú ɂAssı̨́i – K’inayele originated as experimental marks made with tampons, pads, lingerie, takeout containers, plastic beads, and pill bottles. With digital tools, Grier used these traces to create composite floral designs that resemble Dene textiles – a visual connection that allows them to participate in craft traditions they didn’t learn growing up in the south.

The work includes new words from Grier’s ongoing research of and creation within Sahtúgot’ı̨nę Kede (the Bear Lake Language) and hand-carved wood block prints. Reflecting on gender, waste, and menstruation, Grier crafts a direct and encompassing installation that features the detritus of periods and other gestures of care.

Install photos by Derren Rigo

Ɂįdzǝ́Ɂenį: Kǝdǝdzǝ́ hehtsį, is a meaning in Sahtúgot’ı̨nę Kǝdǝ, strung together using limited information from Dene language textbooks and online documents. This work is about what care could look like. I want to see these words, and I want to see these visual markings of care. I chose Tse [wood] as the vessel, and Mokulito as the process, to express (and show Tse) these elemental feelings of care. Together we created a series of experimental prints to represent this gathering of feelings from Sedzǝ́Ɂenį, or the mind of my heart.

The markings made on Tse uses my body, my gestures, and my processes of everyday self-care, gifted love, and memories. Like the first time I heard neghǫnéhtǫ, or how I physically cope with Edırı nę́nę́, is then translated into mark making narratives. While the works on handmade paper, Kǝdǝdzǝ́ hehtsį, are all the words and word variations that I found during this search to express this very complex human experience. And I continue to come to the realisation that care is not an easy entity.

"Domestic Traces" is small series of linoleum block prints and poetry zines inspired by ‘domestic mark making’. I use an Indigenous Spirit Printmaking methodology which sees all elements within this medium as alive beings and aims to have collaborative works with spirits that live in all ‘things’. I see marks that live in the rings on my dresser, in the burn marks my sage makes, and my active kitchen. I am interested in translating these marks into prints and into words.

Yǝ́dı́ı (Spiritual Being) Kwǝ (Stone) is a collaborative series of stone lithography prints, created with Yǝ́dı́ı Kwǝ. By using unique, situational, and performative ways to create marks on Kwǝ, this work shows my relationship to Kwǝ as we work with ideas of reciprocity, ceremony, and realities of urban Indigeneity.

Mahsi

As most printmakers may know, the process of printmaking is very performative. My performances are a collaboration with those we cannot see, and the beings that live within this medium. I call them Kwǝ (Stone), and the work I make with Kwǝ is like a dance of reciprocity.

“Spirituality is a deeper level of knowledge and awareness and it too guides our behaviour. Living fully and successfully in the now world, is dependent upon our understandings and our relationship to the living entities of the upper world. Our lives are regulated by these relationships and maintaining the balance in these relationships is of utmost importance. Our very existence depends on maintaining and respecting these relationships.“ – Fibbie Tatti

These prints are my gift to the Dene and Sahtúgot’ı̨nę writers whose work has guided me towards this now path of a very Indigenous way of making, and in a way, back home. Inside each print is a ceremonial mark, a message, an action, and a Dene belief system. I hope these prints can help guide you too. Mahsi Cho

This series of Screen Prints and Lithographs are based on personal stories of growing up as an Indigenous woman. These stories are common among ‘Aboriginal’ people who have had to balance experiences of racism and inherited trauma, with our inherited responsibility to culture and traditions. Having been born away from my tradition land, I use printmaking to revitalize my own Deline culture and knowledge. These prints are not only records of my own experiences, but are an example of Indigenous story telling and resilience

This series of lithographic fish prints represents as current way of life and the effects on living creatures by revealing discoveries of fish found within Alberta’s Lakes and Rivers. Like “Canaries in a coal mine”, the deteriorating health of fish and wildlife speaks volumes about the urgency to save our waters

The act of storytelling is an act of Indigenous resistance, decolonization, and reclamation. We have a responsibility to “hold on to our traditional knowledge”: Dene náorweré edets’itó. Sahtuót’ine is a series of screen prints that depict stories from the Deline of the Northwest Territories. As a Deline first nation, brought up away from their traditional lands, I feel obligated to learn and tell these stories. It is imperative that the shared stories and lessons demonstrated are preserved for the continuation of Indigenous culture.

This series of lithographic fish prints represents as current way of life and the effects on living creatures by revealing discoveries of fish found within Alberta’s Lakes and Rivers. Like “Canaries in a coal mine”, the deteriorating health of fish and wildlife speaks volumes about the urgency to save our waters

Halifax Indigenize Street Signs project is a collaboration between two printmaking artists, who fuse guerrilla art and printmaking to reclaim Indigenous representation within colonial societies by replacing english street signs with local Indigenous names and words.

I am now doing hand printed relief cards and print commissions!

Please message me here, or my email at laurapgrier@gmail.com to ask about purchasing.