‘Instead of getting angry, I turned to art’: Indigenous man uses art to cope with intergenerational trauma
Posted Sep 30, 2021 9:00 am.
Last Updated Sep 30, 2021 9:03 am.
CALGARY – Sam Bighetty’s art hangs in an exhibit about Truth and Reconciliation. And while it may help others learn about the atrocities of the residential school system, the artist says this is his personal way of dealing with the pain of intergenerational trauma.
“When they found the kids, instead of getting angry, I turned to art,” he said.
Bighetty’s parents both attended a residential school.
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“All the anger they had from school, getting taken away from their parents, they kind of took it out on us,” he explained.
“I grew up with anger. I didn’t know how to love people. And I changed that.”
The love he now feels for his family, and ancestors comes through in his art.
Bighetty paints rocks and gives them to people to help with awareness and to honour the hundreds of Indigenous lives lost. He estimated he’s painted about 1,500 rocks.
“[I started] with the missing and murdered women first–that was 1,200. Then another 300 for the kids. I still have a long journey doing that with my art,” he said.
“To be a part of it, that’s me loving that little kid, showing love for him because he was never loved. his life was taken away.”
All of those lives are represented in his piece called “The Beauty Within”.
RELATED: Canada marks first National Day for Truth and Reconciliation
“The red represents the women and the orange rep the kids. They’re put hand in hand. From the east to the west it’s happening across Canada.”
While Bighetty says he often gets requests for his art on an orange shirt, he doesn’t want to make a profit off of this subject. Instead, he hopes to see more families come out on orange shirt day and see families reunited.
“If Canada took all the babies home, all the families, I think that would be a big step,” he said.
Bighetty’s art, along with the work of over a dozen other artists, will hang at Southcentre Mall’s Truth and reconciliation Exhibit until Oct. 11.
