Dark Sky Series

This year I started as a snowshoe guide in the Edmonton area. I find this particularly funny since I was complaining that I couldn't go anywhere, couldn't do anything and I couldn't go to the gym. The suddenly I got a call asking if I would be a guide. Thank you and yes please. So now I am hiking in snowshoes for hours each night. I love it. 

Probably the best part is this is at night, hiking in the woods with a stunning night sky over me. The billowing colorful clouds, the errie dark woods with twinkling stars silently overhead. It's beyond words. I truly love this and it's been a massive inspiration for revisiting the Night Sky series.

As part of my job, I share star facts, point out constellations, moon phases and general sky facts. In Gwichin (and northern Athabascan groups, Dene) the whole sky of constellations is actually the Traveller or Yadhii with each constellation as part of his body. The Milky Way is his tail (sometimes trail) and the faint red star is his heart. 

The stories (and they vary) of the Traveller is a being who journeyed around the Earth when it was still new, making the world safe, transforming dangerous animals into their present forms, makings laws and inventing birchbark canoes, snowshoes and bow and arrow. At the end of his journey, the Traveller is incarnated in the stars where he continues watching over the world as a teacher, protector and ally. 

The Dark Sky series is an acknowledgement to my Gwichin culture, the stories of what made us and directed our journeys and the stunning vibrant night skies. Current paintings are 15 - 6x6'' mini canvas and 6 - 4'' wooden ornaments with bark on side.

I look forward to sharing more in the coming days and the release date is March 13th, Noon. 12pm Mountain Time.

''When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place,'' Psalm 8:3