What is First Nation's Art?

I picked up this colouring book from the Art Gallery last week and was a bit surprised by some of the images inside. I fondly remember one of the Aboriginal education support workers in our school, Chis Wilson, teaching us Haisla art at Nechako Elementary in Kitimat. The art that he taught us was used the ovoid and "u-shape" heavily and was similar to the style of the blue hummingbird on the front cover. Growing up I always thought of that as "real" First Nation's art. The style of the bear on the front cover is something I had seen before, but I wrote that off as basically a more modern version of First Nation's art, certainly the art I had been taught about as a child was more traditional and more authentic.

It was only when I flipped through this book and looked at the artist names beneath the pictures that I realized all the images were legitimate traditional First Nations art, but from different geographical regions and different cultures of people. In hindsight it seems so strange that I knew that First Nations cultures varied greatly across Canada, but never considered that the art would too.

It is funny to think of all the little ways that we can be ignorant. Here I was, all my life so proud that I knew a how to draw basic First Nation's art, and now I find out that I only know a very small amount of Coastal First Nation's art, and that there is so much other art throughout Canada that I was totally unaware of. 

Definitely a humbling experience and proof that teachers really have to be dedicated to being life long learners!