I am part of the Ojibway people, a member of the Chippewas of Rama First Nation, which directly influenced my piece. While considering this show’s theme, I thought about the well-known form of the dreamcatcher, which comes from Ojibway culture and has since spread across North America, and how I might reinterpret it. The hole in the center of a dreamcatcher serves as a passageway for good dreams to travel through, while bad dreams are caught in the web. In order to further push the idea of a portal, I extended the form into a wormhole-like shape. My choice in copper colors is a nod to the ancient copper mines worked by Native peoples around Lake Superior and the spiritual significance of copper in Ojibway worldviews (although the wire itself was made in Pakistan and China). The “tail” of the piece emulates a braid of sweetgrass. In a broader sense, all of these cultural cues serve as a connection to the many people related to me, both in the past and present.
