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Claire Peaceful Deer Lady Zwicker
189 Plays5 years ago
Claire Peaceful Deer Lady Zwicker is an Anishinaabe woman from Lake Simcoe Territory / Williams Treaty Territory in Ontario, Canada.
"I am currently writing my thesis for my Masters of Education around Indigenous Survival, Revitalization & Self-Determination. I am a big advocate for Indigenous Youth and believe they are the future. I am also a beginning educator and have worked in Vietnam, my home community, and will be working at a First Nations school in the city.
Beadwork and art have been my medicine and I love sharing it with the world and our youth as it was something I did not learn until I was an adult."
https://www.instagram.com/peacefuldeerlady/
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Transcript
Introduction and Guest Welcome
00:00:00
Speaker
This is Ken Vellante with the Something Rather Than Nothing podcast. And this episode of Something Rather Than Nothing is being recorded on occupied native lands in the state of Oregon, in the city of Albany that belonged to the Kalapuya tribe.
00:00:21
Speaker
You are listening to something rather than nothing. Creator and host, Dan Vellante. Editor and producer, Peter Bauer. Here to welcome Clear Zwicker, teacher, beadwork artist. Clear, glad to welcome you to the program.
00:00:49
Speaker
Hi Ken, thank you so much, Anin. I just wanted to say that I am recording in Te Caronto, which is the Mohawk term for the place where the trees stand in water. And they are the traditional lands of the Huron-Wendat, the Semica, and the Mississaugas of the Credit River.
Cultural Background and Personal Journey
00:01:10
Speaker
And I'm actually going to attempt to give my introduction in Anishinaabemowin. So what I said there was, my name is Peaceful Dear Lady, I'm of the Martin clan, and I'm from the Minjikening First Nation, or Williams Treaty territory.
00:01:36
Speaker
a little bit more about me. As Ken said, I am a teacher, a bead worker. I'm a student actually right now. I'm taking my master's of education in social justice work at the University of Toronto. Yeah.
00:01:58
Speaker
Well, Claire, that's that's where you are now within the program. A lot of times we go back and just try to find out, you know, both, you know, what your interest in education and your interest in art in your beadwork. Can you can you mention or talk a little bit about what you were like when you were younger and whether you were always interested in art or is that something that developed over time?
00:02:23
Speaker
Yeah, so I guess I've always been coloring and drawing and painting like, you know, a lot of children do. But I actually started more out in sports. My parents, when they realized how much energy I had, they actually put me in gymnastics. And I feel like a lot of people don't know this about me right now because it's not really on my social media, but
00:02:51
Speaker
I've been a gymnast since the age of three. And as early as the age of nine was in the gym training close to 30 hours a week. So I didn't actually have much time for creating or other things because it would be, I would go to school every day and then I would come home, have a snack. And then I would go off to training until like literally 8.30 PM at night. And then I would come home and
00:03:17
Speaker
do my homework, eat dinner, and then go to bed, wake up, and do it all over again. So I think sport actually consumed the first half of my youth. And then it wasn't until really high school where I was like, do I only ever want to be doing gymnastics? I didn't really get the chance to socialize with my peers because I didn't have time. Like Friday evenings, Saturday mornings, I would be training.
00:03:48
Speaker
Um, so I took a break from gymnastics actually for about three, four years.
Artistic Influences and Beadwork Discovery
00:03:54
Speaker
Um, and that's when I really started to explore just other areas and art was one of them. And I took art all throughout high school and yeah, that's kind of where my love from art came from. Um, as well as through, um, I guess my family too, my, my grandmother draws, uh,
00:04:17
Speaker
my uncle can draw. And the other side of art, which would be music. I've been surrounded by music my whole life, essentially. My mom is a singer and guitar player. So is my brother. My sister sings and plays piano. And so did my grandfather and my uncle.
00:04:43
Speaker
I think I have always been surrounded by art, but it's just always taken on different forms, if that makes sense.
00:04:55
Speaker
It was great to hear about, you know, some of the other background and the, you know, the energies and that that you had your parents, you know, with your energy said, OK, gymnastics, I was thinking running gymnastics or running, you know, when you're when you were younger. Tell us about tell us about your work, your beadwork and how you came to that and
00:05:21
Speaker
Just your practice around that, learning that, developing that art. Yeah. Well, it actually has been a very recent journey from me. Just a few years ago, my sister taught me how to be my first pair of earrings. And it's actually funny because out of
00:05:43
Speaker
my mom, my sister, and my brother. I'm the last one to learn how to bead, and they're younger than me. So yeah, my sister really got me into it because she has been kind of into art and beadwork longer than I have. And then from there,
00:06:05
Speaker
You know, because I'm in university, I have access to all these amazing programs through school and especially programs that are being put on by indigenous centers now at university. So one of my colleagues brought her aunt in to do a beading workshop where we learned how to bead medallions.
00:06:28
Speaker
You know, I just, I, when I beat in my first one, it, it felt so like so natural to me. And I'm so used to, um, I guess exerting energy or, you know, finding calmness through sport. But, you know, I learned through beating that I could find a kind of like inner peace through creating as well.
00:06:51
Speaker
And it came quite natural to me, right? And this is where we talk about, you know, blood memory, like what is blood memory? Well, it felt like I had been beating my whole life, you know, because I've been taught that when we're born, we're born with all the knowledge of our ancestors, you know, it runs through our blood. So, yeah, so since then, that was when I started my masters, actually, so two years ago,
00:07:19
Speaker
I really started to pick up beating more and then I, you know, I wanted to share it with more people. And so I I put on a beating workshop at school, you know, to teach other indigenous students, because I just wanted to share what I had known, even if it's just a small amount right now. I don't really call myself an artist or see my I don't know, see myself as
00:07:45
Speaker
you know, a bead worker. It's just something that I do because it brings me joy. It brings me peace. And, um, yeah, that's kind of how I, how I like to look at my work. Yeah. And I know that, well, the thing is now that you're on the podcast and the artist podcast, you're both, yeah,
Art's Cultural Reflection and Therapeutic Role
00:08:05
Speaker
that's that. So yeah, that's, you know, that, that, that does it. Um,
00:08:12
Speaker
Can you, and I know that you have a deep love of literature, learning social justice and connection to your people and some of the influences as far as your discussion around doing the bead work. Do you have particular, outside of your family, artistic influences in either of those realms?
00:08:40
Speaker
or artists that really kind of compel you to create? Yeah, definitely. The first one that comes to mind would be Chief Lady Bird or Nancy King. Chief Lady Bird is her art name, but she's actually from the same reserve as I am. And she has quite the following on social media. So I don't think her name will come as a surprise to anybody, but I just I like
00:09:10
Speaker
her, just the way she views art in the way that in our culture, we don't, like in Anishinaabemowin, we don't have a word for art. I think that was, you know, created by Europeans as, you know, something as a label that we don't really, yeah, we just, we don't have a word for it. So she has,
00:09:40
Speaker
You know, when we talk before about art, she talks about how she creates and what she creates comes from her heart. It comes from the land. It comes from her ancestors and it comes from spirit. So that's kind of how I
00:09:59
Speaker
be in my art as well is that I don't ever bead with any intention or or plan I just what I bead I bead what I feel whatever I'm feeling that day or or if I'm beading for someone I bead with their their spirit and mind and you know and what colors come to me when I when I think of them and another artist that has that has the same kind of philosophy around art
00:10:28
Speaker
is Monique Ora and I've done some paint workshop through school and you know they are really much about the same thing like not calling themselves an artist and saying that they are a creator of things or they're a visual storyteller and
00:10:53
Speaker
And they also taught me a lot about how to let go of perfectionism in creating because I think that's been a huge barrier for me with why I don't do a lot of painting or drawing anymore is because I feel like I need to create this perfect image of something. And I take so long to do things because I have this like
00:11:19
Speaker
pressure to perform that, you know, was read through me basically as a gymnast. Um, so I really appreciate their teachings and letting expectations go essentially and, and just creating for, for yourself, for your spirit. Yeah. And it's interesting that you mentioned as far as with the sport and of course,
00:11:43
Speaker
Uh, with gymnastics, right? I mean, you want to land the 10.0, right? Yes. That was the old system, but it's still the same. Like everything you do, like every tiny thing they are watching you and they're taking away points. It's not even a positive system that lifts you up. It's like, Oh, you had a flex foot or a bent knee. Like we're taking points away from you.
00:12:08
Speaker
And that's probably been part of the mental thread that you've had to work with on the perfectionism, as you mentioned. Yeah, absolutely. So I was wondering, Claire, if you can mention, you know, with the, you know, everybody's talking about 2020, you know, very negatively. And I think the history of 2020 is more complicated with a lot of positive
00:12:37
Speaker
developments amongst the negative as well. But for you as a person, you as an artist, I talked to a lot of artists and they feel that either there's more pressure or maybe question like, why am I doing art? Why am I creating things? A lot of people asking these type of questions. And for you, do you think the role of art
00:13:07
Speaker
pandemic, racial protests, other fractures in changes in society. Do you think art has a different role right now, or is it just kind of what you go back to like you have? How does it feel for you? Honestly, art or, you know, beating has been really healing for me in this time.
00:13:33
Speaker
I'm a very anxious person and I don't like inconsistency. With the pandemic, things have been very inconsistent. I was out of a job for a while. Beating was really the only thing I had to keep me sane because
00:13:54
Speaker
Well, I was running at the beginning of the pandemic, but I actually broke my ankle. So then I wasn't able to get my energy out through that way. And that's one of my coping mechanisms. So I turned to beadwork and I actually created my business during the pandemic. And it's been my only source of income. And I think that it's brought me so many beautiful things. It's brought me like this
00:14:25
Speaker
online community that are beyond my wildest dream because before, you know, growing up and especially on social media, there's all these negative representations and stereotypes of indigenous peoples and
00:14:41
Speaker
You know, in education and social media, I never saw myself or my culture reflected back at me until now, really, until I found this whole universe of, you know, other create indigenous creators online. And it blows me away the things that are happening and the resilience, really, all of us continuing
00:15:05
Speaker
our practices and the things that bring us joy and the things that bring us together and especially in disrupting racism, we all know that with the pandemic, it affects marginalized populations more than non. And you see with even the images now with
00:15:34
Speaker
you know, I see a lot of indigenous peoples painting these gorgeous masks and that, you know, that itself is a representation and a message, you know, to protect our communities, to protect our people. So in a lot of cases, I see the pandemic bringing, you know, people closer together, even though it's online. And yeah, like you said, like,
00:16:03
Speaker
you know, it's been up and down. It's been negative and positive. Um, there's been a lot of death. It's, it's been a, it's been a lot to process and you know, a lot of people might think like, Oh, well, like why are you stressed? You're just at home, like doing nothing essentially. Like you, you know, you shouldn't have a care in the world right now, but I think,
00:16:30
Speaker
the opposite is true in that, you know, like I am worried for my community, especially my Afro-Indigenous kin, you know, and everything coming up in the media with Black Lives Matter and police violence and how many, and just like realizing how many
00:16:50
Speaker
Indigenous and Black lives, we lose on a daily basis. And art is just one of the ways, you know, one of the tools we use to share our voices. Yeah. And I think that's so well put as far as, you know, the art that's coming out. And it doesn't have to be strictly like protest art, but it's fascinating.
00:17:19
Speaker
because everybody ends up impacted by large events. Most everybody ends up impacted by large events. And then there's this shifting in adaptation and it can be fascinating and scary what's depicted. But like you had said, as far as with your beating, I mean,
00:17:42
Speaker
Sometimes we think of art in the sense of what you've produced and what goes into the market and what has value in the market. When for the artist, you know, you doing the beadwork, the therapy and the medicine is there. And there's this other piece to it, but it's just serving different purposes.
00:18:03
Speaker
Yeah, that that's why we have the hashtag feeding is medicine. But yeah, I think if you look at art historically or art relating to indigenous peoples were either non existent, like not present from art. Like in Canada, we have like famous artists like Emily Carr or the Big Seven who paint these images of Canada as this empty, vast wilderness. And in this idea that indigenous peoples never
00:18:34
Speaker
existed, that Europeans came to this, you know, empty land for settling. And I think I'm seeing a lot now, especially around the topic of land and art and representations of land in art by indigenous peoples that counter that narrative, that counter that trope, that
00:19:04
Speaker
Canada or Turtle Island was a vast emptiness, um, for the taking and lost my train of thought. No, I was thinking about the, well, the intersectionality in part of when I talked to, um, uh, Jordan Marie brings three white horses, Daniel, um, episodes back and,
00:19:32
Speaker
I told her, I mean, she mentioned during the episode where she was talking about missing and murdered indigenous women, but in a very short order, like I began to understand how it was connected to water rights, to fracking, to questions about land use to, you know, in, in all these, it was all collected there. And I.
00:19:55
Speaker
didn't see how all that happened. I followed up with her and said, oh, wait a second. It's this piece, this piece, this piece, and that piece. And I think that's where it ties deep into the history. And I know you've been involved in some of that work.
00:20:17
Speaker
I got a question here that you might have gotten that, but I don't want to assume your answer.
Significance of Spirit Name and Purpose
00:20:26
Speaker
Who or what made you who you are? This question is, uh, it's difficult because to print it down to, to one thing, you know, um, I can't really, but I would say like, it's just been my experiences and,
00:20:47
Speaker
you know, the people that surround me. My mom is a huge influence on me, my family, you know, my brother, my sister, teachers I've had. I would say my most recent teachers, because in my master's I've been so lucky to work with a number of indigenous professors, because that was something I didn't have going up. I didn't have native teachers.
00:21:15
Speaker
And definitely my community, and I say community in such a broad term, but I think we have many communities, one of mine being the urban Native Indigenous population in Toronto. That's a community to me. And my reserve, I didn't grow up there, but that's a community to me, and I have deep familial ties there.
00:21:43
Speaker
And a lot of my work stems from my communities and my mom. And I try to carry on the work of my ancestors, basically. And I think that is a lot of what makes me who I am. And I think what also makes me who I am is my spirit name, which I mentioned earlier. And it's also my Instagram handle, PeacefulDearLady.
00:22:12
Speaker
And what does that mean? What does that mean to you? What does that mean to you? Yeah. What does that mean to you? Yeah. Yeah. So it's actually been a lifelong journey of figuring out what that name means because it's not like my, my elder ever, you know, elders, when they tell stories, they don't explain something to you. They tell you a story and you're meant to, um, you know, interpret it.
00:22:41
Speaker
in your own way, essentially. And I always get to this name when I was about 10 or 12 years old. And at the time, like we visited my reserve, we went to powwow every year, but I didn't understand the sacredness of this name or the weight that it carried. So it's been a journey of just trying to figure out like, okay, what does this name mean? And what does this name
00:23:09
Speaker
you know, mean to me, how, how am I representing my people like through this name? Um, and I think a lot of native youth struggle with this disconnection, you know, that so many of us have because of colonial policies like the Indian act. So many of us like don't have native names and, um, don't know like how sacred they are. And,
00:23:37
Speaker
And what these names really are is they actually represent our purpose in life and our gifts in that we each bring a gift to the world. We each have a responsibility to our community. Yeah, we all have a role to play. And I see what's happening with a lot of youth
00:24:03
Speaker
And it's a bit of my history as well is that for a time I didn't know who I was. I mean, that's obviously a common thing for youth, but it was like in my early twenties where I really was like, I don't know what I'm doing here. I don't like know what my purpose is. I felt like so unworthy. Like I really didn't know what I had to bring to the world.
00:24:32
Speaker
which, you know, I went down this dark path of suicide and, you know, that's another common thing in our communities, well, Native communities. And I think what's missing is this, our connection, our language, our culture, our traditions, that these are the things that tell us who we are. We're missing these things. And so,
00:25:00
Speaker
My name is like everything to me because when I really realized that what it was and that it was meant to lead me on my path, I understand now that, okay, I'm meant to be where I am and I'm meant to be doing what I'm doing. Like to me, peaceful dear lady, you know, it's just to me is to walk in a good way. And I carry the gifts of the deer, which, you know, deer are
00:25:31
Speaker
are brave and deer are giving. They give their whole selves to their bodies essentially for us to live, for people to live. In indigenous peoples, we use every part of the deer. And so being in a caring position
00:25:56
Speaker
or a caring field like education, I found myself giving too much of myself away. And so to me, I have to remember to give some things back to myself to keep that inner peace so that I'm able to share that joy with other people. Yeah, and the peaceful part of it too of being
00:26:23
Speaker
reflexive, not just towards the outside, but peaceful towards yourself, right? Peaceful towards you remaining intact, because you have to, right, in your role. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for that. And you know, just as about identity
00:26:45
Speaker
you know, in, in who we are and, you know, naming, right? How important that could be, particularly, particularly, uh, for cultures or the history where, where people don't control the language and they control the name. Right. Um, so I think, I think that's pivotal. Um, yeah, again, thanks for, thanks for that. Uh, you're a big,
00:27:09
Speaker
You're a big reader and thinker prior to getting a couple more scripted questions.
Recommended Authors and Their Impact
00:27:18
Speaker
What important books do readers have to look at and listen or listen to right now, stuff that you've encountered recently, authors and thinkers? Well, the author that started this whole connection between you and I
00:27:36
Speaker
was Leanne Simpson and her new work, Nukaming, The Cure for White Ladies. I actually haven't read it yet, but I've read some of her other work and I've met her in person. And I'm going to put her work out into the world and say that I think her work is pivotal for Indigenous peoples to read because it's that thing that I said. It's like,
00:28:04
Speaker
culture being reflected back at you. When she writes, she writes with spirit, and she writes using the language. So she uses Anishinaabe Moen with English in her writing. And I think when I read her work, it was the first time that I'd ever felt seen by anything that I've read before.
00:28:33
Speaker
And another one that I've been, I've been reading and trying to get through is Alicia Elliott's mind spread out on the ground. And the reason why I say trying to get through it, it's because so often I need to put it down and take a breath because it's so heavy. There's this realness and heaviness to it of about the realities of being, um,
00:29:02
Speaker
an indigenous person and not just indigenous, but a white passing indigenous person and how she just is, I think how she was seen as a young kid, like how other kids didn't really understand her or she never fit into either group.
00:29:28
Speaker
because she was both Indigenous and white. And a lot of the time throughout my life, that's how I felt, trying to find this negotiating different spaces. And I think that's really where a lot of Indigenous peoples are trying to come to, who we are, without having to make sacrifices for other people.
00:29:54
Speaker
I don't want to make sacrifices for other people anymore around who I am. And that's kind of what I'm learning through these authors. Yeah, I think. Yeah, the Leanne Simpson, I'm about a quarter of the way through the book and
00:30:19
Speaker
the energy in her. Yeah, it's difficult to describe. I mean, there's sometimes I would say I literature is my first love always will be there's certain writers where this might sound silly, but
00:30:34
Speaker
What they've written and what they're writing on the page does seems barely to be contained in the book. You know what I mean? Like there's this brilliant description of it. It's alive. Like it's it is. Yeah. The words transcend the page. And that that's how I try to write as well, especially in academic spaces. I'm trying to transcend this, like,
00:31:01
Speaker
idea of what like an academic research paper is. And that also comes through reading just different books or different literature on indigenous research and indigenous research methods and what does it mean to research and what does it mean to do it in an indigenous way. And I think that is something that I've learned from that's come out or been the same in all of these across all these texts is that like
00:31:30
Speaker
as indigenous peoples, we bring like our being to our work. So whether it's like beadwork, drawing, painting, writing, we bring our full selves. And so it's so important that we're well because if we're not, like if I'm, if my spirit isn't feeling well, I can't create, I won't bead or, or I won't write. And, um, I think that's really hard for non-indigenous peoples to understand, like, especially teachers when they're,
00:32:00
Speaker
not understanding of why Indigenous students are late on assignments. Well, first of all, a lot of the stuff we're writing about is personal to us because we write about what's personal. And a lot of that has to do with our pain, colonialism and trauma and just what it
00:32:24
Speaker
takes to read about colonialism and write about colonialism or, you know, and, you know, just basically re-experiencing trauma through our work and trying to heal through it. Yeah, I don't know. And yeah, and that work in
00:32:50
Speaker
You know, I think that's, that's, that's the part of it with, with art for me and in, and I've learned a lot from your comments. It's both like in the creation of the art or the experience of an art and what you can do, like when you have to put the book down being like super important. This book speaks directly to me, but I am processing trauma and pain, right? Yes. Yes. Yeah.
00:33:12
Speaker
Because especially the realities of these books are, you know, the realities of our own lives as Indigenous peoples, because we all experience similar trauma. Well, and I think part of the, well, again, I mean, I know early on you had mentioned as far as, you know, like the term art or whether that fits. Whatever the term is, whatever the term is for it, it's just
00:33:38
Speaker
this way of getting at that story and narrative. And I think with Simpson's book, yes, I'm not going to be able to connect with certain aspects of the immediacy for the culture. But I talk about just the deep spirit and humanity of what's being expressed right there is very accessible, very accessible for everybody.
00:34:04
Speaker
And I think we just end up getting kind of cut into like demographics of, you know, should a 48 year old white cis male American enjoy this book? Hell yeah. Right. You know, and it doesn't stick out, you know, as much. But yeah, I think some of our experiences within reading are quite similar.
Voices and Histories Defining Existence
00:34:30
Speaker
Claire Zwicker, peaceful, dear lady, I believe you may have an answer for why is there something rather than nothing. I feel like I've kind of already touched on this, but yeah, it comes down to, for me, just knowing my place in life and knowing that, you know, I am worthy or that I have something to give, I have something to share, I have gifts.
00:34:59
Speaker
Um, and that, that is something, um, you know, we, we have voices, we have histories, we have things to share, things to say. Well, it's funny cause I, I, I've thought a lot about this question. Um, and I, I do like to have philosophical, um, conversations and, um, Just, I just think I, I try to think of it in terms of, you know,
00:35:30
Speaker
our culture and that, you know, things are alive. And the way we see the world and not everything's connected. And how would it be possible for there to be nothing when we have all of these, like, billions of connections between organisms and the universe? Yeah.
00:36:00
Speaker
No, I mean, you got it. Great. You got it. No, no, we get we have the answer in there. It's clear. I was wondering if you could share with the audience ways to connect with with you, your work and in any way that you're comfortable with and you'd like to share with the audience.
Connecting on Social Media
00:36:23
Speaker
Yeah. So they can actually connect with me through my Instagram, which is Peaceful Dear Lady Creations.
00:36:30
Speaker
Um, I'm, I don't have a website right now. I'm just selling through my Instagram because I've just started. Um, it's been just a short journey, just a few months. I started the beginning of the pandemic, like I said. So, um, and I'm doing all these other things on the side. I'm a teacher and I'm writing my master's state list. So yeah. Um, that's really where I post all of my things is my Instagram, um, or they can email me, um,
00:36:59
Speaker
at claire.zwicker. So zwicker is z-w-i-c-k-e-r, 94 at gmail.com. Yeah. And you said zed for an American audience, that is z. Right. I've done that after I've been in England and held on to that word and then said it. Yeah. But I got to tell you,
00:37:28
Speaker
clear. It's been great chatting with you and meeting you and just learning about, you know, learning a lot. And I do say that I do this show and I listen closely and I learn a lot. And I just wanted to mention here at the end, I've appreciated, you know, your thoughts and you as a person, as an artist, and really just wanted to thank you for taking and I know you're
00:37:57
Speaker
You mentioned all your various things that you're doing. I know you're super busy, but I wanted to thank you for taking the time and sharing with the audience about your art and about yourself. Yeah, no, it was great chatting with you, Ken, and I'm very thankful for this opportunity. So, big Chi Miigwetch to you, and I want you to be well.
00:38:28
Speaker
You are listening to something rather than nothing.