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sharondemarko-blog · 7 years ago

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It Wouldn’t Go Away

(Reprinted from Shades of Style magazine)

By Sharon DeMarko

The boy became a man and then a father.

The girl became a woman and then a mother.

Both shied from revealing tortures endured as Residential School inmates on reservation exile, at different times and in different places.

All this man and woman had in common was the school/the reservation … Until their children grew up and devoted their lives to cultivating what colonization tried to brainwash.

Native Designer DeMontigny Defines Chic

Angela DeMontigny’s reputation as an Aboriginal Fashionista celebrated worldwide peacefully avenges, in part, her father’s unchosen role in Canada’s darkest colonial hour.

“My dad was a survivor of a Residential School. We didn’t know about it until later on. He was reluctant to talk about it (when we were growing up). I grew up in suburbia in Vancouver.”

During two decades devoted to studying her Cree/ Métis heritage, clothing design, art creation, and intensive advocacy, Angela laid a highway connecting the Indigenous cultures that Residential Schools strove to eradicate, to today’s audience hungry for authentic, innate beauty with power and purpose. She describes her growth as natural evolution, rather than a deliberate plan to achieve some definable goal.

“I’ve always been kind of a bridge … I try to teach true artistry, show people things that are different, the spirit of the person that went into a garment … Art is very spiritual, mystical …”

DeMontigny, the name, reflects an ancestral link to France where today’s President Emmanuel Macron emphasizes politically what Angela conveys artistically – designs/ideas that tap into the human spirit’s potential through the patterns of history, shaping and reshaping belief systems, as well as wardrobes and room décor.

She describes DeMontigny Boutique Gallery, seductively titled “Native Canadian Chic” on her elegant website, as “a collection of items that tell a story”. Here, a shopper for one-of-kind clothing, in rich sensual textures and blazing colours sculpted to the body, becomes a student of this nation’s first peoples and their customs. As well as acclaiming her direct lineage, Angela draws inspiration from Canada’s other two official groups, First Nations and Inuit, in all, hundreds of societies offering inspiration.

In this Hamilton emporium of Indigenous Luxury, a day can be spent without seeing it all. A man might fancy the hand-painted Eagle Moto Jacket; a woman desire the Summer Wolf Raw Pendant; a child grasp the card identifying the 7 Grandfather Teachings from Anishinaabe and Aboriginal Peoples: truth, respect, love, courage, honesty, wisdom, humility.

Angela’s generous with gallery space, showing family-wrought flatwork by Loretta Gould, a Mi’kmag painter/weaver from Waycobah First Nation and her husband Eliot. Polished primitive images symbolize visceral moments – Dance With Buffalo, First Love, Creator Protect Me – in colourations common to Native Chic’s eclectic collection.

Colour has traveled a long road since first made 60,000-80,000 years ago from ochre and iron clay, but Nature still sets the palette. From the sky, blues of turquoise, ultramarine, fire opal… The sun sets in scarlets and rises in pinks and corals. Yellow springs from bumblebees and butterflies. Parents of purples, chief colouration this summer, range from lilac to plum.

Boutique inventory represents Angela’s old-as-the-ancients practice of cooperation over competition. The gallery partners with photographer Annette Paiement, Hamilton Arts Council Executive Director, to create limited edition postcards which helps buy supplies for the Water Protectors movement.

This fashion powerhouse combines touchable leathers and stroke-me suedes with gold, silver, other metallics, and details like fringe, lace and embroidery cutworks, appliques and hand beading. Leathers acquire such malleability, they form evening dresses, even customized wedding gowns, engagement rings and IT bags. Men, women and children wear her designs, often uniquely created for and with the individual wearer, as well as readily wearable on shelves and racks.

Diverse media have followed her career, ranging from Women’s Wear Daily to Outdoor Life Magazine. Accolades sweep from CTV's Success Stories to the National Aboriginal Achievement Awards, and the Calgary Stampede Royalty. Documentaries and music videos unveil her talents. It seems the only person unimpressed with her achievements is Angela herself. She loves people and wants the best for all, welcoming and making time for new acquaintences as if they’re fast friends.

Angela honours her peers, producing such showcases as FashioNation - L'Oreal Fashion Week; Fire & Fashion - Planet IndigenUs; and the inaugural Aboriginal Fashion Week during the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver.

She never stops. Her next new Capsule Collection launches during South Africa Fashion Week, Oct. 23-27 for men, women and trade stagings; Luxury Design PopUp Nov. 1-3.

It’s Cool to Warm Yourself in the Blanket of Understanding

Slide into the Blanket Exercise to put on the weight of loss carried by Canada’s Indigenous Peoples.

Created in 1995-96, the year Residential Schools at last closed, this poignant take on parlour gaming has been played by thousands of Indigenous and nonIndigenous men, women and children in spaces as small as dorm rooms, large as St. Catharines’ Farmer Market.

Inviting, as opposed to threatening, participatory enlightenment avoids the risk of ordinary protests. You are acting out, not arguing. Besides, blankets are prettier and friendlier than placards.

Spread enough blankets to accommodate all players across the floor. Invite your guests to pick standing spots on the coverings. As facts are read from provided scripts, gradually fold the blankets toward centre until players huddle with no place to go. (Complete instructions are online at kairoscanada.com)

Inventors named the activity Exercise because it is neither gametime nor playtime. It is a compassionate, emotional and intellectual lesson about the games government played with the lives of its original citizens. Incremental blanket shrinkage represents lands and rights denied as colonization dehumanized First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples.

Blanket Exercise takes about two hours, one for recititation in retreat, followed by Talking Circle, when participants share insights gleaned during seizures of symbolic properties.

The Venerable Canon Valerie Kerr, recently retired rector of St. John the Evangelist at Stamford, expertly conducts the ritual as part of her role as Archdeacon for Truth, Reconciliation and Indigenous Ministry. When Anglican hierarchy created this ambitious position, it was Val they first picked to help heal relationships with Aboriginal Peoples, her people. Then Vice Rector for St. George’s at St. Catharines, Val was appointed two years ago, but has directed the shrinking blanket/landgrab ceremony for two decades, long before it became fashionable.

She’s adamant that “the church needs to be accountable,” in a compassionate way – “We’re all God’s children.” That’s backed up by St. John’s motto: “The Church Where Children are Seen AND Heard.” Children immediately come to mind in talking about her mission. “We still have a lot of work to do … a lot of our youth are really angry … People say ‘Youth are our future’. Youth are our now!”

Velvet-brown, big round eyes comically rolled up, long blondish hair fashionably tip-curled, Val leans back in her lounge chair for a pensive moment. We’re in a spacious reception area, off her office overflowing with books, papers and Val doesn’t seem to have lived an angry youth. “I know the church did a lot of damage to a lot of people, but in it I, found a safe place.”

She finds anger a repressed fear.

Like Angela DeMontigny with her father, Val had to coach her mother into talking about mandatory deculturalization. Unlike Angela, Valerie grew up on a reserve.

“When we moved to the city, Mother was very concerned about what people would think. There was also denial until, eventually, there was reconciliation and we could talk about the past.”

Angela DeMontigny. Valerie Kerr. Two daughters in diverse fashion unite in the common cause of both reconciling and restoring the past in the present.

Complete blanket instructions are online at kairoscanada.com

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sharondemarko-blog · 7 years ago

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Pray for Cerise

Mike Neels, Queen Street Baptist Outreach Director, FaceBooked this message Saturday, July 21, 2018.

Sometimes at Out of the Heat you hear stories that break your heart. Tonight, as we were locking up at 7:30, we did a final check of the bathrooms. As Kim entered the ladies’ room, she met a woman bathing. After Kim talked to the lady, they came out and we chatted some more with her. Her backstory is heart breaking and her current situation isn’t much better. She’s on the street after getting stuck in town visiting her daughter and she lost her apartment along with all her belongings in London due to missed rent payments. Please pray for Cerise as she tries to get her life back together.

HOW MANY MORE UNTIL WE OPEN A DOOR?

Mike’s bioplea is micro of macro, not an unusual story, as anyone living, working, volunteering, or even just visiting in downtown St Catharines can testify. We need an afterhours shelter overseen by a real person to help the needy, as well as a 24/7 hotline that directs people to genuine aid, instead of only to 52 agencies open 8/5. We also need free walk-about phones with renewal time.

What we do have is COAST, the Niagara Regional Police warmline for crises that can hold for up to 24 hours. I tested the line, leaving only a name and number, receiving callback in 58 minutes. Tisha told me two police reps answer COAST 24/7. That’s great news, but it shouldn’t have been news.

I called the police two weeks ago to help me assist a delusional man wandering lost in 33-C degree, 97-F) weather, stopping traffic as he stumbled through the Church/James intersection. Catching up to him, we walked to the library, where security called NRP’s dispatcher for assistance. Neither security nor I remembered the exact acronym, but we asked for the “compassionate crisis line,” as both of us had attended the COAST information presentation a few weeks back. The dispatcher knew of no such service.

To reach Tisha, I went through the automated direct NRP line -- 905-688-4111, selecting the 4-digit extension number for COAST on NRP’s website. Oops, that reached Domestic Abuse, but the receptionist gave me COAST’s direct line – 1-866-550-5205, which answers with automated instructions to press “1” for the service, and, if “assisting other …”, leave a name and phone number. That’s a mouthful when you’re hungry and on the street.

Apparently, there is a difference between crisis and emergency – 911 being the universal dial-thru to help. If COAST’s line were as ubiquitous, emergency services, including police, could be relieved of non-come-now calamities, such as that Cerise suffers, while the distressed could be connected to assistance with potentially more sustainable aid.

What would it take?

Billboards near shopping centers and in downtown cores; emails to church leaders, public service agencies, volunteer organizations and social clubs; pamphlets/flyers in schools, hospitals, clinics, doctors’ offices, health food stores and workout gyms; FaceBook, Instagram, Twitter, and other social media.; public service announcements on TV, radio and in print – a blitz followed by reminders until COAST is clear in everyone’s mind. Ideally, a less cumbersome number – 26278 – for COAST, if that’s not already taken.

Maybe all this is in place and only I and the dispatcher two weeks ago are the only uninformed. I would accept that with a

Please answer Niagara Region's current survey online and let leadership know our main disadvantage is the disadvantaged. Our main goal should be leadership helping men, women and children in harm’s way.

Affordable housing has a four-year waiting list. Mentally and physically stressed individuals face waiting lists a year or longer. Panhandlers ask for everything from bandaids and aspirin to sandwiches and coffee. My friend keeps Tim Horton’s cards to hand out in lieu of cash.

Cerise needs people in power to protect her, as well as prayers to hold her safe during the interim.

You might want to attend the next Niagara Police Services Board Meeting, scheduled inconveniently for the public, Thursday, July 26, 2018 at 8:30 am, in headquarters, 5700 Valley Way, Niagara Falls. 905-688-4111, X2200.

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