Origins
The origins of this exhibition reach back before the works shown here. They begin with my mother, Mary Lou Fox (Odeminkwe), the Ojibwe Cultural Foundation, and a childhood surrounded by Anishinaabe art and culture—not as separate subjects to be studied, but as part of everyday life. The early works gathered here mark the beginning of a practice shaped by people, place, material, and relationships.
“This knowledge comes through me, not from me.”
— Mary Lou Fox (Odeminkwe-ba)
This was not false modesty. We come from an oral tradition, and traditional knowledge cannot be separated from the way it is carried and passed on. Knowledge is received—from family, Elders, community, land, and lived experience—and being entrusted to carry or share it does not make it ours to claim or keep as our own. The responsibility is to pass it on with care and acknowledge where it came from.
My mom made room for art in my life long before I thought of myself as an artist. I still don’t, really; making things has always felt more natural than calling myself an artist. She made sure I had access to pottery classes and painting workshops—often as the youngest person in the room—and told me I should attend the Banff School of Fine Arts, as it was then known. I chose the sciences.
Through her and the Ojibwe Cultural Foundation, I grew up surrounded by Anishinaabe art, language, and culture. It was not presented as something separate to be learned; it was simply part of life—like stopping to pick up putrid porcupines from the roadside for their quills, spearing suckers for sucker-head soup in the OCF kitchen, and walking the lakeshore at sunset.
The Ojibwe Cultural Foundation was not simply an organization my mom founded; it was an extension of our lives. Artists, language, stories, and making moved through it, and I absorbed much of that without realizing I was being taught.
The painting shown here was made in 1977 at an OCF art camp at Dreamer’s Rock. Looking at it now, I can see the beginnings of a visual language I still use: much of the same palette, a strong use of symmetry, and an instinct for balancing representational imagery with pattern and form.