#60sScoop Oakville artist reclaiming lost Indigenous cultural identity

 

Kathy Yanchus | Oakville Beaver December 16, 2022

The
sense of cultural identity lost to Marvin Terry as a child of the ’60s
Scoop is emerging now through his art, helping him on his path to
self-discovery.

“Art
has become my medicine, my healing,” said Oakville’s Terry, one of nine
Indigenous artists whose work was selected by the City of Burlington to
be permanently displayed in Spencer Smith Park.

“I
am a Sixties Scoop survivor who has lost their culture, language and
now (I’m) in the midst of reclaiming that part that was taken from me as
a child, along with my siblings. My birth parents were both in a bad
way and we were just another challenge to them.”

An
Ojibwe man from Treaty 2 Territory in Manitoba who spent his youth in
foster homes until he was adopted at the age of 14, Terry has always
“been drawn to art.” Many might recognize his name from editorial
cartoons in major Canadian newspapers, including the Toronto Star. His
artistic leanings go back even further though, from drawings his nurses
asked him to sign as a young hospital patient to illustrating school
projects for friends.

Mixed with his editorial cartoons were sports-themed comics and pet portraits for family and friends.

Art
has always been a way to express his creative side, but never a career,
said Terry, who is a mechanical salesperson by profession. It has only
been recently that he’s had “a yearning for my own Indigenous art.”

In March of this year, he created his first Indigenous piece titled “Chinook Salmon.”

“I posted it on my Instagram and Facebook page and all of a sudden I had people asking to purchase a signed copy.”

As a knowledge-carrier, his sister Viola helps him with questions pertaining to the images he creates.

“One
can't just throw something down on paper, add pretty colours and hope
that people will like and will want to buy it. Each piece I create, I
need to be completely immersed in the real meaning behind it. I am an
Ojibwe person by birth but I know very little about the Ojibwe culture
or history because I grew up in foster homes and group homes run by
non-Indigenous people for the most part.”

His hope is that his art sparks conversations about Indigenous issues both past and present.

Terry is researching his Ojibwe culture, which he said will be reflected in future pieces.

“I am looking forward to seeing what becomes of all this. It's a continued journey of discovery.” (source)