Artist explores new art forms

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Being artistically talented can have its rewards, especially once your art work is accepted, admired and purchased. For many artists, however, it is that final quality, being purchased, that prevents them from actively pursuing an art career. And such is the case for Adrian Yellow Old Woman, a Blackfoot now living in Calgary.

Yellow Old Woman's work is much admired by his fellow students at the Plains Indian Cultural Survival School (PICSS), and accepted by most who view his traditional Native acrylic paintings. But for Yellow Old Woman, like so many other aspiring Native artists, the difficulty comes in selling his work.

"I send most of my work up to Edmonton, to the Alberta Indian Arts and Crafts Society," said Yellow Old Woman. "I have sold a couple of things, but it is difficult to get a price that will compensate you for your materials and time."

And it is that fact that has turned Yellow Old Woman away from pursuing an artistic career. Instead this 30-year old Native is now attending PICSS where he is upgrading his high school with the intention of going on to Devry Technical Institute.

"I have a family to support," said Yellow Old Woman. "I decided I have to look for a career that I can be assured of a monthly income."

So Yellow Old Woman hopes to get into Devry in the spring to take a one-and-a-half year course on small electrical appliance repair. In the meantime his art work must take a back seat to earning a living.

"I still paint," said Yellow Old Woman. "It is a hobby I will always keep up."

He discovered his artistic talent at the age of 25 while in a detoxification centre in Claresholm.

"they had some art material available there," recalls Yellow Old Woman. "I used to doodle when I was younger so I just naturally started doodling again."

Doodling turned into drawing and then into painting. And when he received praise and support from his fellow patients, he began to take his art work more seriously.

His style is very traditional often featuring Indians, eagles and elements of nature ? rain, thunderbolts and always the sun.

"I had a dream that the sun was my symbol and I always use it in my paintings," said Yellow Old Woman. "It's kind of like a trademark."

But his paintings are still somewhat of a mystery to Yellow Old Woman. While he seeks to portray the traditional symbols in his paintings, his lack of knowledge in his own culture makes that a difficult task.

Yellow Old Woman was born on the Blackfoot reserve near Gleichen. His parents spoke mostly English at home and English was the language spoken at school.

When his father died and Yellow Old Woman moved to Calgary with his mother and sisters and brothers, he lost any hope of learning his culture.

But Yellow Old Woman is trying to change that, through courses at PICSS, through mediation and through his art.

"They say the picture is in the paper," says Yellow Old Woman. "I will look at a blank piece of paper for ten or 20 minutes and then the picture will come to me."

Yellow Old Woman has dabbled in other art forms, sculpture, beadwork and photography but he fells his greatest talents lie in painting.

But society is fugal in the rewards it gives the artistically talented. And so artists like Yellow Old Woman must set aside the rewards their artwork might one day bring, to put meals on the table.

"I have a lot of support from my wife and family," says Yellow Old Woman. "But until I know I can make a living my painting will just be a hobby."