7 Teachings

HONESTY - RESPECT - COURAGE - HUMILITY - LOVE - WISDOM - TRUTH

Painted with the help of Jon Ostash, for 'Flora House', an after school program based in the North End of Winnipeg.

8 year old me attempting to draw Indigenous art on paper, inspired by my late older cousin Sheldon Young, and my older brother Alan Young, is where I would like to say where it started for me. Come 1997/1998 living in the North End as a 10 year old kid for a year and a half, attending Niji Mahkwa school on Flora Av. It's where I did my first painting on deer hide stretched with a willow branch. Mr. Phillip Painter the native studies teacher there at the time kept it all these years and gifted it to me in 2010 a day before he retired, I just so happened to be visiting the school that day. My friend at the time told me his uncle Richard Manoakeesick painted most of the murals on Selkirk Avenue and got paid money for it, that was mind blowing for me at the time, I was inspired that an Indigenous person had the opportunity and ability to do such things, it became a dream of mine.

22 years later, I finally have a mural in the North End. Years of work and self discipline the dream is finally true .

The design, painting process, and execution of this painting is beyond what I could have hoped for.