How has my awareness of Coast Salish Art in our community changed?
Before I had done this assignment, I believed that all Indigenous art looked the same. Our Digital Learning teachers showed our my group an educational video about the different kinds of Indigenous art, and how they aren’t the same. So, as I worked on this project, I could see the differences in the art styles, and differences in the meanings of each kind of shape. For Coast Salish people, the crescents means time, (like the changes in the moon cycle), while in other tribes it could mean anything from a protector to transformation. In Coast Salish art, the shapes are comprised of ovals, trigons, crescents and trigons; but, for Coastal Indigenous groups farther north, their art is mostly ovals and u-forms only.
Doing this project was fun and educational, and had helped me connect to that community in a way that I could understand. Doing this calming art in a non-competitive environment helped me see how this kind of art could bring people together with shared experiences.
