Indigenous artist Karen Goodfellow has completed the preparations for her art exhibition at the Pitt Meadows Art Gallery, which runs from September 18 until October 31, 2021. River Bends and Totem Ends is a deeper exploration of the artist’s indigeneity and the way she gains inspiration from the Earth, natural settings, and the outdoors.
Growing up in a Canada that was focused on racial assimilation prevented Goodfellow from learning about her ancestral culture and traditions. As a youth, Goodfellow struggled with her mixed ethnicity. Reinforced colonial practices and intergenerational racism meant she knew that she had to keep her Indigenous heritage private.
After graduating from high school, family advice and expectations led Goodfellow away from the art world and to business school. The years spent working in the corporate world were rewarding, but she always felt like something was missing. She realized she wanted to find her way back to creating art.
Goodfellow’s art career began in the early 1990s while in Colorado Springs, Colo., where she joined a local artist collective and gained valuable support and knowledge. The group encouraged Goodfellow to take her art to the local galleries, where she sold her first pieces for almost triple her asking price.
She was soon hired to teach her “process art” at the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Centre (CSFAC) as opposed to traditional “product art.” Product art is focused on creating art to achieve a particular outcome or “product” that can be sold. Process art, as Goodfellow also believes, is about the experience of making the art piece. The “process” is often about exploration and discovery and allows the artist’s inspiration to direct how and what is done.
Goodfellow was already an experienced and capable corporate facilitator, so teaching art came naturally. The CSFAC opportunity gave her the confidence to commit to her childhood dreams of being an artist.
In the late 1990s, on a trip to the southwestern United States, Goodfellow realized another life desire — to explore and discover her own Indigenous culture and ancestry. Her art began to express her indigeneity and the importance of increasing awareness about the impact of colonialism and the way indigenous peoples are still being taken advantage of.
Another significant step came in the early 2000s, when Goodfellow was asked to show her art at the Foyer Art Gallery on Squamish Nation lands. Having her art featured on her ancestral lands made her feel like she had made it home: home to her roots, home to her people. Goodfellow’s ancestry includes Squamish, Katzie and Stó:l? First Nations. There she exhibited her collection The Innocents, a series of works she considers “a unique mix of innocence and spiritual awareness [that] depicts my indigenous roots prior to colonization.”
In 2013, the “Auntie’s Pots” piece won Goodfellow first place at the Peace Hills Trust’s Annual Indigenous Art Contest. This was another significant moment in the artist’s career and gave her assurances that her art was becoming more recognized and desirable. Although “product art” has never been Goodfellow’s goal, the appreciation for her art gave a sense that she found her stride. Her work to increase awareness and evoke an emotional response in those viewing her art was fully realized.
Goodfellow sees a much deeper exploration in her collection River Bends and Totem Ends because she feels she’s dipping her toes in the deep waters of Mother Earth and the inspiration she continues to find in nature. Her communion with nature and contemplation time bring much opportunity to learn, grow, and expand her artistic expression since moving to a home on 12 acres of land.
“I just have to surrender to the forces of nature. The flow and energy of creative forces will guide me, and when it’s time to paint or construct an altered object, I get very focused. I get very disciplined.”
Goodfellow’s extensive portfolio speaks for itself and brings both confirmation and hope that her creative process is always evolving. She bases this creativeness on her unique combination of work and life experience as a contemporary medicine woman, therapeutic counsellor and corporate trainer.
“I surrender to the process and let the spirit guide my way. I start with a clean studio, a clean canvas, and without a clear picture of where the piece is going. I know spirit and inspiration will lead me where the piece wants to go.”
Goodfellow knows now, looking back, that her childhood, life, and career path have all contributed substantially to her creative process and the artist she’s become. She offers her biggest “why” for continuing to grow as an artist:
“To evoke emotion in others. To offer a transcendent or higher level of awareness or observation about an object. My biggest “why” would be for my own healing and growth. My art pieces are created for the healing of others in different ways than they are for myself. One of the biggest compliments I’ve received is seeing people with tears streaming down their faces.”
You can see Karen Goodfellow’s River Bends and Totem Ends exhibition at the Pitt Meadows Art Gallery, which will run until October 31, 2021. Coming in May 2022, Goodfellow will be the solo artist at Foyer Gallery in Squamish, B.C. showing her Magic Mountains and Rainbow Rivers art exhibition.
Images: John Priessl (Deep Waters), Karen Goodfellow (Chief), Steve Hartwig/The Cascade (Photo of Karen Goodfellow)
Steve is a third-year BFA creative writing/visual arts student who’s been a contributing writer, staff writer and now an editor at The Cascade. He's always found stories and adventures but now has the joy of capturing and reporting them.
