Silver Fox
My painting is based on the Cree indigenous story, “The curing fox.” Here is a brief rundown of the story: There was a little girl who was very sick with a bad cough. Her parents call on a medicine woman to help heal their daughter. The medicine woman announces that she hears a sick “she - fox” limping through the snow, after she puts her ear up to the girl’s chest to listen. Then the medicine woman Prophesied, that in order to cure the girl, they had to find the fox and cure her as well. Or both the girl and fox would die. The girl’s father offers himself to track down the fox and bring her back home. My painting captures the moment the father and the fox first lock eyes at sunset, and the girl is waiting patiently for them to return anxiously sitting in the dark. I believe the moral of this story is that we have to take care of nature to take care of ourselves, because we are all connected. I chose to represent the little girl as only a silhouette so that I could show how she is essentially the gate between the spiritual and physical world. I wanted the viewers to use her as a portal to see the scene of a sick fox, facing her last chance at survival, unknowing that the girl's life is at risk if the fox choses to run from the father.
The cultural symbolism: I put in this peace can be seen in the border, where you can see a traditional Cree pattern of the crosshatched diamonds and the Lakota symbol, the inverted triangles facing each other means connection between sky and earth. In this instance I used it to represent the connection between girl and fox.