Home
Artist
Limited Edition Prints
1997-2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012-2013
2014-Present
Design
Projects
Purchase
FAQ
Contact

Language
(Click Image to Enlarge)

Language

Giclée

Edition 120

Released October 2012
SOLD OUT

Available Exclusively at Hill's Native Art.

I belong to the K’ómoks First Nation and we are (light) years deep into the British Columbia treaty process. I truly have mixed feelings about our involvement in this. By choosing to engage in the process, we enter a world of consultants and negotiators and other strange, scary and wonderful creatures. We partake in a world of borrowing and debt; of meetings and fights. We enter without knowing whether we are journeying into the dark side or are on a path towards the light.

What I do know is that under the treaty process, our community has begun to fracture. Our very future as a people is at stake. Will treaty define who we are or will our culture do that? Will treaty lead us to form a “Treaty Empire” or a “Treaty Rebellion”?

My grandfather, like so many other First Nation’s kids, went to residential school where his language was literally beat out of him. Speak in K’omoks? He was beat. Speak in Kwakwala? He was beat. Share our ancestral stories? He was beat. Do this to enough generations and you wonder how anyone can speak our languages anymore. The fact remains that here in K’omoks, we have 0 speakers of the Pentlatch language; we have 0 speakers of the K’omoks language and we have, what, 2 speakers of the Kwakwala language? While money gets squirreled away into the pockets of the consultants, we are doing absolutely nothing to preserve our language. This is unacceptable and all of us are to blame!

Sure, we might ask an elder to say a prayer in Kwakwala or throw a few words into a speech to make it sound “authentic,” but we sit back and watch our language die daily. With language, goes culture; with culture, goes identity--a slippery slope that all the money in the world can never rectify.

“Language” is a limited edition print using the giclée method of printmaking. This print was released in October of 2012 and printed by Andy Everson at Copper Canoe, the artist’s own studio in Comox B.C. A total of 133 prints bear the title "Language” and are signed by Andy Everson: 120 in the primary edition bearing the numbers 1/120 through 120/120; 12 Artist’s Proof; and 1 Printer’s Proof. The acid-free Moab Entrada 100% cotton rag paper measures 11x17 inches. Image size measures about 10x15 inches.

 

Home | Site Map | Contact
Copyright © Andy Everson 1997-2016