Walking Thru My Fires: Local Creator Transforms Trauma into Beauty

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• 39 years of creating

• Work in more than a dozen mediums

• Hundreds of pieces

• Art featured in galleries in Germany, Beijing, United Arab Emirates, USA and Canada

Despite these accomplishments, Francis Dick doesn’t see herself as an “artist.”

“I have a hard time with that word. I don’t feel like an artist,” says Dick from her downtown Victoria apartment.

“I didn’t set out to be an artist. My work is really about my experience and my journey of excavating my life and turning the fragmented parts of me into something beautiful and light.”

Dick was born in 1959 in Alert Bay, B.C. She is from the Musga’makw Dzawada’enuxw, or Four Tribes of Kingcome Inlet and was inspired to start painting after the death of her grandmother in 1985. She was so moved by her grandmother’s passing that she created an acrylic painting on paper.

“I needed to honour her in some way,” she says. “I created an image that represents the creation story because her telling it is one of my last memories of her.”

Dick was a social work student at the University of Victoria at the time, but her brother, Kwakwaka’waka Artist and Chief Beau Dick encouraged her to bring the painting to a local gallery. The gallery manager agreed to make it into prints for her and she walked up and down Government Street trying to sell it for $15.

“No one wanted to buy it back then and I often think, ‘Look at me now, suckers!’” she says with a laugh.

Pain on Canvas

Four months after the passing of her grandmother, Dick’s youngest brother committed suicide. She was once again moved to honour his life with art.

“The piece I made for him is an eye inside of an eye,” she says.

“One side is an eagle, and one side is a human. When you look at it full on, it looks like a face. The outside of the eye is stylized with tear drops and trees. I used the eagle to honour him because as we were lowering his casket into the ground, I saw an eagle overhead.”

She adds that the title of the piece Kalalilam translates into “Shaking Away the Tears.”

Dick creates in the traditional Indigenous Northwest Coast formline style. However, she adds her own flair with vibrant colours that seem to jump off the page. Her passion for her work took off when she spent three summers teaching language, dance and song in the secluded village of Kingcome Inlet and painted pictures of the locations in the area that are included in the stories she was told as a kid.

“I wanted to bring the stories to life on paper,” she says.

“When something moves me, I process it through designing and painting.”

Walking Thru My Fires

One of her most famous pieces Walking Thru My Fires embodies this sentiment. The moving painting depicts a wolf—a symbol of Dick’s descendants of the Kawadelakala (Supernatural Wolf)—who in legend, shed his animal form to become the first of the Kingcome people.

She adds that she never studied art but growing up, she was surrounded by artistic elements like masks, songs, stories and designs on canvas.

That early exposure to art has translated into her desire to work in an array of mediums and “canvases.” Dick admits to “getting bored easily” and says she has worked in jewelry, wood carving and sandblasting. She has painted everything from guitars and drums to clothing and furniture. She also works with shadow boxes.

“I am affected by different mediums differently,” she adds.

As impactful as tangible art has been in her life, Dick says music is one of the “three tethers that keep me on the planet.”

She has created portraits of several local musicians including her favourite blues artist Deb Rhymer.

“She is the most beautiful and powerful woman I have ever met in my life. She’s my muse.”

The other pillars in Dick’s life include what she refers to as “trekking” and her work.

“I love to go hiking or walking,” she says.

“I have my loop that I do regularly and that is how I convene with the higher power of greatness.”

Legacy Art Gallery

Dick was featured in an exhibit at Legacy Art Gallery in Victoria from April 22 to September 9, 2023.

The Walking Thru My Fires exhibit explored Indian Residential School legacies, urban Indigeneity, reconciliation, and the healing power of art through Dick’s prints, paintings, carvings and music.

“It was incredible to see all of my work in one place,” says Dick of the exhibit.

“I walked in and thought, ‘Is this who I am?’ Every room in the gallery was about my work. Being honoured in that way was incredible. Emotionally, it was hard to take in as my whole journey was laid out before me and it was never easy.”

Part of the exhibit was a collection of six school desks that Dick painted. As a Residential School survivor, she says she wanted to “turn something horrible into something beautiful.”

The desks had lights in them and were interactive with the music in the exhibit that included children’s items and clothing strewn about.

“You knew you were walking into a sacred space,” Dick said of the Residential School Desk Project.

“People walked out in tears. Seeing people’s response to what I do was powerful. I never felt so raised up in all my life. It’s about sharing a story that might help someone.”

She is currently working on several projects including painting Telecaster guitar bodies and creating wearable art. She plans to launch a website in the coming months to make her art more accessible to all who want to own it.

When asked about her success, Dick says, “Am I successful? I guess so. How do you define success?”

“When I look back at it, I thought my life would look completely different,” she says.

“Funny how that happens…”

Humble words from an inspiring creator whose talent has no boundaries and artistry knows no bounds.

Photos courtesy of University of Victoria Legacy Art Galleries.

Stacie Gaetz
Stacie Gaetzhttp://grandmag.ca
Stacie is the managing editor of GRAND. She runs on exploring new and exciting places and getting to the heart of people's stories. If you have a story she should know about, reach her at [email protected]