NO NATIVE NOT NAIVE

Part of human nature is to err. On my journey, I feel like my entire life up to the point of meeting the people of the Tsuut'ina Nation has been one giant err after another. Years before I met the love of my life, Teddy Manywounds, I would periodically think and ponder about how First Nations people live. How do they survive? What is education like for them? How do they make money? Why don't they have opportunities like I did or other people just like me had? Why were there no major artists that I'd ever heard about from a First Nation? So many, many, many questions that I knew none of the answers to. I wasn't about to look them up on the internet and get who knows what type of information. To say that I was ignorant, would be ignorant to say. I fully admit my blind spot towards the truth of their daily realities and tragic past, to which I personally was not responsible for, but I take full ownership as person of European ancestry. In NO NATIVE / NOT NAIVE, I discovered that in my naivety, I discovered a curious anagram that succinctly described my feelings and thoughts towards my previous life and where I am today. Before my interactions with First Nations peoples, they were invisible to me; their stories and cultures were unavailable to me given how selfish my life was at the time, just thinking about making money. (Don't get me wrong, making money is important in the culture and the world we find ourselves in, but it warped my sense of self and gave me whacked out entitlement.) So even though in my subconscious mind I knew they existed, but in my conscious mind, there were no natives. So the work is a before (NO NATIVE) and after (NOT NAIVE).