Quw’utsun artist Charlene Johnny gave Salt Spring’s library a unique look in 2021 when she and other young Indigenous artists brightened a formerly drab cement wall with marine life artwork.
Colourful images of Pacific octopus, herring, crabs, sea urchins and more — including the cool two-headed serpent the Coast Salish people said lived in Ganges Harbour — celebrate the region’s maritime nature.
Thanks to financial support from the Salt Spring-based Raffi Foundation for Child Honouring, the southern part of the island and surrounding waters as interpreted by Johnny can now be seen inside the library, adding beauty and a reflection of our home lands and waters to the children’s area.
Raffi Cavoukian came to the library on Thursday, Feb. 6 to meet Johnny and view the not-quite-dry painted mural depicting a bald eagle and sun above Hwu’ne’nuts (Fulford Harbour) and the islands and waters beyond.
He noted that the mural fits with one of the foundation’s tenets of “respecting Earth and child,” and that children would not only delight in the visual elements but would have questions as well.
“For me there’s a feeling of going beyond these spaces; a sense of connection with all that’s greater than our own locale,” said Cavoukian. “I really want to thank you, Charlene, for a very inspired and elevated work. I hope you’re as pleased with it as we are.”
“It’s always an honour to come and create on Salt Spring,” said Johnny, who noted she has now worked on art projects in all four seasons on the island.
“I consider it home now, especially with each project as I grow my connections within the community, and they become stronger each time I come and visit,” she said. “And so I feel extremely lucky and blessed to have these bonds with the community and to share artwork that I hope will become recognizable to children and just folks at large, to start asking questions and engaging with it.”
She explained that the sun and the moon are signature elements in her artwork, and the eagle is such a highly respected and regarded creature in Coast Salish culture and beyond. Abstract green and brown patches in the Burgoyne Valley represent human settlement, she said, which she thought to include after looking at early photos of that part of the island.
Johnny said she hadn’t come up with a name for the piece yet, but was considering something that used the Hul’qumi’num words for sun (suµsháthut) and eagle (yuxwule’).
Also new in the children’s area are images of some of the marine creatures from Johnny’s exterior mural, installed on end panels of the shelving.
Assistant library director Julia Wagner expressed gratitude to everyone for their contributions.
“I want to thank the artist for the incredible vision and talent that you’ve shown us through your expressions throughout this library and external to it as well,” she said to Johnny, adding that the new artwork was an incredible gift that would speak profoundly to the next generation.