Joyce Jonathan Crone’s canoe in the Huntsville Festival of the Arts’ Tom Thomson canoe mural painting tells multiple Indigenous stories including The Haudenosaunee Tree of Peace and the Three Row Wampum. June 2023. - Joyce Jonathan Crone photo
Telling Indigenous stories with canoe painting in Huntsville
I did not just paint an old canoe, I uncolonized it, says Joyce Jonathan Crone
Having been accepted to The Huntsville Festival of the Arts, Tom Thomson canoe mural painting, I began a weeklong journey of connecting canoe and culture.
Joyce Jonathan Crone's canoe in the Huntsville Festival of the Arts' Tom Thomson canoe mural painting tells multiple Indigenous stories including The Haudenosaunee Tree of Peace and the Three Row Wampum. June 2023. - Joyce Jonathan Crone photo
Joyce Crone Canoe
Joyce Jonathan Crone's canoe in the Huntsville Festival of the Arts' Tom Thomson canoe mural painting tells multiple Indigenous stories including The Haudenosaunee Tree of Peace and the Three Row Wampum. June 2023. - Joyce Jonathan Crone photo
Having been accepted to The Huntsville Festival of the Arts, Tom Thomson canoe mural painting, I began a weeklong journey of connecting canoe and culture.
My ancestors skilfully constructed canoes for hunting, travel, transport and trade. As the eldest plein air canoe painter, I was surrounded by young artists and their creative energy. Over the span of a week, our group of seven created a community of sorts.
Sam, a young Grade 12 student, finding her way in the world, with her own bakery business, a wise soul with a bright future. Leo, a quiet artist, painting precision fine lines with ease. Each painter forming a canoe connection.
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I saw the evolution of this relationship unfold as the hours, and days flew by. I felt a bit responsible for these young ones.
The artistic creativity was ingenious. The depth of knowledge at such a young age blew me away. I took Grade 13 art in high school and learned about colour, but that was a dog’s age away, and did not equal their smarts, so I relied on their first-hand knowledge of colour mixing to find exact colour choice. I was humbled by their readiness to help and advise. If these young artists are our future, we are leaving a brilliant future in their hands.
Tom, you would have been so proud to see your work, and the Group of Seven’s paintings, recreated renditions on locally donated canoes. Time sketching, mixing, layering, tight brush strokes and delicate final touches, waiting for marine paint to dry, (blah) saw life brought to my old canoe.
As I smudged my canoe each morning, I felt a deepening core connection with my ancestors. Hunters, traversing trading gateways, families finding food and shelter, and Nation to Nation relations paddling the waterways in peace, harmony and friendship.
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My canoe uniquely tells the story of The Haudenosaunee Tree of Peace, the Three Row Wampum, the original treaty between the Europeans and my Indigenous people, an honouring tribute to the children lost to residential schools and two of your paintings. Tom, I did not just paint an old canoe, I uncolonized it.
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Joyce Jonathan Crone is Mohawk, born on the Six Nations Reserve. A retired teacher, she now makes Huntsville her home.
