Ojibwe Cultural Foundation
15 Highway 551 P0P-1G0 M'Chigeeng First Nation

Join us in the morning...online at gimaaradio.com or CHYF 88.9

OCF staff getting ready for Orange Shirt Day Elder, Leona Nahwegahbow Long time OCF staff member, Sophie Corbiere Artist-in-Residence, Darlene Bebonang ... Limited tshirts & sizes will be available! First come, first served. Limited order of 2 shirts per person. Must place order. Cost of tshirt 5$ (cash only) Call OCF to place order (705) 377-4902. Tshirts will be available for pick up at OCF Tuesday Sept 29 in the afternoon.

Tonight, we had a small community viewing of the Autumn Peltier documentary, The Water Walker, premiering at TIFF via the Bell Digital Cinema. We are extremely happy to have opened our doors once again, as we have been closed since March due to COVID-19. We are pleased to have opened with this special viewing for our invited community members and elders. #tiff20 #tiff2020 #thewaterwalker

Aanii. We have been recieving your emails, calls, and messages about the Indigenous Visual Artists' Materials Grant, which is a program through Ontario Arts Council. One of the most frequently asked questions we have is, "how do we apply?". The application process for this grant is done completely online through NOVA (Ontario Arts Council's System for applying to any of their grants). With NOVA you need to create an account with your email from which you can access OAC's gran...t page, view the application details, and apply to any of their grants. For this grant, we are one recommender that covers Northern Ontario regions such as Manitoulin, Algoma, Sudbury, Georgian Bay, Nippising, and Timmins. If you are an artist that lives in other regions in Ontario there are 5 other organizations that you can look into (in the grant's detail page). Another common question we recieve is - "Is there a paper application we can fill out?" Every year this is a concern that we come across. We understand that many indigenous peoples, especially in our area, live remotely and don't have access to wi-fi, a computer or even have an email. Unfortunately, there is not a physical application that can be offered at this time . If you have any more questions please contact us at 705-377-4902 or email [email protected].

Grant Application Now Open! Calling all artists, beadworkers and and traditional crafters! The Ojibwe Cultural Foundation is a reccomender for the Indigenous Visual Artists' Materials Grant. This program supports Ontario-based First Nations, Inuit, and Metis artists working in the visual arts, crafting, and traditional Indigenous art forms to create their artwork.... This grant can be used for: - material expenses - art supply expenses -aquiring tools to help with artwork, harvesting of materials -delivery + shipping costs for materials and supplies. Application deadlines through the Ojibwe Cultural Foundation are October 30, 2020 and December 11, 2020 at 1p.m. (EST). More information can be found through NOVA @ https://grants.arts.on.ca

Aanii, Boozhoo, we recognize the busy time we are finding ourselves in at this time as we are all slowly returning to work. With that being said we have made the decision to extend our deadline for our Art Contest: Adapting, Surviving, Connecting for those that may have missed the deadline on August 7. The submissions deadline is now extended to Friday, August 28, 2020 at 5p.m. EST Applicants can review the guidelines and access the application form in the link below and you... can email Naomi at [email protected] if you have any questions about the submission process. Miigwech https://drive.google.com//1ti4mUR559GUb1t_3V-idQXQpP/view

We were so delighted and proud to hear of Christian Kaiser-Fox and the 77km frundraiser run he organized to help the Ojibwe Cultural Foundation. The run from Sudbury, Ontario to Webbwood, Ontario (77km) took place last week on August 2nd. The amount of support Christian receieved for his longest marathon run to-date; from the additional team of runners, donators who also gave him encouraging words, and the support from his family during the course of the run is deeply moving ...as is his message for promoting physical/mental/spiritual health for the youth and the importance of connecting to our culture and language. We really enjoyed Christian's visits and participation in our workshops/activities at the OCF, notably during our Music Nights, and we continue to look forward to seeing where his path takes him as a leader. Chi-miigwech Christian from all of us at the Ojibwe Cultural Foundation. We hope you and your family are well and look forward to your visit with us again soon.

- Announcement - The Ojibwe Cultural Foundation's Online Store is experiencing technical difficulties at this time; which is affecting the processing and shipping of our orders. We estimate that the online store will be off for an estimated 3-weeks. Our current operations and all Ojibwe Cultural Foundation inventory will be temporarily unavailable. However, we will continue to work on and ship our current list of orders. ... We want to thank you for your understanding at this time and for your continued support of our local artists and of our activities here on Manitoulin Island. We hope to have our store up and running as soon as we can. Stay tuned for any updates. Chi-miigwech.

Our doors may not be open yet, but we are continuing to work on ways to engage our community, support our local artists, and uplift community members as much as we are able to while also being mindful of our high-risk/vulnerable members. We want to thank our regular and seasonal visitors and those that wanted to come this year for understanding. That being said, there is plenty of time to create works for our Adapting, Surviving, Connecting Art Contest! We are looking for wo...rks that showcase and express the themes of adapting, survival/resilience, and connecting to language, culture, family, etc. The style, medium, or techniques of works submitted (be it tradtional crafting/art forms or contemporary forms of painting, sculptural, or mixed media works) is open to the individual applicant. If there are any questions about the application, the application process, or just a general inquiry, you can: email Naomi at [email protected], message us on our Facebook Page, or leave a comment.

We are very proud of Wren. Her and Isadore Toulouse work very well together. A great read and very inspiring videos that Wren is making.

Adapting, Surviving, Connecting ATTENTION ALL INDIGENOUS, METIS, AND INUIT artists in Northern Ontario! We are looking for you art, style, and more importantly, your story that expresses how you are managing the various changes that we face in this time because of COVID-19 and the changing climate we currently see within Canada. We are looking for how you, as an Indigenous artist, adapted to these changes, the resilience we can find and look to within our ancestors and teachi...ngs and more importantly a represention of the strengthened connection the land, family, culture, and spirit in the time of social distancing abd isolation. The Call for Submissions is open to any current Indigenous, Metis, or Inuit resident within Northern Ontario and any art medium, style, new or old work can be submitted relating to the theme. For questions you can contact us on our facebook page, or you can email Naomi at [email protected] Link for application form and guidelines -> https://drive.google.com//1cei_3c1_OsslKdbwfyyb91QC9/view Deadline to submit is Friday, August 7th 2020 at 5 p.m. EST.

BEADERS/ CREATORS/ GIVERS: Send a message to Ojibwe Cultural Foundation page or email Shaelynn ([email protected]) to let us know * your name * where you are from (First nation or city) * the amount of pins you are making... * where your pin(s) will be going to ORGANIZATIONS/ BUSINESSES/ COMMUNITY SITES: Yes we are accepting requests. So, if you think there is some one or a few people in an organization, health centre, or community site that you think deserves a pin - let us know and we will add them to the request list. * Name of location & contact info * Contact person (could be yourself or someone of that organization) * Number of pins that are being requested. Please share as we get ready to hand out our first batch of pins and we look forward to see what you create!