Arnold Laford

Encouraging our children to create, be it painting, music, or anything from their own hand, is a gift. It fosters the gift of healthy self-expression, self-esteem, and self-worth. What a different place our world would be if we believed that we are all perfect just the way we are.

Nominate an "Emerging Artist" for a cash prize of up to $10,000. Courtesy Toronto Arts Foundation. Details via link. https://torontoartsfoundation.org/awa/emerging-artist-award

"Mindimooyenh" is the Ojibwe word for a female elder and best embodies how Ojibwe society perceived a woman's power. In the Ojibwe language, it literally refers to "one who holds things together." Older women who often had ceremonial ties and expertise with plants and medicines had a more finely attuned connection to the earth's manidoo, or spiritual power. Through their labour and control over certain resources, women continuously renewed relationships to their relatives... in the human and spirit world. In day-to-day life, "one who hold things together" was a reference to the economic competence and organizational skill that Ojibwe women, especially grandmothers and those in their maturity, exercised within their families and communities. Mindimooyenh - an idea born of women's autonomy - evokes the status, strength, wisdom and authority of the older female in Ojibwe Society. Always honour Women for they are the ones who hold our homes together.

An artist is only as good as those who inspire him. Thank you to Anne Cannon Harrigan for her donation of much needed art supplies!