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Boozhoo! I dedicate this blogpost to my little sister Jéssica María Taylor who lives in Louisiana. Jéssica is a very gifted artist and a beautiful person who inspires many. She is abundantly filled with the spirit of life. She is truly one of a kind.
Jéssica speaks many languages: English, Spanish, Hindi, Creole, Cajun French, Haitan. She even speaks a little Anishinaabemowin. Her colorful paintings speak an intense, yet universal language that everybody understands. Some of her canvases are optimistic, full of life, and mystically bright with dazzling colors; others reflect darkness and despair.
But where Jéssica goes, the sun shines.
To me, she is ishkode waawaabigonii: a Flower of Fire.
The above is a painting that Jéssica spontaneously made of herself last year after I showed her an image of a jewelry set I designed: a squash blossom necklace and matching earrings. The name of the set is Gaagige Bimaadiziwin-Shkode ('Everlasting Fire Of Life') - See detail below. The design of the pendant is inspired on a sacred Midewiwin chant that roughly translates into:
“The flower Of Fire
Will come to my aid”
Originally it is part of a sacred love song about a man presenting an ishkodebagonii (cardinal flower) to his love but since I am her brother I gave it a slightly different interpretation for the occasion.
> Read part 3 of the series.
About me and my sources of inspiration:
My name is Zhaawano Giizhik. I am an
American currently living in the Netherlands. As a writer and a non-commercial artist
and jewelry designer, I like to draw on the oral and pictorial traditions of
my Ojibwe Anishinaabe
ancestors from the American
Great Lakes area. For this I call on my 'Spirit Memory'; which means
I try to remember the knowledge and the lessons of my ancestors. The
MAZINAAJIMOWIN or ‘pictorial spirit writings’ - which are rich with
symbolism and have been painted throughout history on rocks and etched on other
sacred items such as copper and slate, birch bark and animal hide - were a form
of spiritual as well as educational communication that gave structure and
meaning to the cosmos. Many of these sacred pictographs or petroforms – some of which are many,
many generations old - hide in sacred locations where the manidoog
(spirits) reside, particularly in those mystic places near the coastline where
the sky, the earth, the water, the underground and the underwater meet.
The jewelry shown on my blog pages serves as teaching devices and is not available for purcchase.
