In the early years of the market, many First Nations artists found themselves encouraged, and sometimes pressed, to make work that would declare itself as “traditional” at first glance. The pressures were not always crude, nor were they necessarily ill-intentioned. Often they came from people who wished, quite sincerely, to support Indigenous artists, preserve cultural knowledge, and help the work find its way into museums, galleries, and private collections. Still, the effect could be narrowing. Certain materials, certain surfaces, certain signs of “Indianness” were more easily recognized, and therefore more easily sold.

It is therefore especially interesting that, in 2005, Goyce Kakegamic chose to work with antler, a material that might seem to answer that very expectation. Whether this was an act of reclamation, experiment, or simple pleasure in the material is impossible to say. What matters is the authority of the object itself. Across the broad palm of the antler, a pair of moose are carved in low relief beneath a low sun. The scene is compact, warm, and beautifully held together. Browns, ochres, and earthen tones settle into the surface, giving the work a mellow glow and a sense of remembered landscape.

For a deeper discussion of the ways First Nations art was framed, marketed, and understood, see Valda Blundell and Ruth Phillips, “If It’s Not Shamanic, Is It Sham? An Examination of Media Responses to Woodland School Art,” Anthropologica, new ser., vol. 25, no. 1, 1983, pp. 117–130.