Mary Longman: Fire Starter and Time Keeper – Roadside Attractions

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Mary Longman, "Fire Starter and Time Keeper – Roadside Attractions," 2018

Reception September 1, 2018 1-4 with Artist Talk

Fire Starter and Time Keeper, is a public sculpture installation designed for the Roadside Attractions exhibition, curated by Dunlop Art Gallery and Sakewewak Artist Collective. The sculptural installation will be installed in July 2018  at Wanuskewin Heritage Park in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.

The work celebrates ancient Indigenous technologies, of a fire-starting bow drill and a sun dial wheel. Indigenous teachings of this work combines survival tools with science. Teachings include true north and the north star of Polaris, Ursa Minor/Minor, summer solstice and ceremonies, various types of fire starters, friction and related artifacts, as overall survival techniques while in the woods.

Mary Longman (Aski-Piyesiwiskwew) was born in Fort Qu’Appelle and is a Saulteaux band member of Gordon First Nation. She is an established artist who has been exhibiting nationally and internationally over a course of twenty seven years. Her artistic genres are sculpture/installation, drawing, digital media and book illustration. Her fine art has been exhibited in the most prestigious galleries in North America. Longman’s fine art works are in the collections of the McKenzie Art Gallery, Mendel Art Gallery, Kamloops Art Gallery, Thunder Bay Art Gallery, Saskatchewan Arts Board, Canada Council for the Arts and University of Saskatchewan. Mary Longman is a professor of Studio Art and Aboriginal Art History, and has held senior academic positions as Dean at the White Mountain Academy of Arts in Elliot Lake, Ontario and Department Head of Fine Art at the Nicola Valley Institute of Technology in Merritt, BC. She continues to actively exhibit her art work.