Creating care with stained glass feathers
Truro artist creating 215 feathers for Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation
TRURO - When Truro artist Supriya Deas first heard about the remains of 215 children discovered on the grounds of the former Kamloops Indian Residential School in May of last year, the shock and horror brought about uncontrollable tears.
“I couldn’t stop crying,” she said, noting her first instinct was to try and busy herself. “But I couldn’t stop crying out of empathy for the children, their families and our First Nations community in Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc.”
And she couldn’t stop asking how this could ever come to be in the first place.
“My mind couldn’t stay off the 215 children,” she said. “They were taken from their families … for what? I couldn’t stop trying to figure out what was going on in anybody’s heads, how that could possibly happen to these children, those families? I can’t fathom it ... I can’t go there.”
Instead of dwelling on the sadness and pain, the questions without answers, the artist turned to her creative ability of making stained glass, and the ‘Last Straw Project’ was born.
“I thought, I’m a stained glass artist, and I'm going to make 215 feathers and send them out there. Tell them (the people of Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc) I don’t have anything I can say, but I care.
“I put it on Facebook and told the community that if anyone would like to come and work on these feathers with me, they’re welcome … I’ll teach them how to do it.”
Deas said she knew that would add time to the project, but she wants the community to be involved and the invitation remains.
“If they want to come, they’re certainly welcome,” she said.
The rise in COVID during the year saw the invitation answered sporadically, but some did and an unexpected development was people donating money towards the purchase of materials and the cost to ship the stained glass feathers to B.C.
“I didn’t know that was going to happen; this must be God’s desire for this to happen,” Deas said of those who chose to contribute to the project in an unsolicited manner. She said she has already crafted a card that will accompany the feathers, with all the names of people who donated.
Deas said she contacted the Chief of the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation about her plan and to get information about exactly where to send the feathers. Now it’s about finishing them while still doing other projects.
“I have about 80 done. Whenever it gets daunting, and my mind asks, ‘What was thinking’… then I hear, ‘Oh no, it’s correct,’” Deas said of an inspirational voice she hears.
SENDING LOVE
For Deas, her attraction to stained glass as an art form goes back to her childhood in Northern California.
“Ever since I was a little girl, I would see those beautiful stained-glass church windows,” she said. “Back then, in the Catholic Church, all the masses were in Latin, so I would sit there as a little girl and all I could do was look at the windows.
“But I would get the feeling of love from those stained glass windows and thought, when I get big, I’m going to make those coloured windows that tell the story of love.”
For more on Deas, the project and her artwork, visit her Facebook page.