Indigenous art class brings out the writer in Waylon

Chinook volunteer thrilled to see his work printed and bound

Story & photo by Sherri Gallant

LETHBRIDGE — The first time Waylon Morning Owl dropped by a special art session at Chinook Regional Hospital, he did so with reluctance. Sure, he’d been feeling pretty bored and wanted something to do, and yes, he was a creative man — but writing, not art, is more to his liking. Although unsure of what he was getting into, the 26-year-old decided to give it a whirl.

The Spirit of Art and Reconciliation (SOAR) sessions — held every Thursday in the hospital’s Ceremony Room — turned out to be just what Morning Owl needed.

A smudge ceremony begins each session and fills the room with sweet scent as soft music plays and participants — mostly hospital patients — receive guidance on how to create Indigenous-themed artwork. SOAR, a partnership between Indigenous Health and Therapeutic Recreation, delivers expressive art programming with an Indigenous focus.

Morning Owl, originally from Kainai Nation, became a regular starting in June 2018. He began to develop his painting and drawing skills, but it was his storytelling and poetry that soon captivated staff and patients alike.

One volunteer in particular, Corinne Thiessen, found herself so impressed that she took one of Morning Owl’s notebooks of stories and prose — and had it printed and bound — as a surprise for him.

“We were doing a lot of art and painting, and Waylon really took to using markers in his note pad,” says Thiessen, an artist and art teacher, and SOAR volunteer since the time Morning Owl first showed up.

“And then he started writing — we just encouraged him to write, because his stories were so funny. We realized he was writing about all of us, and so at the end of one session we asked him if it would be okay to read his stories aloud, and he agreed. He gives us special names in the stories. I was ‘Corinne Canadian Tire Mountain Traveler’. He makes people laugh so hard every week — this one fellow who came was laughing so hard he was crying.”

Thiessen says hearing Morning Owl’s stories at the end of every session is a treat for all, but the routine has also brought positive changes to the writer himself.

“We could see him really open up and blossom,” she says. “He finally filled his whole notebook and I thought it would be so fantastic to publish it. I typed it out, added some pictures to go with parts of it and sent it to be printed and bound. When we gave it to Waylon, I think he was quite thrilled, he really liked it.”

Morning Owl smiles: “It was really nice of her to do that. I didn’t expect it. I’ve been writing ever since I was 10-years-old. Journaling. The stories just come to me. Whenever it comes in my mind, I just write it down. It’s good to laugh, it’s healing.”

His work, however, isn’t always comedic. When a beloved elder recently passed away, his prose imagined her waving at him from the clouds and dancing in the sky.

“People were wiping their eyes,” says Heidi Davis, a recreation therapist who helped create SOAR.

“It was powerful. Waylon is a gifted storyteller. Then, right after he wrote the poem about the elder, he wrote a poem about how baloney is so good — and that had us all laughing again!”