When my Métis grandmother was in her fifties and sixties, she started a large project she called “Louis Riel’s Dream.” She began with five sketches that she intended to turn into five paintings. These paintings were to highlight the history of Western Canada through the stories of the Indigenous peoples, illustrating the clashes of cultures and politics in Canada and pointing to a future where people of all races could live in harmony. My grandmother never finished this project, and all that remains are two unfinished paintings. The sketches, sadly, were lost in a fire.
Because I was so compelled by my grandmother’s project, her artwork and her inspiration from Louis Riel, when I was commissioned to write a Piano Quintet for the Agassiz Chamber Music Festival in 2015 I decided to complete her art project musically. I sought collaboration with members of my family, using the prose of my mother, Joyce Clouston, to start each of the five movements of the piece, and inviting my sister, Andrea Carlson, and aunts, Lisa and Lana Clouston, to contribute art works to display at the concert. The premiere was a wonderful and collaborative event. Composing the piece was both a musical completion of my grandmother’s five-painting plan, but it was also a celebration of my grandmother.
The vision of my grandmother continues to be something for which I feel our communities should strive. We live in a time where racism and the fear of others continues. Yet many of us are reaching out to others who are misunderstood or feared in our society and in our families. There is still a long way to go, but the vision of my grandmother offers one way of working towards a possible future where all can live together in harmony, reconciled to one another.
