Everyone can find a unique way to give back to their community and culture, according to former Powell River resident Dean Heron, who recently won an award from the YVR Art Foundation.
Adopted by a non-First Nations family, Heron discovered his way to give back in the early 1990s when he found himself drawn to art and carving. He graduated from the Freda Diesing School of Northwest Coast Art in 2008.
“More and more artists that have grown up off reserve or with non-native families go on to reconnect through art,” said Heron, who moved to Powell River with his adopted parents, Mike and Laurie Heron, when he was in grade 11. “I always knew I was Tlingit, so I was drawn to that art, those images.”
While Heron said he knew he was Tlingit from the Yukon interior, he wasn’t aware of all the facets of his heritage until he began working on a commission for Vancouver Olympic Committee back in 2010.
“I met a delegation from the Yukon and didn’t realize that some of them were my family,” he said.
After Heron’s adoption records opened that year, he learned that he not only had Tlingit roots from his birth mother, and was a member of the Wolf Clan, but also had Kaska heritage. This deepened his understanding of how the art he was making and his culture fit together.
“I’ve always done art from a personal point of view,” said Heron. “But now I’m realizing there’s much more to it. Art and culture go hand in hand. An image tells a story and there are protocols behind it, you have to get the rights to tell that story.”
Heron, now a teacher at Freda Diesing, has had a busy year. He not only won a mid-career scholarship award from the YVR Art Foundation in May, but also collaborated with artists from his school, Emily Carr University of Art + Design and University of British Columbia to carve yellow cedar doors that will be shown at the Roundhouse Gallery in Vancouver.
“I really enjoy teaching,” said Heron. “It means a lot to me to help artists, young and old, connect with their cultures. Art is a way to give back. Art can be anything from fishing, singing, beading, dancing, cooking or carving.” For example, an elder in Terrace recently taught Heron and his wife how to can and smoke fish.
After such a long, successful year, Heron said he is looking forward to visiting his adopted parents in Powell River for a week, starting August 27.
“In Terrace I like being next to a river,” he said, “but I miss the ocean.”
