Mural means woman’s life will not be forgotten

Eleven years ago, Xstine Cook envisioned a painted mural that would honour the life of Blood woman Gloria Black Plume. Black Plume’s body was found in an alley way within the southeast Ramsey neighbourhood in Calgary in 1999. Black Plume was a mother, grandmother, aunty, and cousin who had been brutally beaten. Two men responsible for her death were acquitted of charges, with one of the men serving three years of a 10-year sentence before he was re-tried and let off.

“I actually lived down the block when it happened and for some reason it really deeply affected me. For four nights I went down to the National Hotel where they said she was picked up, and I just stood there outside the hotel and sang…and I’m not a singer (but) I sang for her…I do believe it has to do with being Aboriginal and an Aboriginal woman,” said Cook, who is the artistic director/curator for the Calgary Animated Objects Society.

Eventually, Cook connected with Cree graffiti artist Jesse Gouchey and Black Plume’s daughter, Kaily Bird. At first, Bird was hesitant with the idea, worried about past negative media attention regarding her mother’s death, as well as the uncertainty of emotion that would go along with it.

“I was saddened by the project idea because it reminded me of all the terrible times my family went through when we lost our mother. However, looking at Jesse’s work, I was convinced he would represent our mother in a respectful way and that she deserved this acknowledgement,” said Bird.

Gouchey, who recently completed the Aboriginal Youth Animation Project with the Calgary Quickdraw Animation Society, used the mural piece as the landscape in which to create animated characters on. Through stop-motion photography, the movement of the characters will be captured to create an animated story.

Before the project, Gouchey did not know much about Black Plume or the issue of missing and slain Aboriginal women in Canada. Doing the mural, encouraged Gouchey to put thought into the issue, on a spiritual and symbolic level.

“It opened my eyes a lot more. It made it so that I wanted to make it the best film I can make. The family ended up loving the first story I came up with so that made me think it was really meaningful, a kind of ‘meant to be’ project,” said Gouchey.

According to Bird, the project does not put full closure on what has happened to her mother, but it does give the family a sense of peace because Black Plume has not been forgotten.

Gouchey said the film will eventually make its way through the short film circuit on a national level. It was shown on Nov. 5 at the Moon Stone Creation Native Gallery & Gift Shop in Inglewood, Calgary.