Christina, Indigenous incarcerated individual
Meet Christina, who is connecting with her Indigenous culture through art.
Video transcript
Lift Me Up
When I come into this room and then I paint, I am spiritually, mentally, emotionally just grounded. If I was having a bad day, it just goes away. And I'm just painting and just enjoying what peace I'm enjoying at that moment.
I REALLY LIKE THE BRIGHT
Christina
Indigenous incarcerated individual
Hi, my name is Christina.
Growing up, I've always drawn. Just recently within this decade, I just started doing painting. I think those talents were kind of inherited.
Sometimes I think about it, sometimes I kind of know what I want to draw. For these three walls that actually I'm still working on it. I wanted an Indigenous theme because I'm in a women's prison and there's a lot of women here that know how to sing, know how to drum, know how, like they're following their culture. So, I decided to just do something like this.
I like blending colors. I think colors are just positive. So, like it's just, it's how I see it. I don't really, when I paint, I don't really like to go into the deep dark things. I just, I really like the bright.
And horses, I love horses. You'll see another horse in the institution that I've done, and it has quotes around it. So, I think quotes are positive, whether they're from Socrates or like a historical Indigenous chief or a leader or something. Just, I think in a place such as this is just, you need to see something every day to just kind of, you know, smile.
Since being here, and I've been here for a while, I have worked really hard to get where I am today. I have gained support with my employment training. We go out and we do construction and I have already done like 1900 hours under it. So, I could, if I want to, go into apprenticeship and construction, carpentry.
Some of the women, they're really encouraging me to take it the Entrepreneurship, the Indigenous Entrepreneurship Program. And they feel like I should just take this out with me. Have my art everywhere. So, I'm thinking about it, but yeah, I just, I like to do it all my free time. It's just something that I like to do.