Cynthia Langford

In 2021, the discovery of unmarked children’s graves on Tk’emlups te Secwe’pemc lands served as a call to Cynthia to rediscover her identity as an Anishinaabe child whose culture was taken away due to the impacts of colonialism. This prompted a deep need to reconnect with her roots.

A few years ago, Cynthia had a dream where she was a child on her grandparents’ homestead by Lake Superior, where they raised their thirteen children in the bush to protect them from Indian agents and residential schools. In this dream, Cynthia’s grandfather placed a sick raven in her arms, and she gave it water. It reached up and whispered something in her ear, but she struggled to hear the message. Upon waking, Cynthia pondered this dream for many days. She had recently learned to make moccasins and beadwork for the first time. Cynthia entered a contest to win a large quantity of beads, and to her surprise, she won! It then became clear to her that the message from the creator and the raven was to bead our stories and culture and share her art with the world.

Cynthia has chosen to share this art by beading felted shaped feathers, as she believes the feather represents the stories emanating from the creator. Her collection of art is conveyed through the many beaded pieces that pass through her hands and into the felt feathers. Cynthia has created a sculptural fabric that she paints with acrylics to provide the foundation to carry my dreams and visions.

The work featured in The Edit will be a continuing collection of art stories that foster conversations around MMIW and the celebration and recovery of our stories, cultures and traditions. Cynthia dreams of completing one hundred feathers to share from her heart and soul.

Cynthia Langford, a 65-year-old Anishinaabe (Ojibway) artist, grew up on the shores of Lake Superior in the small town of Schreiber. As one of six children, she spent Sundays visiting her grandparents and cousins in the bush at their family home in Gurney, which lies on the shore of Lake Superior. The beauty of the lands and nature had always captivated her.

It was not until she was 50 years old in 2011 that she took a 10-day art workshop in Tuscany, Italy, where she discovered plein air painting captivating the beauty of the landscape. Upon returning home, she began watching videos on painting and developed the skills she learned.

She later participated in many art workshops, studying various techniques. In 2014, she became an exhibiting member of the Federation of Canadian Artists and began showing her work in various juried exhibitions, local galleries and businesses. She made close connections with her collectors and created commission art pieces.

Today, she has somewhat traded her brushes for a beading needle, creating this new mixed media art to share the stories of her ancestors and Indigenous people.