MOUNTAIN LIFE - Coast Mountains | Fall Winter 2019

70 she completed Sky Blanket a combination Raven’s Tail/Chilkat robe that saw O’Brien working with mountain goat wool harvested from the Coast Mountains by friends. For the artist, it was a very different experience than using Merino wool factory-harvested in New Zealand. “I wanted to work with it as a way of learning and connecting with the original material for these art forms,” O’Brien said in an interview with BC Studies , an academic journal from the University of British Columbia (UBC). “The intention of approaching… wanting to learn from that material or animal or substance was different; there was a different desire and respect that went with it. And when I got it all washed, it was the most light, almost air-like material, and if you held it, it was instantaneously warm. It’s like radiant heat almost, so amazing.” The blanket’s beauty, craftsmanship and story quickly gathered attention. It was displayed in the Bill Reid Gallery of Northwest Coast Art in Vancouver before hitting the road for exhibits in Campbell River, Haida Gwaii, Zurich, Kansas City—and finally Winnipeg, for curator Jaimie Isaac’s Boarder X , an interdisciplinary exhibit of works from Canadian Indigenous artists who snowboard, skateboard or surf. Boarder X was a popular show, so popular it was scheduled to tour other cities and museums across Canada. For O’Brien however, this posed a problem. “Originally my intention for the piece was to share something that was really broad, more based on a world view,” she says. “But after years of it just shipping from institution to institution I didn’t want to loan it out anymore. Last year my family had a hilugwila ( a feast to honour and name a new baby) at the big house in Campbell River. My grandmother is 83 now and that robe (Sky Blanket) fits her the best, I didn’t want to risk not having it there.”