Notice Board

Art NOW speaker series presents: John Chief Calf
12 pm | September 13, 2023
University Recital Hall
Free admission, everyone welcome

In this presentation, John Chief Calf discusses how nature is seen as an intelligent system and teaches how to interpret that through symbology. Using a collaborative sharing approach through stories, interpreting art from a Blackfoot land-based perpective, audience will explore and express their connections to nature in pictograph, abstract form.

Artist Statement and Biography

Aapoyaawa, Fair Brown Chief Calf, was my adopted Grandfather.  He had a profound influence on me as a child. I remember he would take for walks, and I would help him pick his herbal medicine. I understood as a child that the land, nature was the primary teacher of the Blackfoot way of life. He was incredibly humble I would recall events where he would heal the community and I would sometimes sit beside him and help him. To me he was the example of pursuing a balanced life and nature as your guide.

My culture and experience in two worlds have been my creative foundation in expressing my art. My art is expressed in abstract symbolism, realism, and sculpture. The source is nature, my dreams, and my meditations which includes the ceremonial aspect of the Blackfoot Culture.

John Chief Calf was born and raised on the Blood Reserve and was a Child and Youth Care worker from 1985-1997. He received his BA/BEd from the University of Lethbridge in 2005. Chief Calf has taught for the Calgary Board of Education, Siksika Board of Education, Red Crow Community College as well as the Lethbridge Catholic Division, and is currently with the Lethbridge School Division as a humanities teacher. He is a self-taught artist and has sold artworks locally, corporately, and internationally.