A mother's love is like a superpower - it's strong, unwavering, and can conquer anything in its path. It's the kind of love that will move mountains to make sure you're safe and living authentically you. It's the kind of love that will never give up on you, no matter what. In this blog, we will be sharing a very special interview with the creator of the piece "A Mothers Love", and learning all about her process, her stories and her background.
"A Mothers Love" Raven Pendant, Sterling Silver
As we approach Mother’s Day, we wanted to speak with Gina Mae Schubert about her artistry, and to reflect on her experiences with motherhood. In this interview, she shares thoughtful insights on her art, and about the context behind A Mothers Love and what it means.
So today I have Gina Mae Schubert here with me, and she's going to answer some questions for us, which is so exciting. Do you want to share where you're from and how long you've been making jewelry?
"Sure. First of all, I'm sitting on the unceded territory of Squamish First Nations, and I'm meeting you here on this land, which is borrowed to me. My name is Jada
Skila. I'm Yagalanis, which is Raven Clan, I am from Old Masset, and I was also raised in Prince Rupert too. So I went back and forth between Prince Rupert and Haida Gwaii. My dad was a commercial fisherman. I used to fish with my dad, and yeah, I was raised in the North Pacific and it's near Alaska. So Prince Rupert, Haida Gwaii are near Alaska.
Are there any particular materials and techniques that you prefer to work with?
"Oh, yes. I was talking to you about the copper. Copper has been my biggest challenge. Silver and gold are so nice to work with, but copper is an incredibly messy, dirty experience and it's really hard to manage. Also copper is hard to cast too. I have a 50 percent loss so I always have to cast two at a time and then usually only one will turn out. Silver and gold are preferable because it's just the texture and the softness of it and the cleanliness of it. It's definitely a positive experience".
Can you discuss any challenges you face as a jewellery artist and how you overcome them?
"Working in metal is really difficult. You'll have casted a piece and you think it's perfect and you're sanding away and grinding away. And then all of a sudden you find a huge hole that goes straight through. So you toss it back in the bin again and you'd already spent like three days working on it. So that's the biggest challenge, is working in metal its a very difficult experience altogether".
How do you maintain a balance between artistic expression and meeting market demand?
"So my vision is to have my work; although I am in Vancouver, I would like to be more international. I'd like to have my pieces in a fashion show or in international fashion. My pieces, they're bigger, and they're not really mainstream jewelry. It's fashion jewelry. And I am seeking different avenues over in Europe, London and Italy to see if I can get into certain types of art shows that show my work and that would have an appreciation for it because people find it really unique and unusual. And it's quite large, so it definitely makes a statement".
Are there any specific achievements or milestones in your career that you're particularly proud of?
"Yeah, so I've gotten lots of scholarships and awards from universities for my work and my drive to create things. But I always feel like just getting a piece done and going through that process of making, and then finally you get that piece into your hand when it's finished, and you're like, that's a milestone just getting the piece finished. So I hit those milestones every once in a while, maybe every quarter, actually getting a piece finished. So yeah, that's a huge milestone for me is finishing piece".
How long have you been making jewellery?
I have only been making jewelry for the last three years. I'm a designer by trade. I'm an interior designer. I have designed many projects between here, New York, California, Panama, and I always had a desire to do this. During Covid I actually put myself through school and finished a degree in industrial design. In there, I started using my own form lines and applying that to my work in university. And I was like, hey, I can actually do this. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I remember something from the past or maybe my ancestors were telling me. But there were times where I would get really stuck and I would go talk to my ancestors and say, I need help with this. And I would, I had that support and I got through my projects and I completed all my work and I did very well in university. And so, yeah, I didn't really actually realize I was an artist. I mean, I always knew I was an artist, but I wasn't able to express my culture through my creativity until like three
years ago".
It sounds like you were really aligned with your ancestry and that kind of guided you to where you are today.
"Right, so that's through balance of lifestyle. I spend a lot of time in the forest and I use dream time to inspire my work, in fact I feel like I go into meetings just to just be in that place where I'm half asleep like just before you wake up or just before you go to sleep is the most inspirational time".
Do you mind explaining what dream time is for people?
"Well, some people don't remember dreams. Some of my dreams, they wake me
up in the middle of the night and tell me something. One dream I had I was just out of university and I was applying for work with an architect and I was nervous about this meeting and it was like the Wednesday before the Friday I was meeting, and I got a message in the middle of the night from Creator, which was, if one door is closed, another will be open. I'm like, oh, you woke me up to tell me that If one door is closed, another will be open? I'm like, cool. Okay. So then Friday rolls around, and then actually nothing happened with that interview. But I went to lunch that weekend with my girlfriend and her girlfriend who's a doctor of psychotherapy. And I was telling her, I said, I spend a lot
of time in my dream time, I listen to my dreams. And I use that for all my
decision making, including my creativity. So she's like, Oh, that's so nice. You're so creative. And you're so connected to spirit. And I said, Yeah, so that was interesting. It woke me up and told me this. And so we're at this Asian infusion place on Granville Street. I can't remember the name. But anyway, so we get this fortune cookie at the end. And I opened my fortune cookie, and it said, when one door is closed, another would be opened. I passed it to my girlfriend, who's the doctor of psychotherapy. And she's like, are you kidding? Like, she almost fell off her chair".
Like this is a reality for us, especially First Nations. I mean, we're grown out of this territory. We're grown out of the land. And we're connected to spirit. And we have that ancient history that allows us to be more like that. And so hopefully we can show people how to do that going forward. And I'm hoping that even my work starts expressing things like that".
I do notice a lot of kind of interconnectedness in your pieces. You have the Raven mother with the child, right?
"So Raven was the trickster, and he was considered the co-creator of the universe.
Like our Raven stories go back thousands and thousands of years. Eagle stories
came up more recently. I mean, probably just a few less thousand years, but the
Raven was the co-creator of the universe. And so there's many, many stories about Raven, but this one was really dedicated to my child Raven, she is very special to me. She fell in through those cracks of the gender ideology and we went through a really, really hard time. But she's an incredible human being and really quite profound in the things she says.
And one of the things she says is gender doesn't really exist, mom. It's only a way to
divide us further. And so I get emotional talking about my baby Raven because
of that.
But talking about mother's love, like mother's love is something to be
honored. And because every person that's walking around on this earth is from a
mother and protection of women and children should be upheld. That's something that we've lost in our society and that we need to bring back. And so
what I do is I try and create that awareness around the mother's love because we all came from a mother and she needs to be honored for being a mother. A lot of my work has to do with family connection where we come from a matrilineal matriarchal society where the women were honored for their governance over the land. Matrilineal means that my daughters are Ravens as well. So we get our lineage from our mothers and our clans from our mothers. So, and then we're not allowed to marry the opposite clans. I mean, we're not allowed to marry the same clans. We were supposed to marry the opposite clans. So
that's often expressed in my work. And so, yeah, I'm always raising the divine
feminine in my work and the divine power and strength and wisdom.
I mean, we are in a state of society that we really need to raise the voices of the women over these territories to heal the earth and each other. And so I'm going to Ottawa next week to speak for the Congress of Aboriginal I'm a delegate with them. So I'm hoping to have a voice with them and raise our divine feminine voices. That was part of my thesis as well at university was manifesto of matriarchs. Because I want to revive the voices of the matriarchs to be able to steward and govern the lands again, to make reparations and heal the land".
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