On June 5th 2019 at the TCDSB’s head office of Toronto, the project Reconcili-Action Blanket project was unveil. The project was supervised by Diane throughout.
Diane an Eastern Metis has a seat on the Board of Directors as part of the Indigenous Advisory Committee at the TCDSB. For a while she sat on the Special Education committee at the TCDSB as an Indigenous representative for the purpose of giving input on the curriculum pertaining to Indigenous culture, but there were other topics that took focus. Diane felt the need for an opening to add more of an Indigenous focus to the curriculum and so in collaboration with Vanessa Pinto and Frank Pio from the Indigenous Education Department & Mrs. Linda Masellie-Jackman at the TCDSB from the Special Education Department, the Reconcili-Action Blanket came to be in the form of an Art Project.

Diane’s vision was to bring together a form of inclusiveness in diversity of different groups of the Special Education Department as we are all Earth Children.
She worked using an Art form to define the genocide & history of indigenous of Canada, from Identifying the Indigenous groups living in Canada in the time, the arrival of the Settlers, the Indian Act, the Reservations and periods of enduring Starvation, the limitation of access to the Land including hunting & fishing, the Residential School, and the Missing and Murder Women.
The story was represented with 15 fabric squares of 12” x 12” representing each school to work on a topic. The overall project was to add a beautiful custom carved cedar & pine with Eagle, Salmon. Bear & turtles (representing Turtle Island).

• We Indigenous of this continent for generations have handed down valuable legacies, powered by Spirit, Soul, and Earth
• Our Ancestors connected us in different ways with our own Spirit and with the Earth.
• Each school were given an option to pick a square that express a part of the issues. From this all students made some sketches representing their feeling on the chosen topic.

It is with gratefulness that I want to thank all the following schools that participated in the project.

• St-Sebastian Catholic school
• Branson Division of NYGH
• St-Maurice Catholic school
• St. Victor Catholic School
• St-Brigid Catholic School
• Divine Infant Catholic School
• St-Charles Catholic School
• St-Bonaventure Catholic School
• Covenant House
• St-Edward Catholic School
• St-Bruno/St-Raymond Catholic Schools
• St-John Bosco catholic school
• St-Bonaventure Catholic School
• Transfigurations of our Lords Catholic School
• Rosalie Hall Catholic School

This project wouldn’t happen without the involvement of 2 wonderful people who added their contribution to this project and wanted to be part of.

Curtis Saulis – Is a Maliseet from Kingsclear First Nation, Born & Raised in Fredericton N.B along St-John River – Wulustaka. His love and passion for wood carving throughout his work brought him back to his culture and helped him to stay connected to his culture.

Marise Audain – Born and raised in St-Kits & Nevis of the Caribbean. She is a currently self-employed seamstress, caretaker & designer of many crafts pertaining to fabric. From teaching the Art of sewing with different groups, to customized projects such as furniture upholstery, room decorating etc. has brought Marise to diversify very exquisite projects.

After several meetings with Marise to chose and pick the most appropriate sketches done by all the students representing the story of the chosen topics. All pieces were all hand stitched and handmade by Marise. After few meetings with Curtis it was to define in a respectful way to incorporate a cedar wood and the chosen animals spirit representing our Indigenous belief.

The invite was sent to all the participating schools and students that had contributed in this project to come and be part of the unveiling. Diane would say “that day was magic” to see some of the students on site looking toward the unveiling of the Blanket. To see their smiles as they recognized their sketches on the moment of the unveiling, that was a gift for me. To see them feel part of that big project wanting pictures taken felt warming.

The Blanket project is now exhibited and remains on the wall at the TCDSB Head Office.