#60sScoop artist achieves childhood dream

Photo by Doug Kretchmer | Anishinaabe artist Jackie Traverse stands before a mural on the wall of the Creative Native Art Gallery (592 Selkirk Ave.), which she owns.

 

Winnipeg - Jackie Traverse knew at a very young age that she would one day be an artist. She was inspired in part by her 14 year old uncle who was always making art.  In spite of her family being torn apart in the ‘60s scoop with her siblings being removed from the family, she was always drawing and making art growing up.  A member of Lake St. Martin First Nation, she grew up in poverty in the North End and said she had fond memories of visiting her granny on Pritchard Avenue near McGregor.

At 21, she moved into an apartment in a small block at 592 Selkirk Avenue.  It is there, she told me, that, while still making art, she started down the road of addiction.  At 34, she made the decision to get serious about art and enrolled in the University of Manitoba’s Fine Arts 4 year course.  She graduated in 2009.

Jackie’s art was a passion of hers, but she was also passionate about drugs as well and the weekend partying and drug use started seeping more and more into her daily life. And while her art work has been shown in various galleries over the years (including Wah-Sa and Canadian Plains galleries in Winnipeg and Spirit Gallery in B.C., among others) it was the isolation during COVID that she really started taking herself more serious as an artist and realizing that the drugs were quite detrimental in her progress as an artist. In 2022, she was one of four Indigenous artists to have her art featured on a stamp through Canada Post as part of the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation.

KEEP READING:  https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/our-communities/correspondents/2026/07/15/local-artist-achieves-childhood-dream