Feb 18, 2010
Media contact: Anne Russell
Cell: 604-798-3709
Office: 604-795-2826
anne.russell@ufv.ca
UFV fashion alumna gets Olympic exposure for her Métis art
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Lisa Shepherd with her
winning design.
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It’s a good thing Lisa Shepherd and her family are good at keeping secrets. Because for more than a month last fall there was a giant Coke bottle in her Maple Ridge living room, undergoing a transformation into a piece of art inspired by her Métis heritage.
Sworn to secrecy by Coca Cola and Olympic organizers, Shepherd had to move the bottle to another room if anyone dropped by. Her four-year-old son, Gabriel, was trained to refer to it as “Mommy’s secret project” and the only person he told about it was Santa Claus, as they discovered when they reviewed the DVD of his visit to the jolly old man.
Shepherd, a 1991 graduate of the University of the Fraser Valley’s Fashion Design program, was one of 15 Aboriginal artists across the country selected to design “Aboriginal art bottles” in the shape of a Coke bottle as part of the Coca Cola art bottle program, designed to leverage the Olympic opportunity and help the Aboriginal community share its culture with the world.
Entitled “The Awakening”, Shepherd’s bottle design brings together elements distinct to the Métis people: beaver fur sought by Voyageurs, which ultimately drove the exploration of Canada; the wool blanket fashioned into a Capote coat; and floral beading unique to the Métis, earning them the name “flower beadwork people”. Tied to the top of the bottle is a traditional sash, which historically had many practical uses, but today is a cultural symbol.
The most personal design feature of the bottle is the photographs. These pictures are part of Shepherd’s own family’s heirloom collection and have been passed from one generation to the next. The bottle is now on display at the Aboriginal Pavilion in downtown Vancouver until the end of the Olympics and is being auctioned off as part of the Coke art bottle program.
But that’s just part of Shepherd’s Olympics odyssey. Remember the Métis dancers who jigged in with pride as the four host First Nations welcomed the Aboriginal people of Canada during the opening ceremonies of the Olympics? Several of them were wearing beaded moccasins, shawls, leggings, and other beadwork that she created for the occasion at the request of event organizers. The pièce-de-resistance was a replica of historic Métis leader Louis Riel’s jacket, which was worn by one of the dancers, and for which Shepherd did the beadwork on the panels.
And she and her son performed Métis dances several times at the Aboriginal Pavilion, including the Friday when the Olympic Torch came to rest at the pavilion, its final stop before entering the stadium, and on Métis Day at the pavilion.
Shepherd has had a busy few months preparing for all this activity and now has had the eyes of the world upon her. She’s not complaining. She leapt at every opportunity and responded to every request for proposals that came across her desktop in the lead-up to the games. The opportunities she is realizing thrill her on several levels. It’s great exposure for her career as a Métis artisan, its opening doors to public art opportunities that she never imagined, and it’s helping to educate people about the Métis Nation.
The Métis are a people of mixed European and Aboriginal ancestry who emerged in early Canadian society as European fur traders married Aboriginal women. Shepherd didn’t really start to explore her Métis heritage, which comes to her through her father, until her son was born.
“We have been called a forgotten people, in that history hasn’t paid much attention to us recently, but while I like to honour my past, my focus is on today. We’re telling the world that we’re here and we are a proud people, a nation that emerged in Canada. I’m of a generation that was not directly affected by racism for being of Aboriginal descent, but my father experienced it, and I think that’s the reason it took him so long to say ‘I’m proud to be Métis.’”
Shepherd started her career in the fashion design industry working for several design companies after taking her two-year diploma at UFV, but then moved into the marketing field after growing frustrated with working to support other designers’ work rather than her own.
After running her own marketing company for more than a decade, she switched gears again after the birth of her son four years ago. She was looking for something that satisfied her artistic passion, allowed her to express her Métis pride, and enabled her to be home-based. So she became a Métis artisan, combining the traditional sewing and beading skills with her artistic vision and fashion savvy, and marketing and design skills she learned in the UFV program, which focuses on both fashion design and marketing. She designs art, moccasins, jewellery, shawls, and other garments.
“I feel I’ve really come full circle with this phase of my life,” she reflects. “I had stepped away from the clothing industry but now I’m back in it on my own terms, designing things that reflect my heritage.”
And when she was frantically preparing her submission to the Coke art bottle program, with just two days to go before the deadline, she called on long-dormant fashion design skills learned at UFV.
“At first I was too intimidated to enter after looking at the designs of bottles that were done for the Beijing Olympics, but then I decided to go for it and I had to hurry. I decided to treat the bottle like a fashion model, and approached it like I was creating a clothing line, using the garment illustration skills I learned in school. I then used my marketing skills to sell my bottle vision to Coke, outlining what all the different elements meant and how they reflected Métis heritage.”
Shepherd says the international exposure, and the fact that billions of people were seeing her designs on the Métis dancers during the opening ceremonies, is still sinking in.
“I don’t know if the whole impact has hit me yet, but I am very humbled by the whole experience. The opening ceremony was a huge event, and I’m proud to have played a small role in it.”
She’s hoping that the Olympics exposure is the biggest thing to have happened in her career yet, and plans to leverage the contacts she’s made and the attention she’s received to further develop her artistic career.
And part of her wishes she could go back to Fashion Design school at UFV.
“I was very young when I took that program. I would love to come back and approach the courses I took with some of the knowledge that I have now.”
She is particularly grateful to UFV fashion design instructor Margaret Blackburn, who she says was very supportive and encouraging to all the students.
The multitalented Shepherd will be performing a monologue she wrote at the Artisan Village at Vancouver Community College on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday. The traditional Métis outfit she will be wearing as she performs her monologue is all her own work, from the beaded moccasins to the beaded belt to the dress and shawl. The monologue is called "My Métis".
Her Coke bottle is on display at the Aboriginal Pavilion next to the Queen Elizabeth theatre in Vancouver.
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