<!-- @page { size: 8.5in 11in; margin: 0.79in } P { margin-bottom: 0.08in } -->

Here is a narrative description of the story of these works, from First Nations Shaman Dan Whetung. Kevin grew up among the natives and knew the native legends and got interested in presenting them in his work.

Coyote: “Longing and belonging” - granite and sandcast glass (on left)

Kevin does lots of camping and picked up the granite on a comping trip and lugged it around Northern Canada for a month. The glass is sand cast.

“Longing and belonging” is based on a native legend that has been around since we don't know. At the beginning of all things the creator created two beings – two legged man and four legged coyote – the coyote was the first brother of man and they walked the earth as brothers, speaking the same language. After an unmeasurable length of time the Coyote got lonesome for more company, other than this man, and having been endowed with supernatural powers of life – being a Shaman – Coyote took on the body of the Loon, but kept his head to keep his own mind. While in that form he started creating other lifeforms – the Coyote created all the lifeforms of the animal kingdom. All of the sudden the world was filled with other lifeforms and the Creator became curious what had happened and found out the Coyote created all the animals and the Creator told the Coyote he was now in charge of keeping the balance of all these animals – which is why the dog and Coyote herd other animals, etc. The creator also took away the Coyote's magical power and said man and Coyote must walk different paths – they cannot have ceremonies together, but the dog may be part of other ceremonies (Feast of the White Dog) and the Creator said to the man that so you don't get any of these crazy ideas I will create the woman to keep an eye on man, and the Creator asked the woman to take the huge responsibility to be in charge of creating the next generations of the two-leggeds. So the woman is as close to the creator as anyone can be, because she accepted that responsibility. She was given the ability to decide whether or not to exercise that responsibility – during her moon time when she has not exercised her responsibility then it shows she has not but shows she is one who has accepted that responsibility – she is housecleaning because she is not growing new life inside her.

In the sculpture we see the moment of the creation of the other animals. The Coyote is holding the bear, which he has already created, and he is giving birth to the dog. The Coyote was “longing” for friends different than man, and the animals “belong” to the Coyote... hence the title of the work, “Longing and belonging”.

“Dual Nature” is the last of a series of work based on medicine legends.

It is sandcast glass, wood, goldleaf, stone and pigment. “Dual Nature” was Kevin's favorite in the series and he wasn't going to sell it at all, but Material Matters Gallery owner Lisa Wuohela convinced Kevin to release it for the show she sponsored in Cleveland (the work was featured in the very positive review of the show in the Cleveland Plain Dealer).

“Dual Nature” is from what Kevin called the Totem Series – the last of five, made in 1996. “Dual Nature” refers to the “Wenndee-ggo-kaun”, which is an “Annishnabi” spoken word for a very unique dual natured medicine person – they are similar to but different from the Sioux Kayokha in that when they are in their full doctoring mode they are the reversed and when they're not doing ceremonies of doctoring they are straight. When they are reversed what they say is the opposite of the understanding – for example, “go away” means “I love you very much and I hate to see you leave and return soon in good health” – reverse psychology – the regalia they wear is made up of sticks and holes as is represented in “Dual Nature”. There are only a few such medicine men in existence.

Disrupt IT