Gordon Sparks

My name is Gordon Sparks. The mother of my clan is the beaver; the spirit animal of my clan is the bear, born in the Turtle River, and the totem of our clan is the salmon. I grew up in the Pabineau First Nation band in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Through the traditional hand-sculpted wooden mask, I am on a vision path that guides my spirit, body and soul in the search for knowledge and wisdom associated with the stories of the Mi’kmaq peoples and with traditional ceremonies, foods and medicines. Each mask that I make is based on the story of my life and the Mi’kmaq people and includes a personal story about how I was guided to find the tree, take its life and sculpt the spirit in the wood so that everyone can see it and listen to what the mask has to say to those who need to hear it. There is a ceremony for each mask when it is awakened to be mounted on a wall so that people can see it, and when it is put to sleep in a box to be transported from place to place. The vision that was given to me guides my dedication and desire to record the past and the present in a three-dimensional form. I firmly believe in three-dimensional forms and narration. Each mask speaks to me and guides me, and each tree that I select tells me to continue sculpting the spirit of the wood in order to reveal it to all of the Earth’s peoples. Ultimately, through the three-dimensional forms and stories about the sacred fire, the spirits of the trees will speak to my people living today and to my ancestors in the past in the language of the Earth. For the Mi’kmaw people, my work as a maker of traditional hand-sculpted Mi’kmaw wooden masks represents tradition, ensures that traditional values, new and ancient ceremonies and oral histories are preserved, and brings people together to share the stories of lives spent together as a community.