Picking Up the Pieces: Residential School Memories and the Making of the Witness Blanket

Carey Newman is an astonishing artist, and, with the assistance of Kirstie Hudson, he makes an exceptionally good writer too. Newman and Hudson collaborated to tell the story of the making of the so-called Witness Blanket in their book, Picking Up the Pieces: Residential School Memories and the Making of the Witness Blanket. As the above book excerpt suggests, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) called for proposals for projects that would help to tell the story of residential schools in Canada while simultaneously helping with reconciliation across the country. Newman decided to make a Witness Blanket. Other than in the many photographs included in this book and upon the Internet, I have not yet seen Newman’s Witness Blanket. After reading this book, however, I cannot wait to see it.

In response to the TRC calls for proposals, Newman decided that he wanted to put together a Witness Blanket consisting of artifacts from all the residential schools that existed in Canada. The team involved in the Witness Blanket project included three people hired to collect items for inclusion in the work. The collections team were mostly responsible for gathering the artifacts. This task necessitated over 200,000 km of travel to every province and territory in Canada, visits to 77 communities, and meetings with over 10,000 people. Having the collections team taking responsibility for much of that travel left Newman with time to confront the task of figuring out how best to place together the collected pieces. Despite their various sizes, shapes, colours, and textures, they needed to be placed in ways that would retain and tell stories, accurately and adequately represent the real-life people associated with residential schools (whether as actual participants/survivors or as intergenerational survivors/descendants), be artistically appealing, and yet be comprehensible and not entirely overwhelming. Newman wanted also for the blanket to be hope-filled and inspiring. In sharing his initial thinking in the opening pages of the book, Newman says he felt that he needed to “come up with a completely original idea”. He continues by explaining that he wanted to represent the story of residential schools all across Canada and that, as such, he felt, “I needed to think of something I could make that wasn’t just big in scale but was also a big-enough idea to contain such an enormous story” (p. 6). It was a tough task that he faced, but in seeing photographs of the Witness Blanket, I believe he somehow managed to successfully accomplish his task. Newman says the idea of creating a “blanket” originated for several reasons but especially because blankets are significant in both of his Indigenous cultures—Kwakwaka’wakw and Salish. Through Newman’s father, he is Kwakwaka’wakw while through his father’s mother he is Coast Salish. In the Kwakwaka’wakw culture, blankets are significant in terms of representing one’s identity. For the Salish, blankets are used to “honour, uplift and protect people” (p. 7).

The Witness Blanket is a national monument intended to become a permanent exhibit at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights in Winnipeg, Manitoba. At its highest point, the Blanket stands 3.23 metres high and stretches 11.96 metres wide. It consists of hundreds of items collected from residential schools. Among many other things, the items include a white angel figurine from a residential school building in Cluny, Alberta, hockey skates from the Muscowequan residential school in Saskatchewan, a sweater that was part of the school uniform in Williams Lake in British Columbia, and a plastic bowl from the Mohawk Institute residential school in Brantford, Ontario. In addition to bricks and rocks, there are letters and photographs, and paintings and book excerpts. Each item represents some person’s story or several people’s stories. While the aim was to include something from all 139 residential schools in Canada, in the end, some blank spaces were left to hopefully later add something from the few schools not represented on the blanket.

Forgetting the actual artwork for a moment, I cannot help but think the TRC might have been satisfied with the product created if it had only been this book. Picking Up the Pieces is a wonderfully informative text in and of itself. Punches are not pulled when the discussion centres on the abuses and trauma associated with residential schools. The book is confronting, troubling, upsetting, and evocative. Yet, it is also hope-filled, encouraging, conciliatory, and inspirational. Newman and Hudson do a superb job of explaining things too. Their careful writing and the inclusion of many photographs and some additional book end materials, such as maps and charts, makes issues of residential schools and the need for truth and reconciliation accessible for readers of various ages and abilities and with diverse histories and interests. On their website I see that the publisher, Orca Canada, situates the book in the high school and adult categories. I think most often publishers identify their books in very wide age ranges. In this case, I think Orca should go even wider. I think the careful, yet detailed and honest manner in which Newman and Hudson have presented their work makes it appropriate for mature elementary school students as well. I guess it begs the question of whether residential school atrocities are suitable fare for young readers. On the one hand, the answer is perhaps, “Of course not.” Yet, if children are to be shielded from the truth, it is difficult for them to be involved in the reconciliation which is so important for them and for which they have a huge role to play. All this being said, I think Newman and Hudson's book and Newman’s outstanding artwork are so masterfully presented that they provide for children and adults a door through which they can walk to engage in the truth and reconciliation process.

Speaking of passing through a door, the book describes in detail the acquisition and then incorporation into the artwork of many individual pieces. One piece that is particularly interesting is a door from the St. Michael’s residential school in British Columbia. Behind that door, many abuses occurred. In the Witness Blanket, Newman says that he wants the door always to be open so that there remains no place for secrets to be hidden. People who see the artwork can pass through that door and see further pieces of the art on the other side. Newman’s explanation of his thinking is one of the many, many strengths of this book. As I said, I have not yet seen the actual art, but, having read this book, I now understand what Newman was thinking and doing as he put it together. The book not only greatly informed me, but it will greatly enhance my understanding and appreciation of the work when I do get to see it. In saying that the book augments the art though, I want to be clear that the book also stands alone—just as does the art. Even if I never get to actually stand in the shadow of the Witness Blanket, I now know more about art and, more importantly, the Canadian residential school story than I did before.

One troubling item included on the Witness Blanket and discussed in Picking Up the Pieces is a telegram that was sent by a priest in northern Ontario after the Albany residential school was destroyed by fire in 1939. Although no lives were lost, what is troubling is that in the telegram the children are referred to as inmates—of course, a term usually reserved for use with regard to criminals locked away and deprived of their liberty. The book is not all bleak though. In chapter seven, much of the focus is upon fun, entertainment, and games, and residential school children who excelled at sports like hockey and skiing. On pages 76 and 77, the narrative focuses upon sisters, Sharon and Shirley Firth. The Firth twins attended residential school at Inuvik, Northwest Territories. They eventually competed in four Winter Olympic Games and were inducted into Canada’s Sports Hall of Fame. A few pages beyond the photograph of the Firth sisters, there is a photograph of mud-covered boys in a field of melting snow and slush. They are holding sticks and brooms and smiling broadly. The boys have presumably just engaged in what Newman says he imagines “was a spirited game of broomball.” Newman says that, as he worked on his project, he was often overwhelmed by sadness. At such times, he would look at that photograph of the boys and “those beaming smiles were sunshine for [his] soul” (p. 81).

Despite there being two authors, the book is presented in the first person voice of the first author, Carey Newman. His traditional name is Hayalthkin’geme. That Indigenous side of his heritage is only part of his identity though. On his mother’s side, he is English, Irish, and Scottish. This mixed Indigenous and settler identity is, perhaps, at least partly why he so successfully is able to present Picking Up the Pieces in a fashion that makes the book in equal parts troublingly educative, yet inspiringly hopeful.

Newman’s father attended the Sechelt and St. Mary’s residential schools in British Columbia. He was taken from his parents when he was just seven years of age and attended residential schooling from 1944-1956. One of the main points in Picking Up the Pieces is that Newman was dedicated to healing and strengthening his relationship with his father while simultaneously looking back and honouring him as a Survivor yet looking forward also as a father, himself, determined to be a loving parent to his daughter, Adelyn. Appropriately then, included upon the Witness Blanket are artifacts associated with Newman’s father’s experiences, but there are also the tiny handprints of Newman’s daughter when she was very young.

The book consists of 14 chapters, plus a foreword, introduction, conclusion, and supplementary materials including maps, acknowledgements and credits, a reading list, and other additional information. The foreword to Picking Up the Pieces was written by Dr. Marie Wilson, one of the three Commissioners for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The book is liberally scattered with archival photographs and modern photos of the construction of the artwork. Bolded words are defined in a glossary at the back of the book. Together with the conversational, instructive tone, these additional features make the book accessible to young and old, Indigenous and non-Indigenous. Towards the end, Newman says, “I began to understand that reconciliation is a journey rather than an act or a destination.” Picking Up the Pieces is a valuable companion for that reconciliation journey. One gets the sense that Carey Newman has been an artist almost from the moment he was born. In the book, there are photographs of him sharing works he created as a five-year-old and a thirteen-year-old child. He has been blessed with prodigious talent. We are blessed that he has used his talent in such a significant manner.