“Saul”: The key painting was completed in the very early morning, as the sun was just beginning to rise on the day Richard Wagamese walked on, just before the world was told of his death.  His words and story telling gift was the inspiration for this painting, and sorrowfully he is yet another Indigenous voice absent - when Indigenous voices are needed most.

The painting is a depiction of a young Indigenous male born with an inheritance of rooted spiritual lineage.

• His face is inscribed with the symbols found on Ojibwe birch bark scrolls — making his face itself, a vessel of ancestral insight.
• The artistic choices made include the extensive blue and red colour spectrum used in medicine lodge ceremonies.
• The indigo blue mask is a medicine mask, showing that we are all, aware or not, are all SPIRITUAL BEINGS - MEDICINE BEINGS.
• Reaching out from the face, one sees fingers like the shadows pushed by a thousand campfires out into the darkness - these were made from actual hand prints using a resist over which was painted hues.
• From SAULs inner gifts comes power and understanding, guiding this imperfect man, leading an imperfect life, allowing SAUL to eventually come home to his community, and break free from the tyranny of colonialism.
• Animals, are a reflection of our world and are here as guides and supporters.
• Both male and female, the porcupine like creatures as eyebrows,
• Next to the nose are the mud hens, one of the shape shifting beings that the guides take for us.
• We see the round circles showing the duality of this world on the upper left, good and bad, light and darkness.
• The lips have markings, tribal markings to assure on that they are not alone.
• On both cheeks are blueberries, those free food and substance that we didn’t work for but that Creator gifted us.
• The eyes are surrounded by the eagle motif, symbolizing that we need not only the eyes of the sparrow to see what is in front of us, visually and time wise, but also to see far, and into the future so as we may plan.
• At the top of the head, where our spiritual, emotional and thinking occurs the painting begins to move into more disorder, chaotic, like our world and the human experience.
• On the left shoulder you see Teepees, symbols of the community, always there, always ready to welcome the people back. Below the Teepees are paths, convoluted, some coming some going away perhaps, but all connected to the community.
• Finally we have the rose like flowers, in front of the face like all the other visuals, blueberries and such, because nature acts as a shield to the world, our communities are a base for us.

We Ojibwe are a People of Stories — “Indian Horse” - whether first encountered in book or in film is, I would venture, a story of optimism and hope.  Such is the power of ‘Indian Horse’ and Richard Wagamese’s gift as a Storyteller.