New Mural, New Approach

A local congregation honours Indigenous wisdom in a big way, generating greater cultural awareness in the process

- Reverend Lynne Donovan

When I approached award-winning Métis artist Christi Belcourt for permission to reproduce her image “Wisdom of the Universe” as a mural on an outside wall of our church, I had no idea that St. Andrew’s in Picton, Ont., was to become home to the largest Indigenous mural on a church in Canada.

“Wisdom of the Universe” was commissioned by the Art Gallery of Ontario in 2014. The original work, measuring almost 9 feet by 6 feet, is done in a Cree beading genre and is made up of 250,000 dots. Christi amended the work to accommodate the mural’s “canvas”—a 37-foot high by a 36-foot wide mortar-covered wall of our church, which is located one block north of Picton’s Main St.