Faye HeavyShield

Fellowship Artist

Fellowship: Art Quantum (2009)

Cultural Affiliation: Kainai-Blood

Heavy Shield grew up on the Blood Indian reserve in Alberta, Canada, speaking both Blackfoot and English. She currently lives in Calgary, Alberta. She attended elementary school at St. Mary’s Residential School in Cardston, Alberta, a Catholic school that has influenced her sculptures and installation pieces. She received her Bachelor of Fine Arts at the University of Calgary in 1986 after initially attending the Alberta College of Art and Design. Having grown up in a traditional setting, spending a lot of time with her grandmother, in 2007, Heavy Shield was the narrator and interviewee for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation project-episode “Legends of Kainai: Stories from the Blackfoot People of Southern Alberta.” Site-specific, minimalistic, and repetitive in approach, Heavy Shield’s sculptures refer to memory, community, and landscape.