To Fellow Queen City Dwellers and Others....
Hello, Everybody. I'd like to put up this little announcement today to honour my buddy John Henry Fineday, who I played in a band with in Regina, who was the first vegetarian friend I ever had, and who's Dad got me to think about stuff like the Oka crisis when I was younger. This is very sad news for me. John was a great guy. I hadn't seen him in about 6 or 7 years when He and his Dad came out and were thrashing in the pit at one of our Regina shows. I had no idea he was ill. Good reason to always keep up with all your friends, eh? You always think they're out there doing their own thing and all is going great for them. Here is a little bit about John Henry. A unique guy who always tried to do good.Take care everybody.
Regina artist John Henry Fine Day has died after a five-year battle with leukemia. He was 32. The promising young artist, who was from the Sweetgrass First Nation, was known for his colourful painted carvings. He also carved the doors for a ceremonial teepee on the Regina campus of the First Nations University of Canada. He was very proud of the work he'd completed on the doors, Meagan Perreault, director of the Nouveau Gallery, said in an interview with CBC Radio. Perreault, who carried Fine Day's work at the gallery, said the artist approached his work with enthusiasm and passion. "What he was trying to do was that he was taking something that was no longer living and ⦠in terms with his carvings, the trees were no longer living and with his rawhide sculpture ⦠and turn them into something that was kind of living again, so they were all animals," Perreault said. Continue Article Fine Day worked with acrylic paints on carved yellow cedar to create simple, iconic images, often of animals. He also sculpted with rawhide, steel and sinew, combining the traditional with contemporary materials. Born in Saskatchewan in 1974, he earned a bachelor of fine arts, specializing in sculpture, at First Nations University in Regina. Before he graduated he had a solo show at 5th Parallel Gallery in Regina and a second solo show in 2004 at Cumberland Gallery. He was a member of Sakewewak First Nations Artists' Collective. A memorial is planned for Dec. 2 in Regina, followed by a retrospective of his work at the Nouveau Gallery. -Rod