Individual Arts Grant recipient Joy Hall weaves together art, language and culture with her beautiful story blankets.
Silixwiye Joy Hall is a weaving artist from Stó:lō Nation territory and currently lives on Sq’ewqeyl (Skowkale) First Nation in Chilliwack. Joy also has ties to Sts’ailes First Nation, Musqueam Indian Band and the Nooksack Tribe in Washington state. She feels a powerful connection to her syewá:l (‘ancestors’ in Halq’eméylem) when weaving:
“When I weave, I feel like I’m sitting with them,” Joy explains. “They say the weavings are already created in the spirit world and the ancestors weave them through the weavers’ hands so that the weavings can come alive. I weave because it grounds me, and the weavings themselves bring people happiness. The weavings are like gifts from the ancestors and the creator.”
Joy’s interest in the art of traditional weaving sparked in 2021 when she took a four-series workshop with Coast Salish Weaver Frieda George and immediately wanted to learn more. She decided to apply for an Individual Artists One-on-one Mentorship Arts grant from FPCC to do just that.
“I spent nine months mentoring under Frieda as she taught me the weaving process that our ancestors did from start to finish,” Joy says, “We started with raw sheep’s wool. Frieda taught me how to wash it, pick it, and spin it and about the natural plant dyes that our ancestors used. We then went out into our territory and collected these plants and I learned how to dye the wool for weaving.”
Awakening a sleeping practice
One of Joy’s main motivators for learning Coast Salish weaving is because it is an artform that was almost lost forever:
“Coast Salish weaving went to sleep for nearly 100 years as a result of contact. Our ancestors would get their wool from mountain goats or the Coast Salish woolly dog, which went extinct as a result of colonization. Bringing this endangered art form back from the brink of extinction is incredibly important. My goal is to learn how to teach the almost lost art to my community members to continue the practice of Salish weaving and participate actively in its revival.“
“One greatly important piece of our oral history is the story of Xexá:ls, or Transformers”, Joy explains,” Xexá:ls were guardians of the Stó:lō and showed the people how carry ourselves and through their teachings. People who were productive and good to their communities were transformed into useful commodities, such as salmon, or cedar, so that the people would never be lacking. Those who were selfish and did not preserve their culture or contribute to the community were turned into stone.”
Lhílheqey
The weaving Joy created in her one-on-one mentorship with Frieda (pictured below) is of the Stó:lō transformation story of Lhílheqey (known as Mt. Cheam) and her dog sqwemá:y.
Lhílheqey was a woman transformed by Xexá:ls into a mountain and given the responsibility of watching over her Sto:lo people. Lhílheqey is where the p’q’elqel (mountain goat) lives and Joy’s ancestors created weavings from their wool.
“I was intrigued about the amount of work our people would put into acquiring the mountain goat wool, how the men would walk for days up the mountain to hunt the mountain goat for the women to use the wool for weavings,” Joy says. “As I was thinking about what to do my story weaving on, the mountain goat led me to the idea to tell our transformation story of Lhílheqey.”
To date, Joy has created five transformation story blankets to help educate the wider public about Stó:lō culture and to promote Salish weaving. They were displayed last fall at a Salish weaving exhibit at the Chilliwack Cultural Center.
sx̱wōx̱wiyám
FPCC has continued to support Joy’s work through additional Individual Artist grants. Her most recent project, is a large weaving on the Sxwōxwiyám (oral history) of Xa:ytem.
“When the Xexá:ls arrived at Hatzic (located in Mission B.C. in the Stó:lō Territory), they found three good chiefs and gave them the gift of the written Halq’eméylem language. The chiefs promised to teach the people the language and to share the gift. However, when Xa:als the Creator returned to check on them, the chiefs had kept the language to themselves. When Xa:als began to turn the chiefs into stone to teach them the lesson that you must pass on your teachings and gifts of the written language and must not keep it for yourself, the men panicked. One chief began to teach the people as fast as he could, another began to cry, and the last began to sing. They were transformed into the Xay:tem rock which still stands and is said to hold the chief’s song for eternity.”
Remembering the ancestors
Upon completion, Joy plans to donate her weaving of the story of Xa:ytem to the Sq’ewqeyl Language and Culture Centre as a reminder to her community to pass on and continue learning the Halq’eméylem language.
Having also begun work recently as a Halq’eméylem Language and Heritage Preservationist for her community, her hope is that her weaving will help people to “remember the ancestors and the work they did to help with language revitalization before us.”
“Our ancestors shxweli (spirit) still lives among us today in our resources and stones and continue to teach us the lessons and remind us of our responsibility. We must remember to continue the work of our ancestors in language revitalization with a good heart and a good mind,” she says.
When asked what she would say to someone considering applying for an Arts grant, Joy shared “FPCC staff have made the grant application a simple process to get through and are very helpful if you’re having troubles getting through the application. These grants have helped link me back to my heritage. My family wasn’t very cultural because of residential schools. Weaving has helped me re-connect to my culture and I feel like it could help many others do the same.”
Funding for Joy’s projects was made possible through a partnership with the BC Arts Council and support from the Province of B.C. through the First Peoples’ Cultural Foundation.
Arts Vitality Grant now open
The Arts Vitality Grant is a one-time opportunity to receive up to $10,000 in funding for creative projects that contribute to research on the status and strength of B.C. First Nations storytelling and arts knowledge and practices.
Applications for our Arts Vitality Grant are open until May 28, 2025, at 4:30 p.m. PT. For more information, please visit fpcc.ca/AVG.
For more information about our Arts Program, please visit fpcc.ca/arts.
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Halq’eméylem words provided by the Halq’eméylem FirstVoices webpage
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