Reach to the Sky

Edition Date: July 2014
Artist: Roy Henry Vickers
Medium: Serigraph
Image Size: 13" x 18.5"
Edition Size: 70

There are many things today that need our attention. It seems that large corporations hold the power of money over people and governments. Those who once carved these monuments of culture seem to have forgotten their connection to the earth and their ancestors. Few of us understand the old ways of our ancestors and our connection to the land. The human spirit needs to connect to pristine places yet unmarred by the hand of man.

Things are happening in the name of progress; yet, for some of us, it seems to regress. There are people with Chief's names who are willing to sell their inheritance and the future of their children for a pocket full of money. When the money is gone, how will the rivers survive? When the rivers are destroyed, the salmon will die. The people of the salmon, who we came from, were good stewards of the land. What will we eat? Farmed fish that make people sick while oceans cry for protection? Where are the Chiefs of old who danced to their songs? Where are the singers who shake the mountains with their voices and the beat of the drum? Are they all gone? Is there nobody to fight for the land of the ancestors?

This is a time to reach to the sky. This is the time to raise our voices and say no to those who will destroy what is left to us. It is possible to change our ways and hold on to the rope that crosses the mists of time that can tie us to each other and the land.