Faye HeavyShield (born 1953) is a Kainai-Blood sculptor and installation artist. She is known for her repetitive use of objects and writing to create large-scale, often minimalist, site-specific installations. Background HeavyShield, the third youngest out of twelve siblings, grew up on the North End of the Blood Reserve where her father managed a ranch. As a youth she attended Catholic school at St. Mary's Residential. Growing up on the Reserve she spoke Blackfoot and English and spent quite a bit of time with her grandmother who told her traditional stories about the Blood and Blackfoot people. In 1980 she began attending classes at the Alberta College of Art and Design but later obtained her Bachelor of Fine Arts at the University of Calgary in 1986. In 2007 HeavyShield narrated and acted in "Legends of Kainai: Stories from the Blackfoot People of Southern Alberta" produced by the CBC. Fine art career My art is a reflection of my environment and personal history as lived in the physical geography of southern Alberta with its prairie grass, river coulees, and wind and an upbringing in the Kainai community (with a childhood stint in the Catholic residential school system). The past, present and imagined make up the vocabulary used to realize my thoughts and ideas; responses and references to the body, land, language. – Faye HeavyShield Upon entering the Alberta College of Art she began to explore artistic styles finding herself drawn to working with her hands through sculpture and large-scale installations. Creating these works gave her a feeling of immersion in the materials and concepts behind the pieces. Sculptural installations Many of HeavyShield's works are site-specific, such as body of land, first created in 2002. Hundreds of small paper conical tipi forms are placed sometimes solitary, in couples, or in groups, on a wall. The forms are in shades of red, pink, purple and brown. The colors are obtained from digital images of human skin, magnified, then printed on paper. body of land seeks to show the permanence of environments, community, language and history. These works often display multiples, whether the forms in body of land, boats, small squares of cloth, or other delicate and often hand-created objects. The creation of these pieces leads to repetitive tasks, such as dying clothing – this repetitive process is one that HeavySheilds finds meditative and exploratory. Heritage Always a major source of inspiration, HeavyShield's life on