Indigenous teens paint a picnic table you'll want to eat your lunch at
Brothers Sir Frederick and Nelson Nicholas are the masterminds behind the art
Two brothers from the Oneida Nation of the Thames hope people sitting at a colourfully painted picnic table at the downtown market in London, Ont. will look closely for symbols important to their culture.
Sir Frederick Nicholas and Nelson Nicholas, both grade 10 students at H.B. Beal Secondary School, are the masterminds behind the table and benches set up outside the Covent Garden Market.
"The shapes that we formed of the diamond in the centre and the squares on the sides are actually representative of the Hiawatha Belt in our culture," said Sir Frederick.
"It represents the unity of the Haudenosaunee Six Nations, which used to be only five nations, but we had one added recently. They're meant to represent buildings."
The work is part of a larger community art project on display at the market involving students from four other schools within the Thames Valley District School Board.
The Nicholas brothers worked on their table with the help of Mushkego Cree artist Hawlii Pichette, who also painted a table and a mural at the market. All of the painted picnic tables are meant to be used.
The teens say they were going for a "day and night" theme to represent opposites that are connected.
"We also have strawberries," Sir Frederick said. "That one's really important. It's in the creation story. It grew from the heart of the mother of the creator who made Turtle Island, and he planted that on the island, as well as stuff like tobacco and corn."
They say once they came up with the theme they "just started painting." But Sir Frederick, who took on the benches, says he took more time to plan.
"With the benches, I definitely wanted it to have some semblance of form," said Sir Frederick. "So I drew the cycles of the sun just so that they had a general position. And then I painted over it and then I had to redraw it. But it was fun."
Both brothers have gone to the market, watching to see how people respond to their work and so far, they're happy with the reactions.
"They always thought that it was cool and stuff," Nelson said.
The principal at H.B. Beal is proud of his students and hopes Londoners will stop to look closely at their work.
"It's just so fantastic that students are able to now have their work public for everyone to see, and it just makes us proud as a school," Todd Woollings said.