We are honored to present the first Native American Heritage Month Timberland Regional Library card!

Ovila Mailhot, I am Coast Salish (Sto:lo and Nlaka’pamux Nations) graphic artist and designer originally from Seabird Island Reserve in British Columbia. I have lived in the Fraser Valley (Coast Salish Territory) all my life, until recently moving to the Midwest, and come from a long line of creatives who have shaped Indigenous art, literature, scholarship, activism, and representation.

My family’s legacy in these fields have demanded not only a reckoning with stereotypes of Indigenous peoples but have also built a foundation for visual and literary activism and representations of Indigenous people. I am the first in my family to take up graphic art and design, but my work still carries a stylistically Salish level of simplicity: it must not obscure itself – that is the tradition I have inherited. My art is meant to add to a continuum within Coast Salish culture, one so rich and expansive that it still hasn’t been fully actualized within or received by mainstream culture.

Artist Gallery (WEB)

Available at all locations while supplies last.