11" x 14" digital print or blank 5" x 7" greeting card. 
 
This artwork is called "Fish Woman”. This artwork was created to honour salmon, and how it has nourished coastal communities for many years. When Bear thought of this idea, he wanted it to be an elder holding a basket of fish. Elders are very honoured in Indigenous communities and carry teachings and traditions. We really wanted to emphasize how important fish is to his people with the phrase “Fish is Life”.
 
Bear and Bada Jean are an Indigenous couple, each running their own small businesses. Bada is a Nêhiyaw (Cree), Dene and Welsh visual artist from Treaty 6 and 7 territory in Canada. Bear Yates is a Haida fisherman from Craig, Alaska. Together they wanted to bridge their businesses together to create a Spirit Bear Seafoods and Bada Jean collaboration. This collection features imagery from Bear’s homelands, and Bada’s special time spent there in the summers with him. Throughout the artworks you’ll see themes of nature - the ocean and landscapes, our Indigenous cultures, and native plants and animals such as salmon, eagles, and bears. This collection shares the connection and contrast between Bear’s Haida culture by the ocean and Bada’s Nêhiyaw (Cree) culture from the prairies, viewed through a Nêhiyaw lens. The intention is not to take away from the space held by traditional Haida formline art, but to respectfully share the coast through the perspective of a prairie native visiting Bear’s coastal homelands. When we brainstormed this idea, we were both super excited to combine both of our worlds into artwork. Bear sketched ideas of what he thought would best represent his brand, culture and lively hood. We both then looked at ideas and chatted about how they could potentially look and then Bada got to work on sketching them out and digitally illustrating them.