Michael Cywink

This was a 30 hour intensive over a 6 day period in June which was put on by the Royal Conservatory of the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council.  This intensive certainly has opened my creative side as to being an artist/educator working with teachers in the classroom setting. I am open to work with any school that is open to share culture. I am open to work with any students that are open to learn about cultural appreciation through a First Nation Perspective.

The Aboriginal Teachers Certification Program is a six week intensive which runs from the end of June to the first week in August each year, (two year program). I must admit the intensiveness certainly keeps the creative process going. And I am happy to say I completed the second summer however I did not complete my 2nd yr practicum. I did however receive the ENJI GIIGDOYANG/ ABORIGINAL INITIATIVES VALEDICTORIAN AWARD. 

The Insititute of American Indian Arts offered a 2 year program at that time.  I had went beyond the time to accumulate more learning in exhibition development, collection management and repatriation.  Since then the musuem study program at the institute expanded to a four year program.  My time at the Institute of American Indian Arts placed me on the Dean's List and the President's List.  I had recieved the Museum Studies Award and a 2 year Internship with Walt Disney Imagineering, Glendale, California.

To take direction from the Arts Community and showcase artists from the Wiikwemkoong Unceded  Territory. Offer workshops in the arts to the community, mural projects within the community.  Encourage the youth to pursue their artistic endeavors, support and seek out venues for the artists, established and emerging.  

I was contracted through the Rainbow District School Board to work mural projects with two schools within their district. I titled this project "Cultural Appreciation From A First Nation's Perspective".

- Central Manitoulin Public School, Mindemoya, Ontario.  Ten students were specially selected to work on the mural; they were from grade 2 to grade 8. I am always impressed with the artistic endeavors these young students put into learning through color and symbolic terminology regarding our First Nation's Culture.

- Espanola High School, Espanola, Ontario. The class program was called 'Appreciating Aboriginal Culture'. It was an interesting project to motivate the high school students into cultural themeing.  Once they got involved they executed an excellent mural.

I received a grant in the visual arts under the title: "Aboriginal Artist/Elders in the Schools Program". This offered me the opportunity to do mural projects with several public, high and alternative schools in the province of Ontario.  I had the wonderful opportunity to work with the following public schools.

- Christian Island Elementary School, Christian Island First Nation.  The mural project included all four walls in the gym which measured 60 foot in length, 30 foot in width.  I worked with students from grade 8 to grade 4 in the fall of 2009.  The mural was titled "Remembering Our Clans".

- A.B.Ellis Public School, Espanola, Ontario.  This mural measured 30 foot in length, 12 foot in height. It covers one wall of the main entrance into the school. I worked with students from grade 8 to grade 3 in the late fall 2009. The mural was titled "Healing Through History and Color".

- Huntsville Public School, Huntsville, Ontario.  This mural measured 24 foot in length, 8 foot in height. It is composed of 6 panels four foot by eight foot. This project was executed by the grade 6 class as part of their social studies class regarding First Nations, (February 2010).  It was mounted on the exterior wall of the school in May 2010 in time for the G8 Summit.  The mural is addressing environmental concerns, issues

and native culture.  The mural was titled "The Past That Was Environmentally Friendly".

My responsibilities were to manage all aspects of the musuem, exhibition design and development, proposal writing, digitizing the collections, registar, conservation, public relations, research, community outreach, developing creative workshops, recruiting new and emerging artists, repatriation of cultural patrimony, human remains and other relevent issues and concerns.

I was interned from the Institute of American Indian Arts, Museum Studies Program to Walt Disney Imagineering. My responsibilities were to work with a team of First Nation consultants. We traveled Disney Theme Parks making appropriate cultural changes to script and visual imagrey.  This was  with the Disney's America Theme Park Project.

I have had the honor to learn in Professor Pitt's Method's Class during the 2 summer intensive programs of the ATCP while at Nipissing University.