Art By Krazy Kat Lady

Welcome to my “Reflections of the Sioux World” book page. I plan to publish a second book featuring my grandpa John’s stories as well as my illustrations and eventually a third book featuring my artwork, photography and much more…

I am the granddaughter of John LeCaine, Okute Sica (Hard To Shoot At) and his wife Christina LaCaine, Okute Sica. Shortly after my grandpa passed away in 1964, my grandma Christina came to live with us for fifteen years. Sadly I never got a chance to meet my grandpa because he passed away before I was born but I grew up hearing many stories about him that my grandma would tell me while she would do her beadwork.

One of the things that grandma talked about and cherished was the manuscripts that my grandpa had written during a thirty year period of his life. It was always his dream to get his beloved stories published but sadly this never came to fruition before he passed. So grandma had the manuscripts in her possession until her death in 1993. Shortly before she passed away She handed grandpa’s manuscripts to my mum for safe keeping in hopes that some day they would be published. Many years went by and life went on and I forgot about grandpa’s manuscripts that were tucked away in my mum’s closet. In 2007 my husband, mum (Margaret) and dad (Roy) and I went to visit our reserve in Saskatchewan, called Wood Mountain This is where my mum grew up and also where my parents met. The land that our reserve stands on is very spirited and filled with a lot of history, you can really feel it when you are there it is so peaceful and powerful .

While we were there touring around we drove up to the area where our family graveyard was situated on top a high hill just about where my grandparents lived with my mum and her siblings. On that high hill with spirited wind of my ancestors blowing through my hair is were I made the promise to my grandpa and grandma that I would somehow get his book published. I had no idea how I would accomplish this great task because I had NO experience as a publisher and at the time has a very limited computer and graphics program.

Grandpa was only allowed to go to grade three, as was the case for many First Nations people at that time. His handwriting is beautiful but very hard for me to read because of my limited eyesight, so mum  and sometimes David spent hours in our sunroom reading the stories out to me while I typed until my hands were exhausted.  At this time I didn’t even know  how to type very well, so  not only did doing grandpa’s book teach me about publishing but it also taught me how to type.

It was so strange hearing these stories that my grandpa spend so many year of his life writing by the dim light of oil lamps on the back of what ever scraps of paper he could get his hands on. I am sure grandpa’s spirit was there as mum and I bonded. We laughed and cried as she reminisced about her childhood and told me many stories about her life with her parents. As we worked on the stories I got to know so much about this amazing man.

As time passed we slowly started to get all the stories typed into a work processing program and I started creating graphite pencil illustrations and gathering as many old photos as I could find for the book.

Getting everything together for the book was quite a task and took about ten years because I had to set it aside a few times. The first time was when David and I build an addition onto our house and a shop and gallery. This took a couple of years to complete so I didn’t work on the book at this time.  The second time was when my dad was killed by a careless driver in 2008. I was so upset by this that I didn’t work on the book or do any art for two years. The third time that I put the book on the back burner is was when we started our signs graphics and printing business in 2015.

Fortunately by this time I had most of the illustrations done and all the stories were typed out but we didn’t have a very good publishing program or computer. After a couple years in business we upgraded our equipment and got a proper publishing program. To my mothers delight I was able to once again start getting the book ready to send to a printing company. I had much better resources at my fingertips so I was able to revised the cover to what it is today.

My beautiful mum and I went out to Canyon and I took a bunch of photos of her in one of my traditional dance dresses made of doe skin. We tried to make the photo as close to my grandpa’s wishes as we could based on the instructions that were in his manuscripts. I Photoshopped mum’s image that I took in Canyon onto an image of our reserve in Saskatchewan, from a view point up on what we call sharp hill.

It was a lot of work and I learned a lot in the process and I am very proud of this accomplishment. To date we have sold many books as well as donated them to various institutions, museums and historical information organizations. I got to know my grandpa and spent many hours with my mum and my husband. In fact it was my husband David who uploaded all the illustrations and stories into a publishing program and got them print ready for me. Without the help from my mum and husband David the task of publishing and illustrating my grandpa’s book would have been far more daunting.

Now I have more experience in publishing and much better programs and resources at my ready so I am looking forward to publishing the next book that will consist of more personal correspondence, small stories, and poetry that my grandpa had written. With my husbands help I plan to start putting together the second book this winter 2020 and 2021. I also want to do some coloured pencil illustrations for this book. It will be approximately the same size as Reflections of the Sioux World.

At this time the book is available for sale at our place of business. We can take orders and ship to out of town. This year I want to set up a place online where the book can be purchased…