Chipping Rock Chipping away... pieces of material, from a nondescript piece of soap stone.

In some respects, this is part and parcel of what artist Graham Pettman's existence is, creating art that has meaning...that goes deep into what makes him tick.

Graham has been carving and creating eye catching pieces for many years, pieces that convey the connection between the earth, nature, and art.

Now based out of 100-mile house in the Cariboo region in Central British Columbia, Graham celebrates his heritage with his paintings, drawings and carvings and revels in an art form that in many respects he helped propel into today's Plains art style.

Born and raised around Fort Vermillion in northern Alberta, life was hard for Graham when he was young.

My mother was pretty well a full-blooded Cree.

My dad came here with the fur trade in the twenties.

So that's where he met my mother I grew up in an era which was the war years.

My father went being Brit, he went to the Air Force.

He was a pilot.

My father left basically what happened at an early age, So I was stuck up north with just relatives that already had too many children in little Log Shack sleeping on the floor you know.

From the impressionable years of 7 through 10 Graham was shipped off to the St. Augustine's Smoky River residential school for native children in Peace River Alberta.

That's that was kind of a downer in most sense.

It was, but in a sense, I had bed and three meals I'll tell you when I was there, I must have been about eight years old.

It was springtime and everything was melting.

And that was where boys were out playing in the little puddles, and we'd make little canals in between the puddles.

And I found a piece of bark and I was using that.

And I thought I bet I can make a little boat out of that.

I used my teeth, and I made a little boat.

I used that.

That's probably the first example of carving.

There you go.

I emulated the beaver (laughs) I grew up native, basically the Cree side.

I knew the language then but have since forgotten it.

And my grandfather was a Indian doctor called him a shaman So I was privy to that, but I didn't follow in that line.

I thought I'd do the supernatural part.

I guess you could call it healing.

A better word, through art, and that's what I try to convey.

One of the things in there my paintings, the imagery, the connection between nature and flora and fauna, things that grow.

I put try to put that in the paintings and in the sculpture, the connection between the earth and us.

It's my identity.

You know, who I am because it's been hard growing up, being on the fence.

You know, I have cousins that are pure Cree, and I grew up being getting razzed by them.

And throughout, I was in the Army at a time when racism was pretty rampant.

what I am both sides of the of my background, that there is identity there, I'm trying to prove it.

Graham, along with his younger brother Clifford, trapsed through the BC art scene in the early 1980s when an Inuit friend turned them on to soapstone carving in Vancouver helping, he and Clifford and a few other artists develop their plains art style.

He was a natural artist, and I went to art school, but he didn't really have to.

He just a raw talent.

He took it up real fast.

Anyway, he was selling things in the galleries in Victoria, and he was telling me, he says you've got to do this brother.

So, it didn't take me long.

I got some soapstone and this is about 80, 81 so through the years we did quite well Unfortunately, he died 4 years ago.

Anyone who does creative things, you just know when you're in your form and you've nailed it, I guess athletes feel that too, or anyone, you know, you just said, damn, I got it.

Maybe like Thomas Edison, Eureka, I got the light bulb.

Oh, that's quite a there's some paintings and sculptures that just work out After working with granite and marble, it's almost child's play.

But it's not the medium it's what you do with it, right?

It means it means my whole being.

I think, you know, you just have to be doing something that means something that's meaningful.

I don't know how many years I got left or a month to going to make the best of it and stay positive and value every minute.

84 winters, you know, you learn stuff, you know, when you're young, you're so busy running around making a living.

You're looking at things, you reach an age where you see, you start to see.

just see beyond the obvious.