Painting Identity, Heritage & Creative Courage | Artist Michele Rogers

In this episode of The Motivatarian Exchange, Dionne Woods sits down with Saskatchewan-based artist Michele Rogers, whose powerful portrait work honors Indigenous First Nations women and reflects her Métis heritage through stories of strength, memory, and generational resilience.

Michele’s paintings give visual voice to grandmothers, granddaughters, and female warriors—women whose lives and legacies shape cultural identity. Her work is deeply intuitive and emotionally layered, rooted in storytelling rather than surface aesthetics. Through her art, Michele explores what it means to remember, to honor, and to create from lived experience.

You may recognize Michele from the Fall volume of The Turquoise Iris Journal, where her work is featured, or from The Art of Becoming, a documentary series exploring the creative evolution of women artists.

In this conversation, Dionne and Michele explore:
How cultural heritage informs creative identity
Painting as a form of remembrance and quiet resistance
The responsibility and reverence of telling women’s stories through portraiture
Finding confidence, leadership, and voice through the creative process
Encouraging others to create without fear of outcome

Michele also shares insights from her journey as a lifelong entrepreneur, community artist, and educator—from large-scale window installations in her hometown to teaching paint parties designed to build confidence, curiosity, and creative courage. She reflects on recent milestones including award-winning work, gallery exhibitions, and speaking as a panelist at WESK (Women Entrepreneurs in Saskatchewan).

This episode is an invitation to slow down, listen deeply, and consider how art can carry history, identity, and truth—especially for women navigating creativity, leadership, and becoming at every stage of life.
Website - https://www.peekinmywindow.com/
Facebook -   / michelerogersart  
Instagram -   / michelerogersart  

Fun Fact
Michele once traveled to Peru to help film a documentary highlighting the vital roles women play in a village along the Amazon River—where she slept among black, hairy spiders nearly the size of her palm. A true lesson in courage, curiosity, and immersion in the unknown.