Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Archive for the ‘northwestcoast art’ Category

The 2013 Mature Student Award Recipients

Posted in aboriginal art, art, British Columbia, Bruce Byfield, First Nations art, Freda Diesing School of Northwest Coast Art, indian art, Mature Student Award, Northwest Coast Art, Northwest Community College, northwestcoast art, Personal, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on April 24, 2013 | Leave a Comment »

Last weekend, I flew north to Terrace to give out the Mature Student Award at the Freda Diesing School graduation. This was the fourth year I have sponsored the award, and the third in which one main recipient and two honorable mentions were named. The award honors students twenty-five and older, recognizing that returning students face challenges in returning to school that younger students don’t, yet often contribute grreatly to a class.

The main recipient was Steven Wesley, a member of the Eagle side of the Haida Nation. Wesley fished for many years, then returned to school in 1997 to earn his high school diploma. “I wanted to be a role model for my daughters,” he said. “I wanted to show them that even their Dad could get his Grade Twelve.

Wesley went on to become a bus driver and trucker. However, he relates that, in 2002, “A friend handed me a knife and a block of wood and asked if I wanted to carve. And ever since I kept pursuing my dream of becoming an artist,” he says.

Although mostly self-taught and learning by observing others, Wesley was accepted at the K’san School in 2004. However, he had to turn down the position due to lack of funding. When he applied to the Freda Diesing School in 2008, he was luckier in finding support.”I just wanted to learn everything,” he says. “I taught myself how to do the ovoids and U shapes but I wasn’t sure they were the way they should be. So, coming back, I wanted to learn from the beginning again. “

However, for Wesley, the most satisfying part of his first year was learning about negative space in carving: “how deep, how high, how wide. I knew the forms, but I didn’t know how to use negative space in my designs.”

He plans to return for his second year in September, and to carve and paint over the summer. “The more you carve, the less you forget,” he says.

One of the two honorable mentions was given to Roberta Quock, a Tahltan from Telegraph Creek who grew up in Merritt and Kamloops. Long interested in painting and beadwork, she says, “I’ve always wanted to go to this school to study more and to learn carving and study more of the culture.”

Besides beginning to learn how to carve, Quock found the first year class a friendly place to learn. “We really bonded together, and we helped each other out,” she says. “We looked out for each other like a family.”

Quock also plans to return for her second year, studying beside her brother Lyle.

The other honorable mention went to Lorretta Quock Sort, a Tahltan of the Crow Clan. An experienced textile artist, for some time Sort has been making fire bags (ammunition pouches) that the president of the Tahltan nation has been distributing as gifts.

Sort’s first ventures into carving will all be given away to her parents and three children. She explains, “My Mom always told me that when you do something for the first time you should give it away. You’re not supposed to keep it or sell it. But, coming from such a large family, it was hard to decide who got what.”
Like the other winners, Sort plans to keep busy over the summer. She has already set herself the task of doing a mask and bowl over the summer, as well commissions for two button blankets and more fire bags, which these days are popular as women’s purses.

Wesley, Quock, and Sort were all among the more accomplished students in this year’s exhibition. I look forward to seeing them develop in their second year, and I’m pleased to have played a small role in their development as artists.

Read Full Post »

Ivan Adams: Raven Pendant

Posted in aboriginal art, art, art appreciation, British Columbia, Bruce Byfield, First Nations art, Haida art, indian art, Ivan Adams, Northwest Coast Art, northwestcoast art, Personal, Terrace, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on June 4, 2012 | Leave a Comment »

When I travel to Terrace every April, I spend three days submerged in art. Not only is the Freda Diesing School’s graduation and year end exhibit my official excuse for the trip, but I meet other artists and view their works in progress. This year, one of those artists was Ivan Adams, a Haida carver doing some unique work in argillite.

Ivan Adams is the father of Mitch Adams, a middle-aged artist from whom I’ve bought half a dozen pieces in the last three years. Last year, I met Ivan over Sunday brunch, and several times Mitch has mentioned his father as an artist, but until this year, I had never seen any of his work.

This year, Mitch drove me up to his parent’s house, and we sat in their kitchen while his father showed what he was working on. The three or four pieces I saw were literally like nothing I had ever seen before.

They were not in the argillite style of the nineteenth century, nor were they the inlaid and embellished pieces that most modern argillite carvers favor. As Mitch said, Ivan’s work is a little reminiscent of some Inuit work, but the resemblance is mostly in the scenes of everyday life he favors, rather than the carving style.

What Ivan Adams is doing is a naturalistic, detailed style all his own. One piece is a bear with silver teeth rearing on two legs while a much small hunter attacks with a spear; the base comes apart so you can position each figure separately. Another is a legendary strong man straddling a bull sea-lion and tearing it apart with his bare hands, with the exposed muscle suggested by artfully positioned catlinite (reddish brown argillite). A smaller piece is an eagle, so ungainly that it suggests an archeopteryx. All the pieces I saw were obviously mature pieces, done by an artist with a strongly developed style of his own.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t afford one of Ivan Adams’ larger pieces. However, he also had a raven pendant about the size and thickness of my thumb, which I was pleased to take home with me as consolation.

I suspect the pendant was a left over piece of argillite whose shape suggested its subject. But, like Adams’ larger pieces,what makes the piece standout is the attention to detail. The shape of the beak and how the upper and lower beak fit together are absolutely accurate. Adams has even included the striations that make every raven’s beak as individual as human finger prints, and suggested the soft tissue that connects the lower beak to the body – even though that part of the carving is not seen when the pendant is hanging from a chain. Similarly, the off-white of the inlaid eyes is a close approximation of the natural color of some raven’s eyes.

Yet as if that were not enough, on the head and neck, Adams has indicated individual feathers. Most of these feathers are aligned in rows, but only roughly, with some out of alignment and skewed from the rest, and most of them not quite the same shape. On the top the head, too, the feathers grown smaller as they approach the beak. I have no idea whether Adams has observed live ravens or worked from pictures in a book or on the Internet, but the only way that the pendant does not closely reflect a living raven is that the argillite lacks the blue oil-like highlights of actual feathers.

Ivan Adams is not well-known, and you won’t find his work in any Vancouver or Victoria galleries – at least, not yet. But anyone who takes the pains he obviously does is an artist worth paying attention to. Perhaps one day I will be able to afford one of his larger pieces, but meanwhile the pendant is a very satisfactory consolation.

Read Full Post »

Mitch Adams: “Raven Rattle”

Posted in aboriginal art, art appreciation, British Columbia, Bruce Byfield, First Nations art, Haida, Haida art, indian art, Mitch Adams, native art, Northwest Coast Art, northwestcoast art, Personal, Tsimshian, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on March 4, 2012 | Leave a Comment »

Haida/Tsimshian artist Mitch Adams seems to be making a career out of smaller pieces. Not that he avoids larger pieces; his “Blue Moon Mask” is one of my favorite pieces on the walls of my townhouse. However, in the last year or so, he has done masks from laminated blocks of wood about the height of my finger, a brass magnifier, a couple of combs, and, most recently, a briarwood pipe, filling a niche shared by few other artists. With a length of ten centimeters, his “Raven Rattle” is another of his miniatures – and one of my favorites among his work.

Contrary to what you might think, rattles of this size are not a recent development. Although modern tools makes carving at smaller sizes much easier, rattles the size of this one appear in artifacts of a century and a half ago. Some might have been used, concealed, in the magic and theatrics of the winter ceremonies. More likely (since the sound doesn’t carry far), small rattles might have been used by shamans, working up close with sick patients.

Aside from the obviously modern paint, Adam’s main innovation is his material – boxwood. The stand is a piece of driftwood, or (as I like to think of it), two-thirds the price of a Special Platter at The Afghan Horseman, where I last had dinner with Mitch and his wife Diana and took the rattle home with me. Unpainted, the base provides a contrast with the largely painted rattle. The rattle can be left on the base, in a position in which it resembles a rocket, or else lifted free and used, in which case it gives a delicate, half-hissing sound.

Like the size, the subject and composition is also traditional. The rattle depicts Raven the trickster, the face in his belly representing the light that he has stolen from the chief who hoarded it. On his back is a red human figure facing a raven’s head, their tongues intertwining to suggest communication, and a reminder of Raven’s ability to change from human to bird shape. You might also take the quasi-sexual posture of the two figures, as well as the round belly containing the face in the light of some of the details of the story: Raven has impregnated the chief’s daughter with himself to be reborn as the chief’s grandson, so he might have a chance to get close to the light.

As for the composition, it, too, has a long tradition. For instance, just before writing this entry, I came across a picture of this two centuries-old Haida piece in the McCord Museum in Montreal:

The subject is different, but the composition similar, although Adam’s piece was never meant to rest on its bottom, and has a more streamlined look. With a few minutes’ research, I could easily turn up another two of three similarly arranged rattles.

None of these comments are meant to suggest in any way that Adams lacks originality. Rather, I’ve made them to point out that the rattle is a piece within a tradition. Its shape and intricate painting of details are more than enough to establish Adam’s ability – and to make me curious about what he will do next.

Read Full Post »

Kelly Robinson, “Mother of Mischief”

Posted in aboriginal art, art, art appreciation, Bruce Byfield, First Nations art, Freda Diesing School of Northwest Coast Art, indian art, Kelly Robinson, Northwest Coast Art, northwestcoast art, Personal, Raven, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on December 7, 2011 | Leave a Comment »

Kelly Robinson is a new artist of mixed Nuxalk and Nu-chu-nualth ancestry. His silver jewelry is starting to become a regular feature of Vancouver galleries, and in the last year he has begun carving masks in both his traditions. However, he tells me that his first medium was painting, and, to judge from “Mother of Mischief,” it remains one that he is deeply interested in developing.

“Mother of Mischief” is done in the Nuxalk style, and is the first art in that tradition that I have bought. Geographically located between the northern nations such as the Haida and the Tsimshian and the central Kwakwaka’wakw, the Nuxalk culture has been comparatively overlooked and has had little written about it – so much so that an artist of another nation spent most of an afternoon trying to figure out how to carve the eyes of a Nuxalk mask with Robinson.

However, from what I have been able to learn from first and second hand sources, the Nuxalk tradition might be called loosely-rendered formline. By that I mean that it shares many of the individual elements of the northern formline, such as the ovoids and U shapes, but follows more informal rules about their positioning. Nor, on the whole, are Nuxalk designs as intricate as any of those in the northern tradition. Instead, Nuxalk designs have a bold simplicity that give them a strong visual appeal, especially when shown at large sizes.

Another characteristic of Nuxalk art appears to be a wider variation of colors than in the northern formline traditions. While northern formline favors black for the primary formline and red for the secondary, only occasionally reversing the color scheme or adding a third color, the Nuxalk palette seems broader, with greater use of blue and green, as in Kwakwaka’wakw work.

From this brief description, you can see why “Mother of Mischief” seems to me to be rooted firmly in the Nuxalk tradition. Centering on a Raven hen and her offspring ,at three feet by three feet, the painting has all the boldness of the best Nuxalk work, with three realms of existence – the land, water, and sky – depicted by rectangles of different blues.

Once you see realize the organization, the picture falls into place, with the middle blue strip representing the water where the salmon swim and the sun positioned both in the sky and, because of its reflection, in the water as well. On the land is a salmon or salmon roe that that the mother has found (for, contrary to common belief, ravens are not just scavengers; they can fish and hunt as well as other birds, but often carrion makes for an easier meal).

At the same time, the painting has a surprisingly modern feel to it. Parts, such as the ovoid at the top of the mother’s wing resembles the simple outlines of a sports logo, in particular, the old hockey stick logo of the Vancouver Canucks, a team that I happen to know that Robinson follows. Other parts of the design, such as the bent wing tips and the reduction of the mother’s body to a single tapering line, are reminiscent of late period Bill Reid.

Nor, do I think that a traditional design would be so strongly asymmetrical, or depict the raven fledgling as mirroring the mother’s positioning and design, with minor differences. Maybe you would have to be familiar with birds to notice, but, to me, the fledgling’s bare beginnings of a curved beak suggests immaturity.

Similarly, the lack of an oval in the eye or a visible tongue between the upper and lower beak suggests that the fledgling doesn’t share the mother’s watchfulness. Instead, it seems to be looking fixedly at the salmon on the shore, ready to waddle after it without worrying about the possibility of danger.

Robinson may be a newcomer, but”Mother of Mischief”shows that he is already an artist to reckon with. I’ve hung it over the largest couch in the living room, and, sooner or later, I expect it to be joined by either another of Robinson’s paintings, or perhaps one of his masks.

Read Full Post »

Nigel Fox, “Butterflies #3″

Posted in aboriginal art, art, art appreciation, British Columbia, Bruce Byfield, butterflies, Canadian Impressionism, First Nations art, Freda Diesing School of Northwest Coast Art, hummingbirds, indian art, Nigel Fox, Northwest Coast Art, northwestcoast art, Personal, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on October 11, 2011 | Leave a Comment »

As a general rule, I never buy Northwest Coast Art depicting butterflies. But when I was in Terrace last April, I made an exception for Nigel Fox’s “Butterflies #3.”

The reason for my rule is that butterflies (and hummingbirds, for that matter) are among the most popular designs for tourist pieces. You rarely see them depicted in more serious artistic works. I believe that there used to be a Butterfly family crest among the Haida, and there are still Hummingbird crests among several of the northern First Nations, but today, these designs are often trite and blatantly designed to appeal to tourists. Often, they show a degree of cuteness unlike any other designs.

I’ve joked that these designs are the Hello Kitty of Northwest Coast Art. But the northern First Nations, as I understand things, are even more scathing: satirically, they call butterflies and hummingbirds the white people’s crests.

However, Nigel Fox, a student now in his second year at the Freda Diesing School, has a different take on butterflies. In his blog, he writes about “Butterflies #3,” the third in a series of paintings featuring butterflies, “The piece is about teamwork and is part of a series that I am exploring on the theme of respect, especially among peers, even among “outsiders” or butterflies. Within many northwest coast native cultures, there are crests that are usually animals, that represent families or bloodlines. The butterfly crest is reserved for people who are not part of a nation by blood.”

Fox goes on to explain that his work is about harmony and teamwork.

I’m not sure if he is missing the satiric intent, but it is hard to argue with his results. Fox has a separate career as a painter mostly in the Canadian Impressionist style, and in his butterfly studies, he has combined traditional designs with patterns inspired by the surrealism of M. C. Escher.

Like Escher’s work, “Butterflies #3” has a constant shifting of figure and ground. At the same time, the shape of the butterflies’ wings, with their ovoids and elongated T-shapes continually suggest other shapes, such as the beaks of ravens. By combining his interests in mainstream and Northwest Coast Art, Fox has created a series of paintings unlike anything anyone else is doing, and I look forward to seeing how his work matures in the next few years.

Meanwhile, his butterfly series is a promising start.

Read Full Post »

Todd Stephens, ” Txeesim’s Escape” and Others

Posted in aboriginal art, art, art appreciation, Bruce Byfield, First Nations art, indian art, Nisga'a, Northwest Coast Art, northwestcoast art, Personal, Todd Stephens, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on June 19, 2011 | Leave a Comment »

Todd Stephens is one of maybe a dozen First Nations artists whose work I watch closely. A graduate of the Freda Diesing School and two-time winner of the YVR Art Foundation Scholarships, he paints in a style that is traditional, yet displays his technical skill and individuality. “Jorja and I,” a painting of Stephens and his young daughter, remains one of my favorite pieces in my collection, hanging above my workstation. So, a couple of months ago, when Stephens was selling another major painting, “Txeesim’s Escape,” (“Raven’s Escape”) I jumped at the chance to buy, also purchasing two smaller pieces, “Midiik” (“Bear”) and “Ganaa’w” (“Frog”).

To my surprise, I’ve heard another art buyer dismissed Stephen’s work as scholastic, suggesting that he hadn’t evolved a style of his own. However, that description confuses classicism with lack of originality. In a classically oriented piece in any field of art, what you look for is discipline, and originality within the tradition. By these criteria, Stephens’ work sets a high standard – in fact, it often shows a surprising amount of variation, even with the same piece.

Look, for example, at “Ganaa’w.” Even in this relatively simple piece, the formline varies from the length of the back to the thinness of the hind leg, parts of which are half, or even a quarter the thickness of the back. As you trace the formlines, you will also find variations in how they are joined, with most tapering long and dramatically in the primary black formlines, and often hardly at all in the secondary red formlines. Notice, too, how often the black formlines create a T-shape out of negative space, especially at the throat and the base of the back, reducing the overall weight of the forms. The contents of the ovoids shows a similar variation in their contents, although the feet, naturally enough, are nearly identical.

Many of the same things happen in “Midiik.” In this piece, though, the thick black formlines are used together with the ovoids and U-shapes to create a sense of the bear’s powerful legs – in fact, there is a distinct impression of musculature in the upper legs that, more than the claws or the rough outlines of the teeth, convey a sense of the bear’s strength. Another interesting aspect is that the asymmetry of the eye leaves the impression that the bear is looking out at the observer, possibly in a menacing way.

However, of these three pieces, “Txeesim’s Escape” is by far the most accomplished. The title refers, of course, to the story or raven causing himself to be born as the grandson of the chieftain who keeps the light in a chest so that he can steal it (you can see the light at the tip of his beak, and the shape of the grandson in the tail). It’s an old story, and one that I sometimes think is depicted too often at the expense of equally interesting stories, but one that can always be renewed by originality or craft, as Stephens proves.

The design of “Txeesim’s Escape” is a bold one. It makes me think of house-fronts, the decorative boards that the northern First Nations of British Columbia brought out of storage to decorate their longhouses during celebrations. Evidently, that is what Stephens had in mind as well, since the painting is not only just short of three feet by two, but also so busy that many of the details are lost at a smaller size.

The design is economical. The raven’s body is hardly shown at all, except for a thick formline. Instead, the design is dominated by the head, wing, and tail, with a single foot whose main purpose is to balance the design. These body parts are shown in a profile that would be almost impossible to hold for any bird to hold for more than a second in reality. Here, though, the position suggests startlement, as though the raven has heard or glimpsed something behind him, and is flashing a quick glance over his shoulder to check for pursuers.

But the most outstanding feature of the design is the sheer amount of variation in the ovoids, U-shapes, and other elements within the form lines. The amount of variation seems almost disorganized in the tongue and upper beak, but Stephen keeps it partly in control in the wing and tail feathers by having the design elements in the outer feathers match. As for the many faces in the ovoids – or appearance of faces – they serve as a reminder that the raven is a master shape changer, capable of assuming many forms. The overall impression is a pleasing confusion that seems not only suitable to a creature being chased, but completely appropriate to a being that is, in many ways, the embodiment of chaos.

I have no idea how conscious Stephens is about such things – some artists are very conscious of the effects they create, while others are either unaware or wary of examining the process too closely. However, these comments should be enough to show why I consider Stephens an artist skilled in working in a classic mode. He displays his work regularly on his Facebook page, and is currently selling glicée prints of the four main clan crests at a surprisingly affordable price.

Read Full Post »

Northwest Coast Art Meetup Group Presents Mike Dangeli: “The Art of the Potlatch”

Posted in aboriginal art, Aboriginal culture, art, art appreciation, British Columbia, Bruce Byfield, First Nations art, Mike Dangeli, native art, Northwest Coast Art, northwestcoast art, Personal, potlatch, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on February 23, 2011 | 2 Comments »

Organizing a meetup group, I’ve discovered, is a good way to find new things to worry about.

When I first started the Northwest Coast Art Meetup Group in Vancouver, I worried that no one would show up to the first meeting. I tried to minimize the worry by asking artist and dancer Mike Dangeli to be the first speaker. Then Mike sent out an invitation to all his Facebook friends, and I worried whether the space I’d booked – the lobby of The Network Hub – would be large enough for everyone who said they planned to attend.

However, I shouldn’t have worried (although I did, of course, being the sort of person I am: About whether the third floor of a building without an elevator was too high for anybody, or too inaccessible; whether the food that co-organizer Nathan Bauman brought would be eaten, whether everybody enjoyed the talk; you name it, and I worried about it).

I counted eighteen at the meetup’s first event yesterday evening – fewer than I had expected or feared, but better than most first meetup events can manage from what several people told me. I suspect that predictions of snow kept the numbers down.

Mike had agreed to talk about “Art and the Potlatch.” It’s a subject that he is well-equipped to discuss, having given fifteen potlatches, and given away hundreds of thousands of dollars in art at them.

I knew in the abstract the importance of potlatches in First Nations cultures, and the importance that art played in them. However, it is one thing to understand something in theory and entirely another to see overwhelming proof of it. As Mike talked, I gained an appreciation of the wide variety of events covered by the term. Births, puberty, betrothal, marriage, the assumption of titles or responsibility – listening to the passing mentions of all the different occasions, I appreciated in a way that I hadn’t really before just how many rites of passage were contained within that simple word from the Chinook jargon. A single word didn’t seem enough to cover so many different occasions.

In fact, it occurs to me that this poverty of expression helped to hide just how devastating the banning of the potlatch from 1884 to 1951 actually was – and why they continued to be celebrated in secret. The same missionaries who urged the banning of the potlatch would have been outraged had anyone tried to ban their own baptisms, marriages and funerals. Yet either they didn’t notice or they didn’t care that that was what they were doing by passing the anti-potlatch legislation.

 

Another impression I took from Mike’s talk is how closely the art of the coastal First Nations is connected to these rites of passage. Not only the amount of art given, but the sheer variety – paintings, hats, masks, robes, jewelry, dancing regalia – on Mike’s slides impressed this point. Since that was what I hoped would come from his talk, I was glad to feel that realization sinking into me, and I hope that others at the meetup did as well. I didn’t want the group to be a bunch of dilettantes, but to provide a real understanding of the art’s roots and connections – and there’s no doubt that Mike started the meetings off the right way.

No one had any questions at the end, but few were in a hurry to leave, either. Most stood talking for the next forty minutes, and seemed enthused by what they had just heard. One or two, who were artists themselves, or the recent recipients of gifts, showed their own pieces of art. Many thanked me for starting the group.

I’d call the evening a moderately successful beginning. Now, I want to arrange the next event, and see if a bit of a community can’t be organized from the group.

Read Full Post »

Ron Telek: “The Siren: The Keeper of Drowned Men’s Souls”

Posted in art, art appreciation, British Columbia, Bruce Byfield, First Nations art, indian art, Nisga'a, northwestcoast art, Personal, Ron Telek, sirens, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on September 27, 2010 | 1 Comment »



Ron Telek is primarily a carver and a sculptor. He has worked in everything from wood and stone to cloth and bone, but most of his work is three-dimensional. Consequently, I was curious to see what his first print would look like. I expected a sort of two-dimensional equivalent of film noir, full of shadows and vaguely glimpsed forms, but instead the print was “The Siren: The Keeper of Drowned Men’s Souls,” an intricate piece that more than one viewer has compared to a tattoo design (I envision it stretching across someone’s back).

Besides the medium, another unusual aspect of the print is that its subject and execution includes only one hint of Telek’s Nisga’a background: the design on the back fin of the smaller siren.

Instead, the piece draws on Classical Greek and Roman mythology. At first, the subject is surprising, but, on second thought, why not? Although Telek has a First Nations background, he has mentioned several times the influence of Japanese,African, and South American art on his work and such influences can sometimes be seen in his work. Nor is this the first time he has done a non-aboriginal piece. All things considered, it is not surprising that other cultures should be visible in his work, especially since the siren is not that far removed from several figures in local First Nations mythology, such as the Otter Woman.

At any rate, despite its unusual aspects, many of Telek’s characteristic elements are in “The Siren,” such as the figure in the mouth and spirits in the form of faces erupting all over the body. What is unusual, though, are the suggests of sexual aggression or predation in the breasts, each of which is made of a single spirit with teeth where the nipples should be, or the open mouth with teeth where the vagina should be. This sense is reinforced by the waves of hair, which instead of being seductive become a Medusa-like mass of writhing spirits.

Aggression is also suggested in the heavy shoulders and the reaching left hand, whose size suggests that it is reaching out to the viewer.Telek’s siren does not merely lure men to their doom, but actively preys upon them.

Then, too, the relation between the siren and men she captures is ambiguous – but menacing no matter how you interpret it. Some of the spirits seem resigned, but far more of them appear to be angry or in pain, leaving you to wonder how, exactly, the siren is keeping them. Does she only gain substance and the power to act through the drowned souls? Is the fact that she seems composed of lost souls an indication that she only exists in people’s minds? However you interpret the piece, the siren is not the supernatural beauty that you sometimes encounter in Classical mythology. Instead, she seems a supernatural dominatrix, overwhelming and perhaps luring the drowned men through sheer force of presence.

This is a remarque of the limited edition print – that is, a copy with an additional element not found in the original. Usually, a remarque consists of a quick doodle, but, Telek has added the second siren, adding almost as much detail as in the original image, and increasing the size of the print by nearly half.

The second siren reinforces the impressions hinted at by the first. Its face is more shark-like than that of the original image, evoking the figure of other powerful female figures in various First Nation mythologies, such as the Haida Shark Woman and Dogfish Woman.

In addition, the second figure gives a perspective through the drowned man still wriggling in its hand. The sirens, clearly, are huge.

The idea that the sirens gain substance from the capture of drowned men is further reinforced by the facts that the second figure’s body includes fewer spirits, and that it is somewhat smaller – perhaps a juvenile or teenage siren. Perhaps it is not even sexually mature, since it is much more slender and lacks the mass of flowing hair of the main figure.

Psychologists could go wild on the implications of these images (I know at least one who is sure that Telek was abused as a child on the evidence of his carvings). Personally, though, I prefer to simply enjoy the imaginative possibilities – and to thank Telek for this present, and for adding the remarque before giving it to me.

Thanks, Ron!

Read Full Post »

Art, apprentices, and authenticity

Posted in aboriginal art, apprentices, art, art buying, authenticity, Bill Reid, Bruce Byfield, First Nations art, indian art, northwestcoast art, Personal, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on February 6, 2010 | Leave a Comment »

If an artist has an apprentice work on a piece, are they dishonest if they sign the piece as though it were their own? By coincidence, two acquaintances have found themselves confronting that question. How each of them answered says something about how we regard art and the definition of authenticity.

In the first case, my acquaintance commissioned a mask from a well-known Northwest Coast artist (I am deliberately not mentioning names or any identifying details, because the issue touches on artists’ integrity). When the artist passed the mask to an apprentice to finish, my acquaintance was furious. I supposed my acquaintance would say that they paid for a work by the artist, not by the apprentice, although the fact that the artist gave the mask to the apprentice in front of them suggests that, the artist was not trying to be deceitful.

In the second case, an acquaintance bought a mask, and was contacted by the artist’s former apprentice, who claimed that the mask was theirs. The artist had frequently stolen their work, the apprentice claimed. However, investigation showed the matter was not so simple. The apprentice’s carving style was similar to the artist’s to begin with, and the apprentice had roughed out the mask, but most likely under the artist’s supervision. From the one picture of the apprentice with the mask, the artist seems to have finished the carving, painted the mask, and added many characteristic details. The result was far beyond the apprentice’s usual level of skill, and, according to one rumor, the apprentice had formally sold rights in the mask to the artist.

I suppose that, at some point, an apprentice’s work becomes extensive enough that they deserve credit on a work. Yet, while that should be true, the practice of having apprentices help with an artist’s work without receiving credit is extremely old. With many paintings done in the European Renaissance, the question of how much of a work is an apprentice’s remains a disputed point.

Similarly, in modern Northwest Coast art, it is an open secret that Bill Reid’s “Raven and the First Men” may have been designed by Reid, but was carved by Reg Davidson, Jim Hart, Gary Edenshaw and George Rammell, with Reid doing mostly finishing details. As for “The Black Canoe – The Spirit of Haida Gwaii,” Reid is supposed to have contributed only the design, partly because of his illness and partly because he knew next to nothing about bronze casting. Although these collaborators were chosen for their expertise, no one suggests that general credit for these works should not go to Reid, although many (including me) think that their contributions should be more generally known.

So why is the buyer in the first case and the apprentice in the second case angry? Part of the reason may be that, although collaboration is widespread in Northwest Coast cultures, especially on large projects, the idea persists in Euro-North American culture that fine art is done by one person. If the work is not the artist’s, then it must belong to the apprentices who worked on it.

A work on which more than one person deserves credit can easily be seen as inauthentic – and definitely not what the buyer paid for. And, possibly, a collaborative work will be less valuable than a work by a single artist, although that does not seem to have happened with the collaborations between Norman Tait and Lucinda Turner in Northwest Coast art.

Aesthetically, however, does who created the piece matter? I have not seen the mask in the first case, but the mask in the second case is an accomplished and sophisticated work, no matter who deserves credit for it. In this light, arguing over who deserves credit seems almost crass, even thought it might be the legitimate grounds for a law suit.

My own take is that the acquaintance in the first case has no reason to complain, given the traditional relationship between artist and apprentice. Letting an apprentice finish a mask may seem high-handed, yet it was done so openly that the artist probably did not intend to deceive. Nor does it seem likely that an artist would let an inferior piece out of their hands; to do so would affect their reputation. Before my acquaintance received the mask, it was almost certainly finished to the artist’s usual standards, no matter who did the work.

The second case seems just as clear. Although the apprentice’s hands may have been on the tools, the artist seems to have guided the making of the mask at every stage. Just as with the first step, conventional practice would attribute the mask to the artist, and not the apprentice.If the artist was feeling generous, they might acknowledge the apprentice’s contribution, but they are not obliged to.

Of course, in real life, the matter is not so simple. The buyer in the first case and the apprentice in the second might have a law suit over the expectations created by their positions. And possibly the apprentice might try to assert ownership and create a miniature nightmare for the buyer of the piece.

However, based on common practice, I doubt that either would get very far. If the facts are anything like those I’ve summarized, then by precedence, the art work should be attributed to the artist, and not the apprentice.

Read Full Post »

The appeal of Northwest Coast art

Posted in Alano Edzerza, art appreciation, Beau Dick, Bill Reid, Bruce Byfield, Norman Tait, northwestcoast art, Personal, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on September 27, 2008 | 2 Comments »

I confess: I’m an enthusiast for Northwest Coast art, yet I have no trace whatsoever of First Nations ancestry in me. This fact doesn’t bother me particularly; I like what I like. But, as I festoon every square centimeter of wall space with art, one or two people have wondered if I’m guilty of cultural appropriation. Can someone with my background really appreciate Northwest Coast art?

My first response is flippant: If not, then a lot of talented artists will have to take day jobs.

But the response deserves a more serious answer, if only because it keeps coming up. So, in short, I think that I have no trouble whatsoever finding ties to the school of art I like best.

I should say at the beginning that the appeal that Northwest Coast art has for me has nothing to do with primitivism. I despise primitivism as condescending and labored, and want nothing to do with it. If I felt otherwise, then my interest in Northwest Coast art would probably extend to the Woodlands and Inuit schools in North America, and to the Maori of New Zealand. But I have only a mild interest in any of those. I feel that I don’t know enough to properly appreciate them.

Besides, I don’t believe in the noble savage myth, and wouldn’t apply it to the Northwest Coast cultures if I did. They are far too complex and sophisticated.

In fact, Northwest Coast art today is not an isolated, entirely self-referential art form at all. Northwest Coast art as we have known it in the last sixty years or so is – for all its historical roots – a thoroughly modern art form. If it draws on the myths and cultures of the coastal peoples for inspiration and design, it relies just as much on European art for technique and reference. Not only are artists experimenting with new forms such as glass, but often they are working with a full awareness of not only the local school of art but also other schools from around the world.

For example, when the young artist Alano Edzerza can do a print called “Think Like a Raven” that he describes as a Northwest Coast version of Rodin’s Thinker, you know that he and his peers are not working in an isolated tradition. For all their local roots, they are also thoroughly internationalist. In this sense, it seems perfectly appropriate that the central figure in the Northwest Coast renaissance should be Bill Reid, a man who was not only of mixed European and Haida descent, but who also studied the latest jewelry techniques in Europe and applied them to the local school of art. When a school is so internationalist, then few people should have any trouble finding a connection to it.

Even were that not so, I could still appreciate Northwest Coast works for their sense of craft. By this, I do not just mean the finishing details on a Norman Tait mask or the sense of line in a Susan Point graphic design. Nor do I just mean that Northwest Coast artists today can choose between the classicism of working with traditional forms and the romanticism of innovation, although this situation means that Northwest Coast art is one of the most varied and flexible schools of modern art.

I am also referring to the whole geometric basis of the art, with the repetition of simple forms adding up to the creation of more complex ones. This structure seems to straddle the line between representational and semi-abstract art, falling to one side or the other according to the preferences or the whims of the artist. How each artist goes about creating complex shapes from the simple ones is an inexhaustible study, and one that exists at least to some extent outside the specific tradition. In many ways, it is a matter of pure technique.

However, the greatest appeal of Northwest Coast art for me is very simple. I am sure that I would appreciate the school even more if I were Haida or Tsimshian or Salish. Then, perhaps, I would have the cultural resonances and perhaps familial familiarity to understand more completely what I am seeing when I look at a piece of Northwest Coast art.

However, I do count myself lucky that I have the next best thing. My family may have been on the northwest coast for less than a hundred years, but I have lived all my life here. If my knowledge of the cultural references is learned from books, the natural references are second nature to me.

True, I live in a urban area, but that area is Vancouver, where modern industrial life and the wilds are so close together that you can go from downtown into wilderness in less than an hour unless it happens to be rush hour. Being in such proximity, the wild is always intruding on the city, and you don’t need to be a hiker or cross-country skier to find it.

Even though my day job is at a computer in my house, I have still confronted a raven eye to eye and knowing that another sentient being was watching me. From that experience, I have no trouble understanding why the raven is a trickster in local mythology. I have been deep enough into the northern rainforest that I have felt the disquieting silence that explains the stories about the Dzunuk’wa. I have seen orcas in the water, and my sense of spring is partly involved with the seals going upriver chasing the eulachon, just as the end of summer is marked by the salmon runs (or, increasingly these days, their failure). The landscape that the art talks about is the one that I live in, and, while as a city-dweller I see far less of it than the people living here three centuries ago did, enough remains for me to identify with it to a degree.

By contrast, I can feel far less for the art of the Celtic and Germanic peoples that likely make up my actual ancestry. I don’t live in the land that produces it.

No doubt for some people, these connections are still not enough to give me the right to appreciate Northwest Coast art. They might even say that I appreciate it for the wrong reasons. Yet, with six hundred years dividing me from the Italian renaissance, the same might be said of my appreciation of Michelangelo or Raphael. Art speaks to its viewers in many ways, and, in the end, what matters is that it speaks at all – not what dialect it uses.

Read Full Post »

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 183 other followers