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Archive for the ‘Personal’ Category

Why newspapers are failing

Posted in Bruce Byfield, journalism, Personal, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on March 15, 2009| Leave a Comment »

Everywhere I go, I hear what’s going on,
And the more I hear, the less I know.
-Oysterband

Why newspapers are failing is probably not of much interest to their readers. However, to journalists, the subject is understandably of absorbing interest, and they write about it endlessly. They have reason to be nervous, of course, with most newspapers declining in readership, and well-established ones like The Rocky Mountain News stopping publication and others like the San Francisco Chronicle making cuts. Mostly, they blame the Internet, but I have yet to read a journalist who blames the current trends in newspapers for the decline.

By analogy, the Internet and trends such as blogging and citizens’ journalism do not automatically threaten the traditional newspaper. Photography did not mean the end of painting, nor – more to the point – did television completely replace movies or radios.

However, just as television news meant the end of the news reel in theaters, so aspects of the Internet mean that newspapers have to rethink some of their features.

Specifically, in an age where millions of blogs are posted daily, how many are going to pay to read the average columnist? Unless columnists are blazingly original stylists (think maybe Dorothy Parker) or are experts in a particular subject, they are not going to be worth the effort. Yet, although many columnists pride themselves on their styles, very few are among the first ranks of writers, and, if anything, newspaper columnists pride themselves on their lack of expertise – they are writers, they insist, not some sort of hack.

But the truth is, although some columnists love to attack blogging by pointing out the faults of the worst bloggers, I can hardly think of any columnists who are as absorbing as several bloggers I read regularly who have a specialized subject. You might read the average newspaper columnist over breakfast or on coffee break, but if you are interrupted and never finish, you hardly care. In this respect, the average columnist is neither better nor worse than the average blogger, and why should you make special efforts to obtain a few specimens of mediocre writing when you can get thousands online whenever you want?

The same is true of the newspaper stories rewritten from news releases or from the weekend police blotter. When you can often read the original online, who is going to bother with the regurgitations?

Yet columnists without subject matter and rewrites are exactly what newspapers are turning to to find ways to save money. Instead of increasing the diversity of opinions, newspaper chains are reducing it by having more copy distributed by the central office; for instance, when I was looking for reviews of the movie made from Neil Gaiman’s Coraline last month, I could find only two different reviews listed in the major papers in Canada.

Instead of offering more news, newspapers offer long articles under the pretense of doing readers a favor – although, since writing one long story is easier and quicker, and therefore cheaper than writing several short ones, the only people really receiving a favor are the editors and writers. A long story, newspapers hope that readers won’t notice, is not necessarily an in-depth one.

What newspapers can offer that the Internet has trouble matching is investigative reporting. After all, the majority of Internet news sites are portals – collections of links. Portals are cheaper to gather than original stories are to write, so Internet sites are naturally fond of them, since they usually have far smaller budgets than newspapers.

Yet investigative reporting – even correspondents from other parts of the world – is exactly what newspapers are cutting back on in favor of the much cheaper opinion opinions, rewrites, and overly long stories. In the short term, the budget necessities behind such moves are understandable. But, in the long run, such tactics send newspapers into a downward spiral, making them the purveyors of exactly the sort of content that the Internet can provide more plentifully. Is it any wonder, then, that newspapers are faltering?

Instead of concentrating on their strengths, they are trying to match the Internet’s – and that is a game in which newspapers cannot compete. They are like hardcover book publishers trying to match the popular appeal of paperbacks, or painters try to outdo the realism of photographers. Occasionally, they can claim a success, but in the long run, their tactics are against them, and only make their situation more desperate.

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Expanding out from West Vancouver

Posted in British Columbia, Bruce Byfield, childhood, Personal, Uncategorized, Vancouver, West Vancouver, tagged , , , , , , on March 14, 2009| Leave a Comment »

When I was four, going to the kindergarten two blocks from home seemed an enormous expansion of my horizons. Even then, I had a vision of my horizons becoming vaster as I grew up – a vision that I still have, although now I wonder if a time will come when they contract as I grow old and infirm. But the largest single expansion of my horizons was when I moved away from the neighborhood in which I grew up and finally discovered the rest of greater Vancouver.

I grew up in West Vancouver, a suburban community on the other side of the inlet from Vancouver. Physically, my parents’ house is less than half an hour from the intersection of Georgia and Granville, one of the main intersections in downtown Vancouver, but, psychologically, it might as well have been several days away.

Perhaps the intervening water had something to do with this attitude, or perhaps my family was unusual. But, as a child, I had no other point of comparison. All I knew was that West Vancouver was mostly self-contained. My family might venture occasionally into next door North Vancouver, but a trip to Vancouver was a major event because of its rarity. As for remoter cities, like Richmond and Surrey, they were visited only when passing through on the way to the border or the interior. When a girl moved from Surrey the summer before I entered Grade 8, she might as well have come from one of the moons of Pluto, her origin seemed so remote to me.

Having a bicycle and a sense of adventure, by Grade 5, I had started to expand my horizons on my own (although, hobbit-like, I always took care to be home for dinner). I started by exploring West Vancouver, but in a couple of years, I was riding with my friends over to Stanley Park, or even downtown. A few times, I even rode out to the University of British Columbia and back.

But somehow, my horizons never expanded further. Eric Hamber Secondary at 41st and Oak, where I trained once a week with the Vancouver Olympic Club, seemed impossibly far. And when, in high school, my soccer team went out to Vancouver Technical School near Broadway and Renfrew, I was frankly lost; it looked like a tough part of town where I would be instantly mugged for the middle class kid that I was if I strayed too far from the rest of the team.

True liberation from my psychological restrictions didn’t happen until I started commuting to Simon Fraser University when I was eighteen. Catching the Hastings Express downtown and transferring at the Kootenay Loop for the final trip up Burnaby Mountain to the university, I was fascinated by the street scenes and people I saw. Once or twice, when a ride let me off at Main and Hastings, I was apprehensive, but mostly my chief fear came from my uncertainty about just how to get to the familiar downtown area around The Bay (these were less brutal times, and the population of the downtown east side was smaller and considerably less desperate than now).

Leaving my parents’ home accelerated my growing sense of geography, and, by the time I was 21, I was familiar with much of greater Vancouver, and had lived in several parts of it. Gradually, I realized that I grew up isolated by privilege (or semi-privilege, my family being middle class in a primarily upper middle class municipality), with assumptions about personal safety and other people that weren’t nearly as universal as I thought.

This challenge to my assumptions often dimly disturbed me, but I never really doubted that it had to be faced if I were to become an adult. I still believe that, which is why I was surprised when I went to a high school reunion three years ago, how many of those with whom I went to school had never moved out of West Vancouver. I had had a contented enough childhood there, but I wasn’t a child, and I had long ago moved on, as they apparently never had.

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Bird-watching in the living room

Posted in Bruce Byfield, conures, nandays, Parrots, Personal, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on March 11, 2009| Leave a Comment »

If I want a day of bird-watching, I don’t have to leave the living room. With four Nanday conures – a type of small South American parrot – in residence, I can even do my bird-watching from the comfort of a chair. And, since three of the four Nandays are male, much of what I watch is territorial posturing.

The dominant cock is Ning. He has several advantages over the rest: He has been here the longest, he is the only one with a mate (Sophy), and he fathered one of the other males and has always lorded it over him. His disadvantage is that he is perhaps a little complacent and starting to get on in years, so he is no longer as aggressive as in his youth.

Of the other cocks, Ram is little competition. Not only is he Ning’s son, but he has a bad leg and is reluctant most of the time to compete – although he can surprise everyone at times with unexpected outbursts of ferocity.

Beau is the third cock, and the relative newcomer. However, he is younger, larger, and feistier than Ning, and probably the most cunning of the three. At first, Ning used to dive bomb him with impunity, threatening him without actually making contact. However, after about six months, he started dive bombing Ning in return, and now he gives as good as he gets.

This is how the living room is divided: Ning and Sophy have a cage on the right side of the room, and Beau’s cage is on the left. Ram’s cage is in the kitchen, but he uses the back of a chair and an arm of the couch by Beau’s cage with impunity, either because Beau doesn’t regard him as a threat, or on the principle that the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Occasionally, though, Beau will chase Ram away from his cage, especially if Ning isn’t there to vent his anger upon.

The dining room table between the two cages is contested ground. However, the futon by the window is definitely Ning’s, although Ram will brave it if Ning and Sophy are in their cage. Beau doesn’t quite dare, although he will pace to the end of the couch and sit as close to the futon as he can without actually being on it.

That is one of the main characteristics of the territorial posturing: Like kids in the backseat of a car who have been told to keep to their side of an imaginary line, Ning and Beau will come as close to the border of the other bird’s territory as they dare, apparently with the sole purpose of taunting each other. Just as Beau crowds the futon, so Ning will often see that his foraging on the carpet brings him close to Beau’s cage, apparently just to have the pleasure of disconcerting him. From their actions, the boundary couldn’t be clearer if it was painted on the carpet.

When not crowding each other, all the males will sometimes shriek at each other, so loudly that we have to pause the DVD we’re watching until we can hear it again. Sometimes, Beau will ambush Ning in mid-flight, too.
Apparently, the urge to defend his nest is strong in the typical Nanday cock. However, what is interesting is that the defense never seems to go beyond posturing, even in what must be the rather limited space in the living room. Not only is there never any real violence, but at times, as they call back and forth, the males seem almost friendly – as though their aggressiveness is only intramural, and, on some level, mutual identification as members of the same flock is as important as claiming territory.

And what does Sophy do in all of this? Mostly, she ignores it. Although sometimes she will loyally give one scream for every dozen of Ning’s, mostly she pretends it’s not going on. But, then, from Sophy’s frequent look of strained tolerance, I suspect she views the cocks — and the local humans as well – as slightly addled fledglings. Somehow, in the middle of all the male battles, she manages to look as though she is humoring all of us in the manner of a benevolent dictator. Her attitude suggests it would be beneath her dignity to notice the feuding in any way.

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A review of North Star: The Art of Lyle Wilson

Posted in art, art appreciation, Bruce Byfield, First Nations art, Haisla, Lyle Wilson, Northwest Coast Art, Personal, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on March 8, 2009| 1 Comment »

Like most enthusiasts of Northwest Coast art, I am familiar with Haisla artist Lyle Wilson mainly because of his gold and silver jewelry. I was vaguely aware that he was also a carver, but for every pole I’ve seen by him, I must have seen a dozen of his gold or silver bracelets or pendants. That is what makes the West Vancouver Museum’s show “North Star: The Art of Lyle Wilson” so interesting: by focusing on his painting and carving, it shows a side of Wilson that most people only occasionally see.

The show consists of about fifty pieces chosen by Wilson. Ranging from the most traditional of designs painted on cedar to stylized aluminum and a painted acoustic guitar, and from a map of British Columbia’s first nations displayed on the PNE to pieces from his own collection of his works, the selections in the show show Wilson not just as a master artist (I already knew he was that), but also as far more versatile than I realized. The exhibit does include several pieces of Wilson’s jewelry, including one piece that was designed specially for the show, and is being raffled off . However, in size as well as number, it is the paintings on cedar and other sculptures that dominate the two rooms of the museum’s gallery.

At least half a dozen pieces in the show were paintings on cedar. The local first nations, of course, have been painting designs on cedars for centuries, but most Northwest Coast artists today prefer paper to cedar, and prints to painting. By contrast, Wilson’s apparent liking for cedar is not only traditional, but gives his paintings a three-dimensionality that even canvas cannot match, bringing them closer to masks and other carved objects. The grain also gives his painting an additional aspect to catch the eye. On one small painting of a heron, Wilson even combines a background of red cedar with a yellow cedar frame, the contrast adding another source of visual appeal.

Although the show does include several paintings on paper, and one sketch of a miniature pole that is also in the show, they are easy to overlook compared to the works on cedar. One especially interesting piece, which several visitors have declared the best in the show, is a marine scene called “Raven and the Fisherman,” with a blue line separating the canoe, raven and sun above the water from the teeming undersea world of orcas, seals, salmons, sharks, octopuses, eels, and crabs that take up three-quarters of the the painting and bisected by a red fishing line. While individual figures conform to the northern formline tradition, apart from their heavy use of red, the overall composition is asymmetrical and chaotic. Yet, far from appearing naive, the crowded painting against the wooden medium is more suggestive of a classical Chinese screen than anything else.
Another masterful work is of a dogfish, and seems to represent the moment when Dogfish Woman transformed for life in the sea. With its sheer size and the two red eyes with cross-hatched irises and pupils with designs in them, it easily dominated its space, and the gallery wisely placed it as far as possible from other works. Even by the door, across two rooms, it caught and held the eye.

Other examples of Wilson’s woodwork in the show ranged from two intricately carved wooden plates – one designed around salmon, and another, a freestanding sculpture, a yew pendant, and a model spirit canoe.

However, what vied most with the paintings on cedar for my attention were Wilson’s recent works in aluminum. New media are more the rule than the exception in Northwest coast art (consider the rise of silver, gold and argillite in the 19th century, or the recent popularity of glass), but the metal sculptures I have seen by other artists have largely seemed to me simplistic and too post-modern to be wholly successful.

By contrast, Wilson’s four aluminum works in the show manage to be both modern and traditional at the same time. They include a sculpture done for the show, a small version of the “Orca Chief” that is in the international departures lounge of the Vancouver airport, and one in which the medal is painted red. Set parallel to the wall by posts, they pose new design questions to the traditional forms – for instance, how do you minimize the thickness of the juncture of formlines when the freestanding parts have to be supported by one another? Wilson’s answer is a mixture of layers, a cutting away of corners and other techniques. At the same time, the sculptures are so detailed and finely cut that they are easily a match for traditional media in visual interest.

Another interesting aspect of the aluminum sculptures is that, because they stand away from the wall, they create interesting labyrinths of shadows on the walls behind them. In effect, the shadows become part of the sculpture – and, when you consider that, for centuries, many pieces of Northwest Coast art were seen largely by firelight, a completely appropriate part.

The museum staff member on duty obligingly let me take pictures so long as they were only done with a digital camera. However, she asked that I not use them professionally. I take that to mean that they should not be published in any way, which means that, unfortunately, I cannot add the pictures I took to this blog entry. Instead, all I can do is to recommend the Lyle Wilson show in the highest possible terms. If you’re like me, you’ll come away with a whole new perspective on Wilson, and even greater respect (if that were possible) for his skill and versatility as an artist.

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Looking back at Linux.com

Posted in Bruce Byfield, Free Software, journalism, Linux.com, open source, Personal, Uncategorized, writing, tagged , , , , , , , on March 4, 2009| 3 Comments »

I wrote for Linux.com for five years, so anything I say about the transfer of the site from SourceForge to the Linux Foundation is hopelessly biased. Still, while I wish the Linux Foundation every success with its new community-oriented version of the site and hope to do some writing for it, I am sorry to hear that the new site will not be focusing on journalism. The free and open source software (FOSS) community had something special in Linux.com, and many people don’t seem to recognize what’s been lost.

Quite simply, the old Linux.com site and its sister-site NewsForge were the largest source of original news in the FOSS community. That is not just bias, but objective fact. The FOSS community has other sources of original material (and I’m pleased to write for them), incuding Datamation, Linux Journal, and Linux Planet, but only LWN is in the same league as the old Linux.com’s average of four stories per day, plus one one two on weekends.

And these weren’t just links to other stories, or quick rewrites of news releases, the sort of content that you find on many technology sites. These were independently researched stories, ranging from breaking news and opinion pieces to how-tos and reviews, each averaging 800 to 1200 words.

Even more importantly, the quality of Linux.com stories was consistently high, thanks to the general policies of editor-in-chief Robin “roblimo” Miller and the copy editing skills of executive editor Lee Schlesinger and his various assistants over the years. Sometimes, a regular contributor slipped up, or a new one published a shoddy piece, or the submissions didn’t include enough pieces to maintain both the highest standards and the busy publishing schedule, but the overall quality surprisingly high (I’m talking about other people’s work here, you understand, and saying nothing one way or the other about my own).

Again, this statement is not just bias. If you don’t have time to re-read the archive (which I’m grateful to hear that the Linux Foundation will preserve), consider some of the people who wrote for Linux.com: Chris Preimesberger, who moved to eWeek; Joe “Zonker” Brockmeier, now community manager for openSUSE; Lisa Hoover, now a successful freelancer, or award-winning writer Joe Barr, who died at his workstation last summer.

And that list is just the start of a list of regulars that includes such writers as Nathan Willis, Dimitri Popov, Susan Linton, Ben Martin, Federico Kereki, and Marco Fioretti. Not every successful writer covering FOSS and technology had a stint at Linux.com – not by any means – but a surprising number did, and I think they were better for the experience and the consistent market for their work.

Both Robin and Lee might be embarrassed if I called Linux.com a center of excellence, but that’s what it was, and my own experience shows that. Virtually everything I know about journalism, I know from selling stories to Linux.com. I learned journalistic ethics from Robin and impartiality, pitching a story, and structure from interacting with Lee. I learned editorial writing from the example of Joe Barr, and how to cover breaking news by being given a chance to try it.

Five years ago, if anyone had told me that I would be writing and selling some twenty thousand words per month and surviving as a freelance writer, I wouldn’t have believed them. But, thanks largely to my experience at Linux.com, I do. Linux.com taught me so well that I have even managed to survive its end as a news site – sometimes less comfortably than I did when it was a going concern, and scrambling more as I write for half a dozen editors, but surviving all the same.

Some readers criticized Linux.com for not being blindly supportive of everything and everyone claiming the FOSS label, or for not sharing their opinions. Others mistook covering a topic for support of it. But what such readers failed to understand, and what made Linux.com important for the FOSS community was its honesty. You might disagree with what writers said on the site (I frequently did), but you could trust that they were giving an honest opinion, uninfluenced by advertisers, counter-opinions from editors, or even their general sympathies for FOSS. You could trust, too, that, except in obvious commentary, they were making a good faith effort at fairness (whether or not they achieved it), and not engaging in the demagoguery that passes for journalism on some other kinds of sites. This truth-oriented journalism is more important to a community than blind reinforcement of basic tenets, because it genuinely and reliably informs in the short run, and, in the long run, becomes a first draft of history.

I knew three months ago that Linux.com was being transferred to the Linux Foundation, but I have been under non-disclosure until now. In the mean time, I’ve moved on, writing for other sites and expanding my existing association with other sites. But, the news of the transfer brings the regret back to me, and I wonder if SourceForge ever knew the value of what it had.

Still, looking back, I’m proud to have been accepted as part of Linux.com, and to have learned the writing trade there. I couldn’t have asked for a better school in which to learn.

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The dilemma of middle-age

Posted in aging, British Columbia, middle-age, Personal, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on February 28, 2009| Leave a Comment »

When you hit middle age, how you face change can become a dilemma. Either you decide to accept every change that comes along in an effort to feel that you are still part of the mainstream in our youth-oriented culture, or else you reject every change as something dangerous that should be denigrated at every turn. Only a few seem to find an alternative to these reactions.

The reasons for this dilemma are not hard to see. As most people age, they start to associate change with decay and, ultimately, with death. It becomes something to deny, either by taking on the mannerisms of someone half your age, or by denouncing it.

The trouble is, neither of the usual two reactions is very satisfying. Nothing is more undignified or embarrassing as a middle-aged person trying to pretend that they are young. A fifty year old woman who tries to dress as a teenager risks being ridiculous, because they don’t have the body of a teenager. The same is true of a fifty year old man who tries to keep up physically with a twenty year old.

Similarly, if either tries to keep up to date on the latest music or Internet fad, they risk acting like an over-aged puppy pathetically trying to please. The fact is, youth culture is not something you are expected to understand or belong to when you’re middle-aged – one of the whole purposes of youth culture is establish an identity that’s different from that of the middle-aged.

By contrast, by rejecting the culture of your generation, you risk losing your own roots for the shallowness of a wannabe who can never belong. You might as well apply to a club whose entire purpose is to blacklist you.

The trouble is, going to the opposite extreme and denying the value of everything new is no better. By doing so, you only increase the impression that you are out of touch (which most people younger than you tend to believe anyway).

Just as importantly, you risk missing new things that you might otherwise appreciate. All that lies behind the elderly curmudgeon is a constant, unending complaint that the world has changed since you first became an adult, and you don’t like it. That is a petty and small-minded attitude for anyone around you to endure; you can see it almost any day in The Globe and Mail, which on subjects such as Facebook or file-sharing often gives the impression of being written by embittered seventy-five year olds for seventy-five year olds.

All the same, pursuit or rejection are by far the most common ways that the middle-aged respond to their growing perception of the unavoidability of change. It takes tremendous sense of structure to resist either response and simply have faith in your own taste, accepting the changes that suit your taste and rejecting those that do no, and fostering a tolerance for other people’s preferences. Yet, considering that the alternative is either to be ridiculous or unpleasant, it seems the only acceptable alternative.

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25 things about me

Posted in Bruce Byfield, Personal, Uncategorized on February 26, 2009| Leave a Comment »

I suppose it was only a matter of time before someone tagged me for the “25 Random Facts” craze that’s sweeping the blogosphere (Hi, cdlu!). My first reaction was to admire Linus Torvalds’ response:

1. I get bored very easily.

and wish that I’d thought of that reply first, or something equally witty.

But then I started to be intrigued by the idea and decided to participate after all. So, here goes:

1. If my shins were in the proper proportion, I’d be over six feet tall. Since they’re not, I have a long torso and short legs, and fall on the short side of average.

2. I have exercised almost daily since I was nine years old. For years, I favored running, but in the last three years, I’ve expanded into swimming and an exercise bike to buy my knees a few extra years of use.

3. I regularly pass for younger than my age. This is a mixed blessing at times.

4. For several decades, I have lived with one or more Nanday conures, a type of small South American parrot. Currently we have four, including a mated pair and one of their offspring.

5. Our Nandays are jealous of the telephone. For this reason, when telemarketers phone, I like to stand close to their cages so the person on the other line can hear then screech. The phone really amplifies the sound, and tends to make conversations short.

6. I have a passionate interest in collecting Northwest Coast Art. In fact, I consider it the only modern art form that is consistently interesting.

7. Four years ago, I gave up coffee and all forms of caffeine, including chocolate, because I had become hyper-sensitive to it. One sip of coffee could wire me for almost twelve hours. Fortunately, what I really like is hot drinks, so the sacrifice doesn’t amount to much, except for shedding the false sense of urgency that caffeine leaves you with.

8. I have never owned a credit card, because the temptation is too strong. This is probably the main reason that I have never been in debt.

9. I am a confirmed free and open source software (FOSS) supporter. I use GNU/Linux on my computers, and only see Windows about once every six months or so – which is far too often. Part of my reason for this belief is that I earn my living by writing about FOSS, but I would use it even if I didn’t.

10. I have been a busboy, a warehouse worker, a bookstore clerk, a teaching assistant, a sessional instructor, a technical writer, a marketing and communications consultant, and a freelance journalist. People who write are supposed to have varied careers, so I’m trying to do my bit.

11. My preferred music is folk with a beat and intelligent lyrics. That means I tend to listen to all sorts of people you’ve probably never heard of, such as OysterBand and The Men They Couldn’t Hang. Possibly, you’ve heard of The Pogues, though.

12 I came out of the dot-com crash with 65,000 worthless stock options in defunct companies.

13. I once helped to run a brass rubbing booth for four summer weekends at a Renaissance Faire.

14. I read mostly science fiction, 19th century novels, history, and biography. But I’ve been known to read almost anything if the plot is right.

15. On a regular basis, my life turns surreal. For instance, once when we asked friends in Berkeley if we could crash with them, the reply was, “All right, but you’ll have to sleep in the dojo with six witches from Denver.” The reply sounds like the start of a dirty joke, but it was perfectly true.

16. I am not a foodie, but I have several dishes that I am especially proud of, including buttered chicken, sweet potato pie, rissotto, lasagna, spanakopita, and saganaki.

17. I find groups of all men or all women equally crass. I firmly believe that each gender needs the other to civilize it.

18. The only thing I am worse at than being in charge of someone is taking orders. That’s why I’m a freelancer.

19 .I am probably far too polite for my own good. This politeness makes people surprised when I get angry.

20. Although I work from home and generally work alone, I am not particularly an introvert. Nor am I an extrovert. I like socializing, and I like being by myself.

21. I despise watching sports, although I have always liked participating in them. I regularly break up a sports discussion with questions like, “Oh? Vancouver has a hockey team?”

22. I did not attend my high school graduation. I have had the occasional regret in the years since, but attending my first high school reunion a few years ago convinces me that I didn’t miss much.

23. My master’s thesis became the definitive study of the American fantasist Fritz Leiber. One of these days, I need to finish editing his letters to his oldest friend.

24. There are several things about me that I have no intention of mentioning here.

25.This is one of them.

There. I don’t think I’ll tag anyone,though. One of the facts I didn’t mention is that I can be lazy about little things.

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A remote viewing of the Freda Diesing School mid-term show

Posted in art, art appreciation, Bruce Byfield, Charles Wesley, First Nations art, Freda Diesing School of Northwest Coast Art, Latham Mack, Northwest Coast Art, Personal, Shawn Aster, Todd Stephens, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on February 25, 2009| 5 Comments »

The Freda Diesing School of Northwest Coast Art in Terrace teaches not only design and carving, but also the business of being an artist. For this reason, its program includes several school shows. A few weeks ago, when I heard that the mid-term show was being held, my Internet acquaintance John Wilson said he would take some pictures for me.

I expected maybe half a dozen pictures. Instead, he sent fifty, covering most of the show and giving me a preview of the next generation of Northwest Coast artists, at least so far as sketches and paintings go.

The presentation of some of the works left something to be desired (unless, of course, you think brown parcel paper or cardboard makes a good matting), but I hardly noticed such shortcomings. Since I am just learning some of the fine points of formline and other elements of Northwest Coast design – strictly from an enthusiast’s viewpoint – I’ve had many pleasurable hours over the last few weeks pouring over the photos.

I can’t hope to mention every picture I looked at. In particular, I won’t mention John Wilson’s contributions, since I’ve blogged about his work in some detail before. However, when I narrowed them down to eight or nine, I found that I was consistently picking the same three or four artists – one of whom I already knew, and the rest of whom were new to me.

One of the pictures that stood out for me was Charles Wesley’s double whale. I am always partial to split designs, and this one caught my eye immediately, with its symmetry of lines and color. The formlines on the top of the body of the whales might be a little thick, especially at the shoulders where they meet the bottom formline, but the thickness does give a boldness to the design. Elsewhere, though, the junction of formlines is neatly minimized – especially where the bodies meet the tail. Moreover, the u-shapes between the heads and shoulders and the matching red and black designs on the body and outside it show the attention to detail of a true perfectionist.

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By contrast, Latham Mack’s killer-whale uses a different perspective, showing its subject head-on in a style that is more common to carving that two-dimensions, and that seems to flatten the snout . In this piece, the formlines are so thick that the design could easily have been a disaster, but mack manages to pull them off with lots of tapering and white space. at the joins I like, too, the way that the design is framed by ovoids, and similar shapes are re-used in slightly different positions throughout. Another interesting element is the way that the design on the fin suggests a hat with a potlatch ring, a detail that suggests both chieftainship and transformation.

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Another artist whose work caught my eye is Todd Stephens, who had several works in the show, including a beaver and a simple mask. What appeals to me is the elegant simplicity of his designs. For instance, on Stephen’s beaver, the formlline becomes the arms. Stephens also consistently minimizes the thickness of merging formlines, inserting spaces and spacers to control them. All these formlines nearing but only touching at a point or two give a realistic restlessness to the beaver, adding up to more than what Bill Reid called “the obligatory Canadian content.”

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As for Stephen’s mask, it is interesting for being more a sketch of a mask than a two-dimensional face and for its inversion of the primary colors. Add the simplicity, and the result is a surprisingly contemporary look.

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But perhaps the most interesting pieces in the show were by Shawn Aster, a young artist from whom I’ve already commissioned a painting, but whose show pieces I picked out without knowing who did them. Aster has several pieces in the show, but two in particular are strikingly original. The wolf seems almost archaic in its design (look at the teeth and the body decorations) while having enough traditional elements to place it squarely within the northern tradition. The spikiness in the design, which suggests fur, and the spirit in the tail, as well as the posture, which seems a mixture of a howl and a crouching to spring are other details I appreciate.

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Aster’s conjoined birds are equally intriguing. The compression of the elements into the overall shape brings the already abstract elements of Northwest Coast design to an even greater level of abstraction. Meanwhile, the contrast between the serenity of the birds’ faces and the tormented, imprisoned figure between them adds another element of interest to the composition. Considering the timing of the show and the overall shape, I suppose you could consider this a Valentine’s Day design, with the central figure representing the strain of two people in a relationship – but, no matter how you interpret this design, it is one of the standouts of the show.

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Some of these artists I hope to buy a painting or two from. Others I plan to keep an eye on. John Wilson tells me that another show is planned for the end of term in April, and I can only hope to get a remote viewing of it as well.

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Hanging out at art galleries

Posted in art, art galleries, Bruce Byfield, First Nations art, Northwest Coast Art, Personal, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on February 23, 2009| Leave a Comment »

In the last six months, a free Saturday or Sunday afternoon will likely find me down at a Northwest Coast art gallery. For me, it’s a pleasure that ranks with a good book or music store.

In fact, in one particular sense, an art gallery has an advantage over a book or music store. In a music store, you are lucky to get a quick sampling of an album if you get one at all; usually, if you want to listen before you buy, you have to do so via your own home Internet connection. A book store is much better, but, even so, reading more than a few pages will quickly make you unwelcome.

By contrast, at a gallery you are expected to give pieces a careful look. So long as you don’t touch anything without an invitation, few staff members in a gallery are going to mind if you examine piece after piece for a long time. After all, nobody expects you to drop a few thousand dollars on a mask or print without making up your mind. Paradoxically, because you are surrounded by expensive items, nobody expects you to be in a hurry to spend.

This attitude has the advantage of making your browsing session inexpensive nine times out of ten (the tenth time, admittedly, you are apt to find yourself putting down the cash that would buy dozens of books or albums, or talking about lay away plans). But unless the lust to acquire hits you, usually you can stand and admire a formline or the use of color for hours and not spend a cent.

To some extent, of course, you can browse online. But online, you miss many of the details, and your opinion of a piece can change drastically depending on whether you see it online or up close. Moreover, even the most conscientious galleries do not always have all their stock online, so you never know what you might see when you actually visit. Once or twice, I’ve even seen new pieces that have just arrived.

Art galleries are businesses, and, sooner or later, a staff member may ask if you need help, the same as in any other store. But while someone selling music or books is likely working at minimum wage and has a corresponding minimal interest in what they are selling unless they work in a small specialty store, most members of a gallery staff are only too pleased to talk art, too. If you are a novice, many are happy to educate you. If you have deeper knowledge, most are just as willing to share their enthusiasms with you. After all, they are interested in the art as well, and, while they have more to do than deal with customers, on the weekends gallery staff members expect to be busy with customers. And, because they know that most people don’t buy lightly, they are quite willing to cultivate customers to encourage another visit.

For these reasons, you have a good chance of combining aesthetic pleasure with a bit of education – or even some friendly gossip about various artists and an informal sociology lesson. If you keep returning, before long, you may have struck up something that is not quite a friendship (since, after all, money is ultimately the basis of the relationship), but is certainly a friendly acquaintance or professional relationship. In fact, of half a dozen galleries which I visit with any regularity, there is only one in which the staff is unfriendly – and, not coincidentally, it’s the gallery that I visit least, enjoy least, and have not bought from.

Best of all, though, is the time you take to enjoy the art itself. Northwest Coast art has its banalities of form and its mediocre artists, just like any other art form, but the standards of craft tend to be higher than in most forms of modern art. Even if a piece doesn’t make me want to buy, I can still learn from it, if only by trying to codify why it succeeds.

And when a piece does succeed – well, I am simply lighter of heart for seeing it. I don’t have to possess it (and good thing, too, since some of the best pieces are well beyond my price range); I am simply happier with being alive for having had the privilege of seeing the really first-rate.

The modern world, it seems to me, does little to encourage the cultivation of aesthetic emotions. Even much modern art is so tangled in consumerism and posturing that aestheticism is often ignored, if not actually ridiculed. But such attitudes have never completely taken hold in Northwest Coast art, perhaps because it is still partly rooted in culture and tradition, no matter how innovative it becomes. All I know for sure is that I come away from an afternoon at the Northwest Coast galleries feeling subtly relaxed, and never regretting the time I spend indulging my aesthetic senses.

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How I learned to appreciate Facebook

Posted in Bruce Byfield, Facebook, Museum of Northern BC, Personal, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on February 21, 2009| Leave a Comment »

For some reason, writers in late middle age feel compelled to denigrate Facebook. The Globe and Mail seems particularly insistent, and hardly a week goes by without at least one of its columnists going on at length about how shallow Facebook friendships are or how trivial the quizzes and games often are. I’ve always thought that such rants are part of the general complaint that the world has changed since the late middle-aged were young; although I agree that Facebook is superficial, I’ve found it a useful way to maintain some business and hobby contacts. But, recently, I have had direct experience of another reason to appreciate Facebook: as an organizing tool for social action.

My newfound appreciation started at the end of January, when I stopped by the Edzerza Gallery while on a wander to celebrate having finished my work for the month. There, I struck up a conversation with carver Morgan Green, who told me about the trouble she and her father and the rest of his apprentices were having over their use of the carving shed at the Museum of Northern British Columbia.
After listening, I spoke fifteen fateful words: “Why don’t you start a Facebook group? Facebook has got to be good for something.”

That night, Morgan started the group “Expression not oppression” and issued invitations to all her Facebook friends to join. Within twenty-four hours, the group had two hundred members. It now has over 900 members, including prominent Northwest Coast artists such as Lyle Campbell, Ron Telek, and Ya’ Ya, and has become the focus for the discontent that many among the northern first nations feel about the museum and its curator and for the lack of respect that even prominent native artists sometimes face from the dominant culture and its bureaucracy.

Looking at what has happened, I like to joke that now I know what the pebble feels like when it starts the avalanche.

Even that, of course, is too much credit for me to claim. Apart from a few emails of support and my previous blog entry on the subject, I have really done very little, and nothing somebody else might not have been done. The truth is, the success of the group has everything to do with the carvers involved and their friends and family, and next to nothing to do with me. And that’s how it should be; I’m more than content to be part of the supporting crowd and leave the speaking roles to more suitable people.

However, because I was a bit of a catalyst, I have been following the growth of the group more than I might have done otherwise. And it strikes me that any tool that can help organize a community as quickly as Facebook did has more value than you might expect. Ninety-nine percept of everything that happens on Facebook may be shallow, but observing the “Expression not oppression” group has convinced me that the remaining one percent is powerful and more than enough to justify the rest of the activity.

Really, the late middle-agers have got hold of the wrong perspective – instead of insisting on the triviality of Facebook, they should be having a closer look at how it can be used to organize people. To me, any tool that has such a positive effect deserves to be taken seriously, not dismissed because it’s new and different.

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