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Announcing the Freda Diesing School Mature Student Award

Posted in aboriginal art, British Columbia, Bruce Byfield, First Nations art, indian art, Mature Student Award, Northwest Coast Art, Northwest Community College, NWCC, Personal, scholarship, Terrace, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on December 9, 2009| Leave a Comment »

Last year, when I attended the Freda Diesing School Student Art Exhibition in Terrace, I noticed that most of the awards were for students 25 years old or younger. The school has some fine younger artists, but I thought that the older students deserved some recognition, too. To fill the gap, Trish and I decided to sponsor a Mature Student Award of $1000 per year, and to work towards making the award self-funding.

The official description of the award reads:

This award is given annually to a mature student (25 and over) from the
Freda Diesing School of Northwest Coast Art who has demonstrated
leadership and mentoring qualities in the classroom. Faculty from the
School of Northwest Coast Art will select a student after confirmation of
enrollment in the second semester of the certificate or diploma program.

The award recipient must; be a First Nations Freda Diesing School of
Northwest Coast Art student; identify and work with a mentor to facilitate
the ongoing learning process; reside in British Columbia; demonstrate
potential in visual arts in the Northwest Coast style; and display
mentoring and leadership qualities in their relationships with other
students in the school both inside and outside class.

The award will be given for the first time in January 2010.

I have two main reasons for starting the award. First, as a late bloomer in my own craft of writing, I sympathize with the mature students. Being a student is hard enough when you are twenty, but when you are thirty-five or fifty, returning to school is even harder, because you probably have a family, and you are more set in your ways. Often, it means giving up a steady income when you’ve been used to one for years.

At the same time, I know from years as a university English instructor that older students are worth encouraging. They add a maturity to the discussion, and often serve as role-models and mentors to younger students.

Second, I am a buyer and lover of northwest coast art, especially art in the northern style taught at the school. I am not one of those people descended from Europeans who feel personally responsible for the wrongs against the First Nations that began before I was born, but I do believe in paying my debts and in doing the little I can to alleviate current problems. Northwest Coast art has given me hours of pleasure and learning, and I want to repay those hours with more than simple payment for each piece. I’d like to think that the award would help a student a little in the short term and in the long term maybe help them to launch their careers.

Compared to the other awards that the school gives, the Mature Student Award is starting off slowly. But I hope that it will eventually match the other awards, and become self-perpetuating.

If you are an artist, an art dealer, or someone who appreciates Northwest Coast art, please consider donating to the Mature Student Award. But don’t contact me. Instead, please contact Jill Girodat, the Associate Registrar at the Terrace campus of Northwest Community College at 250-638-5477 or jgirodat AT nwcc DOT bc DOT ca.

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Mike Dangeli: Traditional art in a modern life

Posted in aboriginal art, art, British Columbia, Bruce Byfield, ceremonial art, First Nations art, indian art, Mike Dangeli, Nisga'a, Northwest Coast Art, Personal, Tlingit, Tsimshian, Uncategorized, Vancouver, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on December 8, 2009| 4 Comments »

“I’ve been doing art all my life,” Mike Dangeli, the up and coming Northwest Coast artist says. But although he identifies himself mainly as an artist, you cannot talk to him for very long before realizing that he is also many other things — a member of the Git Hayetsk Dancers, the heir to a chieftainship, and a man passionately committed to living in the culture of his Nisga’a, Tlingit, and Tsimshian ancestors within the context of modern technological society. Nor can you separate any of these things from the others, because Dangeli is at least as well known for his artistic work for ceremonies and regalia as for his commercial offerings.

Mike Dangeli

The interconnections go a long way back, although Dangeli took some time to bring them all together. He got his start in art early, making his own dance regalia when he was four or five with his grandmother, artist Louise Barton-Dangeli. He went on to learn acrylics, water colors and oils from her, as well cedar pouches, bags, and beaded necklaces.

At the same time, he learned “everything from weaving to painting to beadwork” from his mother, Arlene Roberts, both individually and as part of the yearly programs at the Chilkoot Cultural Camp in southeast Alaska.

At the camp, he learned from its organizers, Richard and Julie Folta and Tlingit artist Austin Hammond . From an old couple he only remembers as Mr. and Mrs. King, he also learned how to make drums — “that’s everything from taking a deer skin and scraping off the fat to making your own rawhide to string the drum,” Dangeli explains. He enjoyed the process so much that he estimates that by the time he became a professional artist at the age of 27, he had made “over five hundred drums.”

Beaver Drum

Another important early experience was spending the summer travelling on the Alaska ferries with his mother and grandmother, stopping at each port to sell what they made. Dangeli recalls that they did well enough to pay for their fares and his clothes for the coming school year. Through this experience, he also learned from his guardians “how to talk to galleries, to tourist shops, and cultural centers.”

Dangeli’s first training in carving came from his uncle in Prince George. “I spent a summer with him learning basic design and carving bowls and helping him with his work,” Dangeli says. “It was a lot harder than it looked, and I was a teenybopper with a lot of different interests.”

The road to an artist’s life

As a young man, Dangeli staged his own form of rebellion by joining the American army as an Air Ranger. He explains, “I’ve heard all my life that I’m in line to take a chief’s name. When you hear something like that all your life and you have to be good because of it, you decide you’re missing out and think, ‘I’m going to do my own thing.'”

The army seemed a natural choice, because he was thinking of going into law enforcement. “I didn’t see myself as an artist and living that kind of of lifestyle.”

Dangeli spent ten years in the military, rising to Staff Sergeant, but continued carving and designing in his spare time, and visiting family members when possible. It was on these visits that he started gaining a more deliberate understanding of his nation’s Angiosk –traditional territory — and Ayaawx — customs.

Adjusting our frame of reference

When he became a reservist, he attended the University of Alaska and working with his uncle Reggie Dangeli, a historian with the Alaska State Historical Commission. Eventually, he transferred to Washington state.

Matters came to a crisis when he got into a fight with another Staff Sergeant. “He said, ‘That’s the problem with you Indians,’ and of course he said effing Indians, so I smacked him up one side of his head.” At least partly because of the experience, Dangeli decided to leave the military, a move that cost him his university funding.

Finding himself in a well-paying but dead end job, Dangeli drifted towards Robert Boxley’s Seattle dance troupe and eventually apprenticed to him. He went through “a nasty divorce” due to his change of lifestyle, and headed “home to the Nass Valley to lick my wounds.”

The trip got sidetracked in Vancouver when he was asked to finish a pole in Woodland Park.

“I didn’t want to do it,” he says. “It wasn’t a very nice chunk of wood, and I didn’t want to do someone else’s work. So I said, ‘If I do it, it won’t be mine. It will be a community project.'” Hiring ten youths, he finished the pole and celebrated its completion with a potlatch — and, in the process, discovered that he had found himself a community.

“It was such a sad little pole,” he says. “It had been stolen twice, spray painted and a chunk was taken off the side, and someone took a Louisville [baseball bat] to it. It was horrible. But I look at it in retrospect as a physical manifestation of where I was in that moment in time — just beat up and kind of sad. It ended up being something very beautiful — not necessarily the totem pole itself, although it’s still up there and humbling to look at, but because it represents a massive amount of growth. What I created was a community here in Vancouver.”

Lifting up my god-son mask

While carving the pole, Dangeli found studio space at the Aboriginal Friendship Centre at Hastings and Commercial. He remains there to his day, running a program called The House of Culture. At first, the program was a cooperative, through which artists passed like Robert Davidson, Reg Davidson, Henry Green, Simon Dick, and Lyle Campbell, as well as younger artists such as Ian Reid and Phil Gray.

More recently, The House of Culture has become a rental space, because “there were a couple of people who had abused the space because they were abusing themselves in their addiction,” as Dangeli explains the situation. Dangeli now shares the space with Woodlands artist Don McIntyre, and Mari Torizane, a Japanese master painter who works as Dangeli’s assistant. Space is also found from time to time for other artists, such as Ian Reid, whom Dangeli regards as a brother.

Such experiences have left him with a strong interest in collaboration. One such result can be seen on the west side of the Friendship Centre, where Dangeli recently painted a mural with Don McIntyre.

Dangeli now works in a variety of media, including stone carving, wood carving, jewelry making, painting, and sculpture. He works twelve to fourteen hours a day and completes 10-30 pieces per month.

“I love a bit of everything,” he says. “You get lost in what you’re working in, so there is no favorite medium. It’s whatever I’m working on. but I always have five of six projects on the go in various stages. You get bored with one and you want to pick up something else. but then the clock’s ticking on a couple of pieces, and you’ve got to get going on them.”

Ceremonial, commissioned, and commercial art

“What’s become really important to me is the performance and ceremonial part of our art,” Dangeli says. “You can ask every Northwest Coast artist, and they’ll tell you that some of the best carvers and west coast artists are the ones who have an understanding of ceremony. It’s a lot different than creating something for the galleries.”

Part of the difference is that a mask intended to be danced “needs the inside to be functional. It needs to be carved to the dimensions of the face of the person who’s wearing the mask.”

Another part is the “responsibility and rights and privileges that you learn by attending ceremonies and understanding them.”

However, the largest difference, Dangeli says, is the spirituality. “In our languages, masks were naxnox— ‘beyond human power.’ These naxnox embodied the wind, they embodied the spirits, and were able to connect us to that spirit world. There’s an understanding that if you don’t treat these naxnox right, they’ll bite you.

“And I’ve seen that happen. I’ve seen a guy who played around too much with a mask and he was dancing on stage at this one event, and he fell right off the stage. It was a good five foot drop. That was part of the mask saying, ‘I didn’t appreciate that.’ I’ve seen it happen in our own dance group. I’ve even had it happen to me.”

Another consideration is the stories that are told in ceremonial and commercial art. “With a lot of our naxnox, there’s an oral history that’s owned by families that I don’t have the right to go and use. There’s even traditions that belong to my family that I would never go and openly sell. When I do art for potlatching or for individuals who ask me for things that display their clan crest, there’s always a different price. I don’t ever charge the full price in these cases, because the best payment is having one of your pieces used. It’s more of an exchange” of services or goods or artwork.

By contrast, “when I’m doing things for a gallery, there are certain stories that are universal to everybody” that can be used instead. Dangeli suggests that this is not a limitation, so much as a situation that calls upon his ingenuity as an artist. He likens the distinction to his experience of dancing, where there are some dances that are not recorded and others that are brought out for public performance.

Dangeli acknowledges that other artists do not observe the same distinctions, but seems to feel that their choices are not his business. “I find it really sad when I see artists breaking those laws [about what can be publicly displayed], but it’s up to their elders, their chiefs and their matriarchs to put them back into line, not us as artists. Although there are some things you look at and think, ‘Gosh, I can’t believe they did that.'”

These distinctions are increasingly easy for Dangeli to observe because, while he has had work in galleries, today, commissions and ceremonial work mean that he does not rely on the commercial art market to make his living. While he praises some galleries like the Eagle Spirit and the Leora Lattimer Gallery, and speaks of their owners with respect, he is concerned that meeting the galleries’ needs can be restrictive for artists.

In fact, in some cases, dealing with galleries can be “abusive,” he says. He recalls selling a drum and a mask to one gallery, and being told by the owner, “‘Now, don’t go drinking this all up in one spot.’ So I looked at him and said, ‘I don’t need this,’ and I ripped up the cheque and handed it back, and took my pieces.”

This experience was reinforced a few years ago by an incident online in which his building and launching of a canoe received condescending criticism from an academic, and others rallied around him.

“It was really wonderful having support from my own people, indigenous people, and people from museums from all over the place, and I let go of that final fear about what people think of my art. It’s none of my business. If you like it, you like it. If you don’t, that’s fine. I think [this attitude] has made me a better artist, and that taking on more commissions has helped me to focus on more personal items and concentrating more on things for potlatches. It’s wonderful to have that freedom, and I would wish it for every artist.”

Art and the community

Dangeli takes his role as an interpreter of his culture seriously. “There is a responsibility, because artists are our historians. They are people who are able to act as a conduit between our culture and our people to the outside world. They’re historians, they’re writers, they’re creators of things that will be used inside those ceremonies. So, yeah, there’s a lot of importance in being a leader and an artist.”

For Dangeli in particular, this responsibility and importance is augmented because he is heir to two chieftainships, one of which he grew up expecting to inherit and one which he has only recently become heir to. This situation, he says, “has affected me in wanting to convey more of my messages. And taking on that larger chieftainship means that I have more responsibilities, both financially and culturally. Financially in the way of making sure that I can get home to attend feasts and potlatches, culturally by being able to create things for my people. It has affected some of what I create and definitely the responsibility not to do anything embarrassing as well.”

Sunset

However, asked if artists help to restore pride to First Nations communities, Dangeli characterizes the idea as an outsider’s view. “I think that, as an outsider looking in, yeah, it could be construed that way. But are you being made aware of it because individual artists are opening your eyes to what’s going on inside those communities? Because, growing up and witnessing all these wonderful things happening within my community, there’s always been pride. There’s always been this sense of beauty and right and wrong and putting your best foot forward. A lot of artists, especially in the generation before mine, have all grown up with that responsibility.

“There’s a huge responsibility being an artists and growing up in that culture, which is why some artists choose not to be part of it. It is too much responsibility. Everyone always wants you to create things for some sort of giveaway or to do this or that. So there has to be a balance.” For instance, Dangeli will often repurpose a piece, or ask permission to make a print of an original painting, so that he can respond to a request without taking too much of his time. He cites Joe David and Beau Dick as two of the older artists who are models of how to find this sort of balance.

“We have a responsibility because we’re able to function in so many worlds, whether it be the white world, within the art world — and it’s not just the art world, it’s the First Nation’s art world as well — within our communities, culturally, and academically and with art historians. I’ve been able to walk in all these worlds, and been intimidated in all of them.

“I remember when Mique’l [his financee] had moved up here. I was looking through some of the readings she had to do for her Master’s in Art History, and I became worried because art historians analyze everything. And I was like, ‘Look, I was poor this month, and people will say, this is Mike Dangeli’s blue period because I didn’t have anything else but blue paint. That was part of my fear: Is what I’m doing now going to be analyzed and picked apart twenty, forty years down the line?. And that was something else I had to let go.”

But, for all the fears, the responsibilities, the obligations and the need for balance, Dangeli clearly remains committed to all that he has taken on. “I love what I do. It’s not a job, and it’s not a career –although it is both — it’s a passion. I absolutely love it. So to be able to have that opportunity to take what’s inside me, to make my thoughts tangible –”

He trails off for a second, then starts in a new direction.

“I’m able only to put out so much in thirty or forty years. That’s a short time in a person’s life. And I started this when I was a little older than most artists. I was 27 when I decided to become a professional artist. so I have a lot of catching up to do. And, at the same time, I’m grateful to be able to create art and to have people see value in it.”

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James Hart, the White Raven, and Forton

Posted in aboriginal art, art, art appreciation, Bill Reid, British Columbia, Bruce Byfield, Celebration of Bill Reid pole, Don Yeoman, Douglas Reynolds Gallery, First Nations art, forton, Haida, indian art, James Hart, Northwest Coast Art, Personal, Raven, Uncategorized, Vancouver, West Coast art, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on December 6, 2009| Leave a Comment »

Northwest Coast art has a new medium. It’s called forton, and it’s a mixture of gypsum, fiberglass and plastics, and has the advantages of being non-toxic, lightweight, weather resistant, and capable of imitating anything from marble to plaster or bronze. So far, you can see the largest collection of sculptures in forton in Vancouver at the Douglas Reynolds Gallery, including one cast from James Hart’s Celebration of Bill Reid pole that was officially presented to the public on December 5.

The Celebration of Bill Reid pole is a permanent fixture at the Bill Reid Gallery in downtown Vancouver. Carved by James Hart with the help of Ernest Swanson, Tyson Brown, Carl Hart, and GwaLiga Hart, the pole is topped by a raven whose chest is a stylized version of Bill Reid’s face. Through the Douglas Reynolds Gallery, eighteen copies of the raven are being made in forton – six imitating plaster, and 12 bronze, including three artist proofs.

Hart spoke briefly at the launch, arriving after the crowd had already gathered and was well into the buffet and wine. A tall man with long gray hair, he wore a bright Guatemalan jacket and carried a string of trade beads in his hands that someone gave him as he came in the door. He walked with a stoop and a slight hesitation. As he stood halfway up the stairs in the gallery, he was surprisingly soft-spoken for a well-known artist who is also a chief.

Hart spoke briefly about the pole and its intent to honor Bill Reid. He explained that he not only learned carving from Reid, but how to survive in the city, including such details as how to use an elevator, something he had rarely encountered in his rural youth. Turning to the plaster raven in the corner, he emphasized that it was a white raven, a representation of the trickster before he stole the moon and was singed black in his effort to escape with it through the smoke hole.

Afterwards, I managed to talk briefly to him as he mingled with the crowd. He said that the project was his first effort to work in forton, and that he liked the way it could be carved and was resistant to weather. He also expressed his enthusiasm for the new medium and designs that younger artists from all the local first nations were developing the traditional art forms.

Until the new raven cast, most of the works in forton that I’ve seen were done by Don Yeoman at the Douglas Reynolds Gallery. However, Reynolds mentioned the side of a house in Whistler that recently had several dozen forton panels added to one side, and I suspect that any artists who encounter it are likely to be as interested in it as Hart seemed to be.

One look at the cast and you can understand why. Made from a mold of the cedar original, the pseudo-plaster cast picks up so much detail that you can actually see the wood grain and tool marks in it. With forton offering so many benefits and no drawbacks so far as I can discover, I strongly suspect that, just as local first nations artists adopted to argillite a century and half ago and glass in the last few decades, many are going to seize on forton as yet another medium for their work.

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Gwaai Edenshaw: “Healing Ring”

Posted in aboriginal art, art, art appreciation, British Columbia, Bruce Byfield, first nations, First Nations art, Gwaai Edenshaw, indian art, Northwest Coast Art, Personal, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on November 25, 2009| 1 Comment »

The stories of Raven stealing the light or Raven prying open a shell that contains the first people continue to inspire great art, and have the advantage of being no single family’s property. But they are only a fraction of the stories and themes that could be told in Northwest Coast art. That is why, when I buy art, I am always interested in less often heard subjects – the change is interesting to me, and, I hope, a change of pace for the artists as well.

A case in point: “Healing Ring,” the second of the rings made for us by up and coming artist Gwaai Edenshaw (the other ring was “Raven and Crows,” which I blogged about earlier).

Here’s how Gwaai Edenshaw himself describes the ring. He was talking with us as he wrote and using a soft pencil, so I have had to guess here and there as I transcribed:

[The] centre of the ring is Fungus Man, made famous in the story of Raven and the First People. The only [one] of Raven’s helpers that was strong enough to face the feminine energy/sprit, and bring it to humanity. This character was likely Fomitopsis Officinalis. This is a shelf fungus that is analogous to a Chinese medicine (in fact one of Chinese Medicine’s most prized medicines). It was almost definitely used by Haida shamans. Samples of it have been found among shaman’s effects (this was thought to be wooden carvings until a recent test of the wood revealed it to be Fornitopsis. Fungus Man appears out of a bush of K’waay K’ia (Indian Hellebore), a very important medicine to us. Like many medicines it has potential for toxicity, but in the hands of the right practitioner it is a true marvel.

Also called Laricifomes officinalis, the fungus is almost extinct in Europe, but is found in old growth forests in the Pacific Northwest. In various locales, it has been used to treat tuberculosis, pneumonia, asthma, rheumatoid arthritis, infection, and smallpox, and to ensure long life.

I believe that the appearance of the fungus on the ring is one of the first instances in which Edenshaw has combined his interests in Haida botany and art. In fact, aside from what appears to be tobacco leaves and European-influenced floral designs in some argillite work, flora of any sort is rare in Haida art, although some mainland nations have floral crests, such as the Gitksan Fireweed clan.

Edenshaw continues:

On the reverse side is a pair of herons. These are the helper in a number of stories, notably the Gunarsiargit story where they play a small but critical role in the story’s namesake fulfilling his destiny.

More specifically, a heron often dwells on the edge of the village, some distance away from the inhabited houses. This locale reflects the heron’s often lone habits, but might also suggest a shaman, since shamans often lived and certainly were buried separately from everyone else.

For me, these are the kind of details that, when combined with artistic skill, can make Northwest Coast art so satisfying to me. They offer not only aesthetic pleasure, but, for a European ethnic like me a small window into the cultures that produce them. And Edenshaw, besides being a gold smith with a genuine feel for the metal, is also clearly someone deeply knowledgable about his culture as well.

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Gwaai Edenshaw: “Raven and Crows Ring”

Posted in aboriginal art, art, art appreciation, Bruce Byfield, crows, First Nations art, gold work, Gwaai Edenshaw, Haida, indian art, Northwest Coast Art, Personal, ravens, rings, Uncategorized, Vancouver, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on November 18, 2009| Leave a Comment »

One way that you know an artist is talented is when other artists are eager for their work. Gwaai Edenshaw is in that enviable position among the Northwest Coast artists who live in Vancouver. A some-time botanist and Bill Reid’s last apprentice, he works largely in gold, although he has been known to sketch, carve wood, and even experiment with animation. Having admired his work since we first saw it, Trish and I recently celebrated our anniversary by buying two of his rings.

Mine is based on an episode in “Raven Traveling,” the Haida narrative of the Trickster’s wanderings near the beginning of time. On the beach, the raven encounters a group of crows. They begin to cook a salmon. The raven falls asleep, but the crows can’t wait for him to wake, and devour the salmon. Belatedly, they realize that the raven will be angry when he rouses, so they take the remaining crumbs of salmon, and wedge them between his teeth. When the raven wakes, hungry for his meal, they point out the crumbs and ask, “Don’t you remember? You ate it before you went to sleep.” Angry at the deception, Raven throws the crows into the fire, turning them forever from white to black.

I appreciate the story for its broad humor, as well as its extrapolation from nature; crows really do mob ravens, especially when their young are in the nest. If crows could play practical jokes on ravens, they undoubtedly would. Also, the story is not one of the ones that is generally depicted, like raven’s stealing of the light, or even his theft of the salmon from the beavers.

I suggested the subject to Edenshaw, and waited with all the patience that anticipation would allow for six months until he had time to get to it.

The result was more than worth the wait. Edenshaw chose a style that fits the humor of the story, showing the raven with his beak open and crows rollicking around him, pushing the crumbs of salmon into his mouth and their beaks open in excitement, no doubt chortling with glee at the thought of putting one over on their rival.

Since the raven has teeth in the story, and the Haida storytellers must have had plenty of chances to notice that birds have none, I assume that he must have been in human form when he met the crows. However, the fact that Edenshaw chose to show the raven as a bird with teeth in his beak does not detract, any more than the teeth in the beak of the parrot in Aladdin. It is a comic touch, and the result is reminiscent of the lively cartoons that you see in the margins of medieval manuscripts. I especially like the mischievous crow that is pushing a piece of salmon along the raven’s back (You can see the crow’s beak just behind the top of the raven’s head).

At the same time, I appreciate the economy and skill with which Edenshaw rendered the story. Like a business card (only more so), a ring provides a very limited space for depicting anything, yet Edenshaw manages to focus on the main event of the story, while selectively choosing details so that, while the feathers on raven’s head are not visible, the pieces of salmon clearly are. The detail is all the more amazing when you consider that the ring is cast, not engraved.

So far as I am concerned, Edenshaw produced a ring that is utterly unique, and wonderfully rich in humor and detail. After wearing it for several weeks, and having appreciated the small extra touches with which it was delivered (in a small wooden box, with the promise that the mold would be kept, in case the original was lost), I fully intend to buy more of Gwaai Edenshaw’s work. But if, as I suspect, his prices rise as he receives the recognition he deserves, at least we have a couple of samples of his work to console ourselves.

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Northwest Coast Art and Scholasticism

Posted in aboriginal art, art, art appreciation, British Columbia, Bruce Byfield, First Nations art, indian art, Northwest Coast Art, Personal, scholasticism, Uncategorized, Vancouver, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on November 1, 2009| Leave a Comment »

I appreciate Northwest Coast art for many reasons. It is semi-abstract, which always captures my imagination. It has a historical and sociological aspect, so I can combine intellectual and aesthetic interests. It is the art of my home, although not of my culture. But, sometimes, I think that my main reason for buying Northwest Coast art is that it is one of the few modern forms that remains largely unaffected by scholasticism.

By “scholasticism,” I refer to the modern trend in many of the arts for artists to be more interested in theories or concepts than in craft or any general audience. It is a trend that has occupied most of the twentieth century, and continues to prevail in the 21st. I’ve seen it first hand in poetry and literature, and it seems equally prevalent in music, painting, and dance. It is the approach that Tom Wolfe slammed, outrageously and a little unfairly in architecture when he wrote From Bauhaus to Our House.

Under scholasticism, what matters is the theory behind it. Before anything else, what interests the artists of scholasticism is demonstrating that they can put the theory into practice. Their work tends to be crammed with obscure references and in-jokes, and their talk is usually more about the theory than the work itself. It creates a vicious circle, with artists losing audiences because of their obscure practices, then retreating into even obscurer theory in reaction to the lack of audience.

While exceptions exist, Northwest Coast art seems largely free of such attitude. Beginners may be told to read Bill Holm to understand the mysteries of formline, but nobody reacts when someone breaks the alleged rules, or strikes out in a new direction, as the Salish artists have in the last few decades. Similarly, while many artists have experimented with the forms of modern art, few seem to become obsessed with the theories behind the forms.

Why Northwest Coast art has been spared this obsession is probably complex. But it is not because the art is in any way primitive, any more than Celtic knotwork is primitive. Such forms can be dismissed as primitive or romantic only to those who have not bothered to learn about them.

Nor is it naive. Many Northwest Coast artists are just as prone to in-jokes as any mainstream artists, but the difference is that the jokes are an extra layer of meaning, not the only one, nor even the most important one most of the time.

Nor does the reason has anything to do with the rigidity of change, or even the marketplace. For the last century and a half, Northwest Coast artists have seized on new media whenever they have had the chance. Argillite, glass, aluminum, canvas – each of these has been eagerly adopted as soon as it became available. The same is true of tools, from steel engraving tools to power tools. And, as often as not, the artists have begun work with new media and tools with only a few denouncements from their peers, people, or clients.

If anything, this versatility may have helped Northwest Coast artists take scholastic art in their stride. Although scholasticism is all about breaks with the past – often, the nosier the better – few Northwest Coast artists seem to consider new media, tools, or techniques a radical departure. This attitude has become very apparent in the Bill Reid Gallery’s current Continuum show, in which the curators’ efforts to start a dialog about the differences between traditional and contemporary first nations art has met with very limited success. Almost all the artists in the show make clear that they don’t see such an opposition.

Another reason for the freedom from scholasticism may be that, unlike modern mainstream artists, Northwest Coast artists tend not feel deracinated. Their art is not only an expression of their cultures, but a statement that their cultures are alive and thriving. Even those who did not grow up in their cultures generally feel an urge to know more about their origins as their art develops, and, for many in their communities, the success of Northwest Coast art is an obvious source of pride. Rediscovering and proclaiming their cultures, perhaps, is more than enough of an agenda to be going on with.
Not only that, but Northwest Coast art has genuine popularity, both among the first nations cultures of the coast and a small segment of the general art-buying public.

Admittedly, this popularity is not an unalloyed good. I have heard artists complain about being limited in their subject matter because something too esoteric won’t sell. Some artists, too, are tempted by the tourist trade, and start producing cheap curios rather than art. In addition, the popularity of the art form ties too many artists to the gallery system, and allows a handful of gallery owners far too much influence on what the public sees.

However, this popularity still gives Northwest Coast artists a huge advantage over their mainstream counterparts. Unlike mainstream artists, Northwest Coast artists know their work is appreciated – sometimes for the wrong reason, sometimes condescendingly, but appreciated all the same. Much of the public art in British Columbia is from the first nations, and, internationally, probably only art from the American Southwest is more eager sought after. In their own cultures, art is increasingly wanted for potlatches and ceremonial purposes.

Unlike many mainstream artists, Northwest Coast artists – even the most reclusive ones – have a dialogue with their audiences. They may not always like what they hear or agree with it, but they can still count on a degree of interest that mainstream artists can hardly imagine. So long as that interest remains, I suspect, it is hard to imagine scholasticism ever getting much of a hold in Northwest Coast art.

Why disengage and retreat into the cloisters when you have people who want to talk about your art? After all, that is what most artists want, even those who are most deeply into scholasticism – an audience that engages their work.

I used to wonder why mainstream art events so rarely included first nations artists in Vancouver. The communities seem very separate, even though a few people like Andrew Dexel or Sonny Assu seem to cross between them. The answer, I now believe, is that the two communities are so different that communication is difficult. Their approaches, attitudes, and perspectives are so much opposed to one another that the surprising thing is not that some Northwest Coast artists are exploring the mainstream. The surprising thing is that any have managed to do so at all. But, apparently, Northwest Coast Arti is in such a healthy state that it can even absorb attitudes that are opposite to its core assumptions without any real difficulty.

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John Wilson’s “Shaman and His Helpers”

Posted in aboriginal art, art, art appreciation, British Columbia, Bruce Byfield, First Nations art, Freda Diesing School of Northwest Coast Art, Haisla, indian art, Northwest Coast Art, Personal, shaman, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on October 28, 2009| Leave a Comment »

One of the pleasures of buying work from beginning artists is watching them fulfill their potential. Last January, I saw enough promise in John Wilson’s work to buy one of his masks. Now, in masks like “Shaman and His Helpers,” his work has reached its first maturity.

Compared to most of Wilson’s earlier works, “Shaman and His Helpers” is a busy piece, both in subject and execution. It benefits, too, from Wilson’s study of traditional masks through pictures, the most obvious benefit being the use of eye holes instead of painted irises and pupils.

The mask depicts a shaman and his spirit helpers. One of the spirit helpers sits in the shaman’s mouth, as though resting after a long climb up his esophagus. The other sits in the middle of his forehead like a frontlet. Both these positions suggest that the helpers are indicators of the shaman’s true nature.

The helpers look more or less human, but the one in the mouth is in a vaguely frog-like position, while the one on the forehead is round enough to be a moon. While the shaman’s eyes are narrowed as though he is entering a trance, both helpers have closed eyes, as if asleep or focusing inwardly.

One way or the other, you sense, the shaman’s and the helpers’ eyes are going to be in the same state shortly: Either the shaman is about to enter their world of perception or else the spirits will come into his. No matter which happens, the result is a mask of a half-realized transition.

Interestingly, too, the spirit on the forehead is painted similarly to the shaman, while the spirit at the mouth is left unpainted. That may be an artistic decision made because any paint would be overwhelmed by the red of the shaman’s lips. But the effect is to suggest that the spirits are in some ways opposite.
Are the spirits different aspects of the shaman’s nature? Or perhaps the helper in the mouth is unrevealed, a creature of the dark, and the moon-like one on the forehead is a creature of light? At the point portrayed in the mask, they do not seem at odds, so perhaps they are opposites needed for balance and insight. Whatever the case, a moment of magic and transition is depicted.

The awe of the moment is heightened by the design of the mask. Tall, thin masks are common in the northern tradition, but in this case, the physical dimensions suggest a lean asceticism that seems fitting for a shaman. This asceticism is heightened by the high cheekbones and the deepness of the eye sockets near the nose, which suggest that the shaman might have been fasting. The black eyebrows reinforce this sense of gauntness, especially in a bright light that emphasizes the cheekbones and eye sockets.

At the same time, the mask carries a hint of menace or pain. Especially from a distance, the hands of the spirit in the mouth suggest fangs. Similarly, the unusually bright red used in the mask leave a half-unconscious impression of blood, as though the shaman’s trance is accompanied by a nosebleed and his biting of his own lip. Or perhaps the redness of the lips suggests that the shaman is giving a sort of birth to the spirit clinging to his lips. The suggestions are understated – there are no blatant riverlets of blood trickling from the nostrils or down the chin – but they are only more effective for being subtle.

And always the grain, which Wilson has carefully matched to the contours of the face, stands out, suggesting a movement or fluidity just below the skin. Influenced by his teachers at the Fred Diesing School, Wilson has always shown an awareness of the grain as a finishing detail, but here that awareness is not just a reflection of technical skill, but also an addition to the design.

When this mask first went on the market, I missed the chance to buy it, and cursed my slowness to make a decision. Luckily for me, the first owner changed their mind, and I was able to buy it after all. The more I study “Shaman and His Helpers,” the more I think it is Wilson’s best mask to date. At the same time, knowing that he is a constant carver and likely to have decades to continue his learning of his craft, I can’t wait to see what levels he will reach next.

shaman-and-helpers

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Nicholas Galanin, concept art and the Northwest Coast tradition

Posted in aboriginal art, art, art appreciation, Bill Reid, Bill Reid Gallery, British Columbia, Bruce Byfield, First Nations art, indian art, Michael Dangeli, Nicholas Galanin, Northwest Coast Art, Personal, Tlingit, Uncategorized, Vancouver, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on October 24, 2009| 3 Comments »

This afternoon, I heard Tlingit artist Nicholas Galanin speak at the Bill Reid Gallery. His talk was my first prolonged exposure to concept art applied to Northwest Coast art. I came away stimulated, but not particularly sympathetic to the effort.

Galanin is the latest of several generations of artists, and has done some jewelry in the traditional style. However, at least for the time being, he is not especially interested in traditional art or culture. He talked about traditional art as being confined by the stereotypes imposed by a romantic view of first nations, and – rather tellingly – could not tell where he obtained a traditional song he used in a video, even though in coast cultures, rights in songs and their performance can be important pieces of property. [Note: Both Galanin and Sonny Assu tell me that it was not the traditional song whose source Galanin didn’t know, but a hiphop song that was part of the same work. See the comments below. I apologize for the error].

Instead, Galanin is more interested in exploring the First Nations as another ethnic minority within the dominant culture – in particular, how coastal images are bastardized and exploited by cheap imitations made in Asia for the tourist trade in the Northwest Coast. He discussed, for example, a series of masks he made out of pages of the Bible, talking about how he found it appropriate that the holy book of Christians, who suppressed shamanism, should be converted into a shaman mask. Galanin also talked other paper masks he had made and how they were masks by a first nations person that showed no signs of first nations culture.

Other projects he discussed involved embedding tourist-trade masks in a wall covered with wallpaper that depicted idealized pictures of 19th century life and another in which the same type of masks were covered in Chinoserie. In a pair of videos, he had a traditional dancer (or an approximation of one) and a modern dancer moving to the same traditional song. In yet another series of work, he gave his version of the highly idealized photos of Edward Curtis: naked women with masks added in a graphics editor.

Meanwhile, ten meters from the podium where he stood was his contribution to the Bill Reid Gallery’s Continuum show: A version of Bill Reid’s “Raven and First Men” rendered by a chainsaw. Galanin was seeing his version of the famous sculpture for the first time, because he had outsourced the work – as he does much of his work.

The outsourcing is a commentary on commercialism, but I also had the sense that for Galanin what matters is not the actual work so much as the concept. Apparently, he sees his role as that of impresario, rather than as an artist who necessarily creates works with his own hand.

Having been a grad student in an English department of a major university, I am tolerably well-versed in such approaches to art. Nor do I find anything in Galanin’s social commentary with which I disagree.

But I wonder if I am missing something, because I have never found this kind of concept art very compelling.

For one thing, it seems to have little room for something that is central to my own appreciation of art – the enjoyment of craft, of sheer artistic excellence. Part of this lack may be that it does not delve deeply into tradition, so it has no standards to judge skill by. But the major reason for the lack seems to be that, when you are making a comment, craft becomes unimportant or perhaps a distraction.

Moreover, when you are commenting on commercialism, too much craft is probably out of place. If anything, your message is stronger if an object shows a lack of craft.

This situation helps create another problem: most concept art, including Galanin’s, is like a symphony of a single note. If your ideal is the “well-made object” of Bill Reid’s aesthetics, then viewers can return to it many times, and even discover something new after the first viewing. In comparison, concept art seems simple and to offer few reasons to return to it. Once you have grasped the message – which is often simple enough that you can reduce it to a single sentence, or at least a rather short paragraph – nothing is left to appreciate. Concept art seems to be unambiguous and unsubtle by nature, and, consequently, not very interesting.

In this respect, it is interesting to compare Galanin’s chainsaw Bill Reid knockoff with Mike Dangeli’s ridicule mask, which is also in the Continuum show. Where Galanin’s “Raven and the First Immigrants” seems one-dimensional, Dangeli has reached into his cultural history to bring an old concept into the future: just as the ridicule masks of the past were public announcements of a wrong, so Dangeli’s is a declaration of the wrongs suffered from the first nations. Dangeli’s mask is every bit as social or political as Galanin’s sculpture, but where Galanin’s sculpture seems facile, Dangeli’s mask is ambiguous and complex. And I doubt it is a coincidence that Dangeli is throughly involved in preserving and reviving his culture while Galanin sounds like a typical deracinated intellectual.

But such issues are a matter of taste. Regardless of what I think of Galanin’s work, I have to admit that the very fact that it takes the form that it does illustrates the diversity of Northwest Coast art and proves it a living tradition. And that by itself, I suspect, is something of value.

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The Vancouver 2010 Aboriginal Art Exhibition

Posted in Aaron Nelson-Moody, aboriginal art, Alano Edzerza, art, art exhibits, British Columbia, Bruce Byfield, Corrine Hunt, Dean Heron, First Nations art, Northwest Coast Art, olympics, Personal, Vancouver, Vancouver 2010 Aboriginal Art Exhibition, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on October 18, 2009| 4 Comments »

I’m not looking forward to the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver. I never watch sports, and I’m concerned about the costs, traffic, and the virtual declaration of martial law during the games. The fact that I once dreamed of being in the Olympics myself only makes me angrier at the travesty that they have become.

Still, I could almost reconcile myself to the games for the sake of all the First Nations art commissioned for them. Some of that art was on display this weekend at the Aboriginal Art Exhibition at Canada Place this weekend, and I thoroughly enjoyed it – even if the lack of organization at the event seems ominous if it is a foretaste of how the games themselves will be run.

Being appreciative of the commissioned art is something you can file under No-Brainer. I mean, what’s not to like about the art? There’re medals with Corrine Hunt designs, commemorative coins by Jody Broomfield. The snowboarding pavilion at Cypress Bowl will have a wall graced with a new work by Dean Heron. GM Place will have a new work by Alano Edzerza, Nat Bailey Stadium a new work by Aaron Nelson-Moody, and the list goes on and on.

After fumbling badly by making the symbol of the game the inukshuk – a symbol that has nothing to do with British Columbia, much less Vancouver – the games organizers have had the sense to commission locally, focusing on less established artists and on members of the Salish nation, whose territory the Vancouver venues are on. I understand that some 45 works of public art will be added to the Lower Mainland as a result of the games, and I consider that an unalloyed good.

Sadly, though, the Olympic organizers fumbled again in their first efforts to bring most of these works to the public. The display was almost completely unpublicized except for newspaper stories just before the event and some Internet transmission. Even then, it was called an exhibition, so that most people arrived unaware that most of the work on display was for sale – an oversight that bitterly disappointed the artists who had taken tables and paid the exorbitant prices charged for parking at Canada Place.

Even worse, the management of the event was haphazard. I heard artists complain that they were unable to set up for credit or debit cards, and the rumor was that the one bank machine in the exhibit hall required a substantial surcharge to use.

And perhaps the worst thing was that, in order to fill up the hall, the organizers seem to have let anyone exhibit who cared to pay for the table. As a result, many tables displayed tourist junk that did not belong in the same exhibit as the commissioned artists.

For me, the incompetence of the organizing was summed up by the sight of two singers on the stage gamely belting out songs to rows of empty chairs, and a snack bar that had closed down at least two hours before the end of the show. Meanwhile, the exhibitors were strolling around talking to each other.

Such poor planning undermines the celebration of the artists. My impression is that the exhibition organizers couldn’t have cared less if the artists were treated with respect.

Perhaps the organizers can learn, but if this is how they put on such a relatively small event, then we should expect chaos during the games themselves. I might be lured downtown to see the aboriginal market at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre, but I, for one, plan to spend the three weeks of the games bunkered down safely in Burnaby, far away from the insanity.

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Devilfish pendant by Henry Green

Posted in aboriginal art, art, art appreciation, art buying, British Columbia, Bruce Byfield, Coastal Peoples Gallery, devilfish, First Nations art, Henry Green, indian art, Northwest Coast Art, octopus, Personal, squid, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on October 10, 2009| 2 Comments »

My revived interest in Northwest Coast art dates to nearly two years ago, when I commissioned a copper bracelet from Henry Green. So, naturally, I’ve kept an ongoing interest in what Green was doing – an interest that has been further reinforced by mutual acquaintances and by meeting Green when I was in Terrace for the Freda Diesing School graduation show last April. But, until this last week, I hadn’t bought anything else by Green.

The lack of purchases was definitely not a lack of interest. Although I didn’t realize the fact when I commissioned the bracelet, Green is one of the two leading Tsimshian artists working today (the other is Robert A. Boxley), and probably the premier jeweler. His engraving is exceptionally fine, and his invention is high, although it rarely strays far from tradition.

Moreover, his jewelry is exceptionally well-priced, perhaps because he doesn’t want to set too high a pricing standard for other artists, or perhaps because his income comes largely from poles and large commissions. He could easily get two or three times what he charges, which makes a silver pendant from him one of the best buys you can find in Northwest Coast art. The only real reason for not buying another of his pieces until now was simply that the artists whose work I want to buy far outstrip my income, especially in this last year of recession.

Several months ago at Alano Edzerza’s Gift of the Raven opening, I had seen and appreciated casts of combined pendants and broaches by Green representing some of the Tsimshian house crests. As is inescapable with casts, the pendants suffered from an obvious loss of detail, but I appreciated them all the same. When Morgan Green, Henry’s daughter, sold some to help finance her way through art school (presumably with permission, although I keep have visions of her sneaking into the family workshop at night), we bought a cast of the mosquito pendant from her.

But the cast we really wanted was the devilfish. Consequently, when I stumbled across the engraved original at Coastal People’s, I bought it as soon as I could afford it.

What first struck me about the pendant is its irregular shape. Distorting the design to fit its surface is common in Northwest Coast art, but, in this case (and several of the pendants from the same set), Green has chosen to distort the surface to fit the design. Rather than squeezing the devilfish into an oval or some other pendant shape, he decided instead to let the pendant take the shape of the devilfish instead.

At the same time, within the shape, Green has distorted the shape even though the shape does not require him to. I have seen a number of Northwest Coast designs for a squid or octopus, and almost always they are depicted in a flat, semi-realistic style. However, Green’s tangle of body and tentacles (which are reduced to three, just enough to give a suggestion), although more abstract, captures more of the feel of a devilfish’s irregular movements than a realistic portrayal.

Since the irregular movement is probably what most people see first when they encounter a live octopus or squid (even in a tide pool), the paradox is that Green’s abstraction is emotionally truer than a literal design. Moreover, because the irregular movements are apt to create uneasiness and fear, by capturing the movements, Green’s pendant suggests why a devilfish might become a household crest. With its outsized, eagle-like beak, Green’s devilfish seems a savage predator, powerful and potentially dangerous.

The large areas of cross-hatching and the parallel lines of dots or brief lines are straight from the traditional Tsimshian repertoire. However, in this pendant, Green adapts these elements for practical purposes, using an unusual filling around the eye to give it an unearthly look and turning the parallel lines into suckers on the tentacles.

At the same time, the placement of the tentacles seems to owe more to Celtic knotwork than traditional Tsimshian work. And, in fact, according to Morgan Green, this resemblance is deliberate, reflecting the fact that his first wife was Scottish, and his children are half-Scottish. However, while Don Yeoman and others have tried to combine Northwest Coast and Scottish design in the same piece, this pendant is one of the few that does so successfully. It does so, I think, by balancing the knotwork with the Tsimshian parallel lines and cross-hatched background, blending the two traditions so they work together.

This blending is worth noticing because I think it points to how Green can innovate within his main tradition. Unlike a beginning artist, Green is not restrained by the tradition, forced to alter his design to fit the tradition and therefore chafing at its limitations. Instead, Green is so utterly familiar with the tradition that he can use its elements for his own purposes. In this pendant, the result of his knowledge is a miniature masterpiece in silver.

henry-green-octopus-pendant

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