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Posts Tagged ‘aboriginal art’

Michael Dangeli: Traditionally Contemporary

Posted in aboriginal art, art, art appreciation, Bill Reid Gallery, Bruce Byfield, First Nations art, indian art, Nisga'a, Personal, Uncategorized, Vancouver, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on October 1, 2009| Leave a Comment »

The Bill Reid Gallery kicked off a series of talks about artists from its Continuum exhibit with a slide show by Michael Dangeli, a Nisga’a artist who has started to receive recognition in the last few years. The choice was lucky or inspired, because Dangeli is more articulate about his work than most artists, and has clearly thought carefully about what he is doing.

The Continuum show is supposed to be about the conflict between traditional and contemporary influences in Northwest Coast art. And, in fact, Dangeli was introduced in terms of this conflict. However, he immediately made clear that he rejects such a dichotomy in his own work. Calling his work “traditionally contemporary,” Dangeli made clear that he considers his work a continuity of the past, both an attempt to reclaim it and to expand and to adopt it.

One reason why Dangeli is comfortable with the paradox of living with opposites is that he sees the rest of his life in such terms. Nisga’a by birth, he has lived in the United States and Vancouver, far from his nation’s territory. Deeply interested in his cultural past, he is also aware that he is a modern urbanite in his day to day life. Spiritually inclined, he is also a veteran of two tours of duty abroad in the American military. With such tensions, those between the traditional and contemporary must seem like just one more.

Another reason that Dangeli can have the attitudes he does is probably the fact that he is actively involved in the cultural revival of his people – something that seems especially unusual for an urbanite. During his discussion, Dangeli talked of pieces of art being given as payment for services, and at potlatches, as well as important events such as a betrothal. He talked, too, of being groomed to take over a chieftainship, and of his hesitation about taking on an even larger chieftainship recently. He talked about his dancing, and of acquiring songs and dances and inventing new ones, and of exploring the distinctions between male and female powers and responsibility with his finacee.

Unlike many First Nations artists, Dangeli seems either fortunate enough or determined enough to have lived with a sense of tradition from an early age. Consequently, it is easier for him than many artists to see a continuity rather than an opposition.

This continuity seems to affect his art very strongly. He talked of preferring that his gallery pieces not have eyes that would make them danceable, and of his relief when he managed to buy back an early exception to this preference. He talked, too, of making one of the first stone masks for well over a century, and having it danced.

But the strongest evidence of his artistic continuity came at the end of his talked, when he uncovered three pieces of his work that are reserved for ceremonial purposes: The mask he bought back and modified with a pieced of Ainu cloth; the stone mask, and a frontlet worn by his fiancee. He explained that he generally kept them covered, and treated them as living spirits, requesting that people look them over a few at a time so as not to overwhelm them. It was unclear to me whether any power in the objects was innate or resided in the respect shown to them, but his attitude was curiously moving.

Even if you didn’t share his cultural background or beliefs, they were obviously alive for him – either never having died or after being carefully revived, or some combination of the two. Clearly, he had fought hard to make them meaningful to himself and those around him, and I believe that he has largely succeeded. At the very least, he demonstrated to the audience that his cultures were still ongoing and hadn’t stopped developing with the European conquest.

All this says nothing directly about his work, which ranges from the traditional to the modern, with a variety of color palettes and a frequent emphasis on collaborations with other artists – or “brothers,” as he called them.

I have liked what I’ve seen of Dangeli’s work in the past, and, by the time he had finished talking, I had a much clearer sense of why, and an increased interest in what he might do in the future. And, really, what more can you ask of an artist’s talk? With several dozen slides and intelligent commentary, Dangeli sets a high standard for the next speakers in the series to match.

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Wayne Young’s “Wolf Clan”

Posted in aboriginal art, Alcheringa Gallery, art, art appreciation, art buying, British Columbia, Bruce Byfield, First Nations art, indian art, Nisga'a, Northwest Coast Art, Personal, Uncategorized, Victoria, Wayne Young, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on August 27, 2009| 2 Comments »

When I wandered into the Alcheringa Gallery in Victoria on a day off, I really wasn’t planning to buy another piece of art. My official excuse was to see the gallery’s “More Than Meets the Eye” show, which included a recent piece by John Wilson, and a twenty-five year old piece by Ron Telek. But when I saw an artist’s proof of Wayne Young’s “Wolf Clan,” a purchase was more or less inevitable.

For one thing, Wayne Young is an artist on my short list. Having learned his craft under Dempsey Bob and his uncles Robert and Norman Tait, like his cousin Ron Telek, Young displays in his work all the characteristics you would expect – imagination, a strong sense of line, and careful attention to finishing – while still managing to display a distinctive style of his own. One of his prints at the Alcheringa Gallery was one of the few renditions of Dogfish Woman that didn’t descend from Charles Edenshaw’s sketch via Bill Reid. Another print that I saw at the same time showed Raven and the First People without being dependent on Bill Reid’s monumental work; in fact, unless I miss my guess, it shows a mussel or a chiton rather than a clam shell.

Just as importantly, something that always fascinates me about Northwest Coast art is how the design is rearranged and constrained by the surface it is on. A flat design can be wrapped around the handle of a ladle, for instance, or rearranged to fit into a round panel. The challenge to the eye is to pick out the details of the design and identify it while enjoying the intricacy.

In the case of “Wolf Clan,” the shape of the design is reminiscent of an argillite pipe. The compressed space contains three wolves, two full sized and one small one, perhaps a cub. Of the small one, only the head can be identified for sure, although perhaps its body and legs are to the right of it or to the left across the two central S-curves. Possibly, it is a killer whale, representing a clan related to the wolves. The wolves on the end show few clear signs of their bodies, with most of the space given to their heads and tails, and, on the left, a single paw.

What is mildly unusual for Northwest Coast art is that it is asymmetrical, with all three heads both facing the same way, and the right side of the share by two of the heads. The two S-shaped areas in the middle – at least one of which is a tail, and possibly both – also create the optical illusion that one side is shorter than the other. However, which one seems shorter depends on which S-shaped area you focus on, and measurement proves that the two halves are about the same length.

Notice, too, the variation of repeated elements, such as the eyes and pupils of the heads, and the secondary elements that surround the head and eye. Even the teeth vary, with the wolf on the left sporting an incisor and the one on the right none. The small head, by contrast, actually seems to have incisors that curl up In much the same way, the stripes on the tail vary as well. Since contemporary design is asymmetrical, the overall impression is of a modern sensibility, even though all the elements, taken one at a time, are traditional.

Even more unusual is the extraordinary variation in the thickness of the formline, ranging from the thick lines of the wolf snouts and heads to the pen-thickness of the outline of the tail in the middle, and the extreme tapering of some of the secondary elements where they join another line. This variation gives “Wolf Clan” a certain angularity, despite the roundness and the sweeping curves throughout the design. The variety also makes a sense of constrained motion in the design, moving the eye along one line until it catches the next one.

“Wolf Clan” is a small piece but it shows all the strengths of Wayne Young’s work. I have noticed recently that we have a disproportionate amount of Nisga’a works among our purchases, probably because of the bold simplicity that features in that nation’s traditional designs. To that tradition, “Wolf Clan” adds an intricacy that I’m sure will intrigue me for years to come.

wolf-clan-lo-res

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The First Nations art of birch bark biting

Posted in aboriginal art, Angelique Merasty, art, art appreciation, Bruce Byfield, First Nations art, indian art, Jadeon Rathgeber, native art, Pat Bruderer, Personal, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on July 31, 2009| 40 Comments »

When you first hear of birch bark biting, it seems so unlikely you might assume that someone is having a joke at your expense.

But the truth is, birch bark biting is one of the most intricate and least known of First Nations arts. Concrete knowledge of the art is hard to come by, but, according to Jadeon Rathgeber of Half Moon Studios, whose mother and sister are two of the last practitioners, birch bark biting was widely practiced through North America for centuries, and very likely millennia. Rathgeber and his family are trying to revive the art, both in education and in business.

birch bark

Birch bark biting is exactly what it sounds like: The making of patterns in bark through careful bites. Traditionally, it is an art done by women, in which the artists fold the bark so that it can fit in their mouths, and visual a pattern as they create it with delicate bites, at times one tooth at a time.

“What I’ve found out about the art is that anywhere they had birch trees, they’ve had birch bark biting,” Rathgeber says. “It could have a ten thousand year old history. Nobody really knows. When Contact happened, it sort of got lost along with all our other ceremonies because it was outlawed.”

What is known is that three century old Chippewa examples are in the Smithsonian in the United States. Rathgeber has heard of a recent dig in Shuswap territory that unearthed samples that may be three thousand years old. The art is definitely known to have been widely practiced in eastern and central North America, and there are even rumors of it being practiced on the northern coast of British Columbia. A student at the Freda Diesing School, for example, reports hearing his teachers list birch bark biting among the lost local arts.

Exactly what samples of the art were used for is equally undocumented. However, Rathgeber suggests that the art may have been used to create hunting and fishing maps, and to pass cultural and ceremonial secrets between generations.

“I call it the first Indian printing press,” Rathgeber says.

Examples of the art may also have been used as the equivalent of wampum belts to commemorate exchanges between different groups. Among the Cree, it was also used in historical times as the pattern of bead work, laid directly over the leather the beads were sown to.

The best-known biter in modern times was Angelique Merasty of the Cree Nation, who lived much of her life in Beaver Lake, Manitoba. Rathgeber’s mother, Pat Bruderer (also known as Half Moon Woman), knew Merasty for over two decades, and sometimes assisted in the sale of her work. When Merasty died about fifteen years ago, Bruderer began teaching herself the craft. Bruderer is now regarded as the foremost birch bark biting artist. Perhaps three or four other biters exist, but none approach her skill.

The making of a piece of birch bark biting begins with the gathering of the raw materials. In Rathgeber’s family, the gathering is usually done by his step-father. The bark is taken by trees of the right size that are free of knots after a tobacco ceremony in which the harvester asks forgiveness for what he is about to take. Large strips are sometimes taken, but never enough to kill the tree.

When Bruderer receives the bark, she sorts out the most suitable pieces, and peels them away until they are only one layer thick. The peeling is a delicate craft in itself, in which one rough motion can destroy a piece of bark. Perhaps that is why, when Rathgeber says, “No one can peel birch bark like my Mom can,” he speaks with such obvious pride.

birch bark2

Bruderer has her own ceremony to put here in the right mood of calm alertness to work. According to Rathgeber, she does not need absolute silence in which to work, but prefers a setting that is quiet where she will not be distracted. She folds the bark up to sixteen times — “like a xylophone,” Rathgeber says – and works using different teeth for different effects, with one tooth for drawing lines, her incisors for shading, and another for large details. She can use only very light pressure, or else the bark will tear.

Even so, she sometimes does as many as five or six pieces before getting one that is up to her standards. Rathgeber reports that his mother has as many as five hundred rejects that he hopes one day to use in collages. Each piece takes a couple of hours to complete, and is usually done in one session, since it would be next to impossible to resume work after quitting.

When a piece is finished, Bruderer flattens her pieces using a secret twelve step technique that is one of the hallmarks of her work. Another mark of her work is the singeing the edges of her work to give it give it a border. Her work is either framed by itself between two pieces of glass, or else incorporated into other work, such as boxes by other artists.

For many years, the family sold Bruderer’s work for two hundred dollars and upwards. However, now, as Bruderer talks of retirement and focusing on preserving her skills by teaching thems to another generation, the family is starting to husband her output more carefully, limiting sales and raising prices considerably.

More importantly, Rathgeber is also searching for a museum or teaching institution to display the best of her work as well as Bruderer’s collection of Merasty’s pieces. He hopes that by making some of this work public, he can encourage academic study of the art – study that might, for example, help to determine how bite patterns differed culturally, or even through the ages.

When I talked with Rathgeber, he had just heard that the Bill Reid Gallery’s gift shop and the Path Gallery at Whistler had agreed to take some pieces of birch bark biting for sale.

Should you see any pieces, you should have no trouble identifying it for what it is. Mysterious and meticulous, birch bark biting is like no other art you have ever seen.

bbb3

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Morgan Green: Mouse Woman Platter

Posted in aboriginal art, art, art appreciation, art buying, British Columbia, Bruce Byfield, ceramics, Edzerza Gallery, First Nations art, Morgan Green, Mouse Woman, native art, Northwest Coast Art, Personal, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on June 30, 2009| Leave a Comment »

I have two great weakness when buying Northwest Coast art: I love to see artists trying out new media, and I love work that shows the lesser-known figures of mythology. With these preferences, it seems inevitable that I would have bought Morgan Green’s Mouse Woman platter.

Morgan Green is a twenty-five year old artist who seems to be in the middle of deciding what art she wants to do. She is represented in the galleries mostly by her painted leather cuffs, but she has also done fashion design, carved masks and poles, and assisted older artists with painting and metal casting. Add an art teacher and potter for a mother and master carver Henry Green for a father, and it is no wonder that she always seems to be galloping off in all directions (in fact, every time I’ve met or contacted her, she seems about to be preparing for a journey or just returned from one).

The Mouse Woman platter is one of several pieces of ceramics that Green is exhibiting at the Edzerza Gallery. Made from clay that Green recently brought back from Arizona, it is as untraditional as a Northwest Coast piece can be. Ceramics were not a part of the northern coast first nation cultures, and, unlike argillite a century ago or glass in recent decades, have never really caught on, although you can find occasional pieces – usually not very skilled and mostly for the tourist trade.

As for Mouse Woman herself, she remains a bit of a mystery. Few, if any renditions of her survive. But the stories make her a powerful, although minor character. She generally appears as a helper of a hero in a quest. In several tales, for instance, a hero helps a mouse over a log, and then, that evening, comes to a long-house where he is greeted by a noble woman who feasts him and gives him good advice. In other tales, she whispers practical advice about everyday concerns that the hero passes on to his people. In many ways, she is all that Raven is not: domestic where he is a wanderer, a maintainer and restorer of order where he is a bringer of chaos and change, and a representative of civilization where he is the eternal outsider. Where Raven is often a child, she is more often described as a grandmother, perhaps an elder.

Since no one is quite sure what Mouse Woman is supposed to look like, in depicting her, Green is free to let her imagination run wild. She chooses a simple design that goes well the rough, terra-cotta background – a combination that vaguely suggests petroglyphs, an art form that flourished several centuries before the northern formline became codified. Most of the lines are thin, except for those associated with what Green presumably intends as Mouse Woman’s distinguishing characteristics: her incisors, round eyes and ears. For these features, the lines are heavy, giving them added prominence, and elevating them to the equivalent of the orca’s fin or the eagle’s hooked beak – the features that tell you what creature is intended even if the complete shape is not depicted.

The result is a fragile but alert-looking creature, with ovoids that suggest cheeks stuffed with food. The result is a surprisingly naturalistic figure of a mouse, that, at the same time, also suggests a tiny but alert and active grandmother. How artists of a century and a half ago might have depicted Mouse Woman remains unknown, but I’m sure that they would recognize instantly the subject of Green’s depiction.

I don’t know whether Green will continue working with ceramics. Considering her restlessness, my guess is that she won’t for the time being, although she may return to them eventually. But I suspect that her recent YVR scholarship couldn’t have come at a better time. The Mouse Woman platter is a minor piece (in scope, I mean; at twenty-five centimeters it is definitely not so in size), but it suggests to me an artist who is starting to find the themes that interest her.

morgan-green-mouse-woman-plate

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Exhibit Review: John and Luke Marston: “Honoring the Ancient Ones”

Posted in aboriginal art, Bruce Byfield, First Nations art, Luke Marston, native art, Northwest Coast Art, Personal, Salish, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on June 29, 2009| 1 Comment »

Mostly, I know the work of Salish artists John and Luke Marston from pictures. These days, they seem to be working largely on commissions, and such smaller work as they do is displayed mostly in galleries in Victoria. The few I’ve seen have been mostly at the Inuit Gallery, which has now taken the next step of hosting a show with some two dozen pieces entitled “Honouring the Ancient Ones.” I attended the opening of the show last Saturday, and I was appreciative of the skill I saw there, but a little taken aback by the prices.

The two Marstons are often spoken of in the same breath. Even if they weren’t brothers, that would be inevitable, because both begin in with the Salish tradition, often base works on historical artifacts, and show considerable promise as carvers. However, if you see “Honouring the Ancient Ones,” you are unlikely ever to mistake them again.

Assuming the show is any indication, John Marston favors boxes and rattles.

jm-box

jm-rattle

When he does a mask, it is generally on a stand.

jm-mask

Throughout his work, he shows a strong sense of line – something that loosely resembles the formlines of the northern first nations on the coast, but which follows few of its rules with any consistency.

jm-formline

The result is a body of work that is hauntingly familiar, yet fresh at the same time.

By contrast, Luke Marston seems interested in carving household goods, such as bowls and ladles.

lm-bowl

lm-ladle

He is also the maker of the only two bracelets in the show, although his metalwork skills seem less advanced that his woodcarving ones.

lm-bracelet

He also seems more interested in masks than his brother, including a transformation mask and a contemporary piece called “First Woman,” whose depiction of a woman’s face in the flames was for me the highlight of the show.

lm-first-woman

None of his work shows the same focus on line that his brother’s does, but – at least in this exhibit – he seems more interested in the historical roots of his art, citing several times in the catalog that various works are his rendering of a museum piece.

Both artists are worthy of admiration, but I know that the prices they are charging are causing some concern among Northwest Coast artists and galleries. There is an unspoken understanding that artists’ prices reflect their experience, and many people feel that neither Marston has paid enough dues to justify their prices. When I say that Luke Marston’s “First Woman” mask is in the same price range as master and elder carver Norman Tait, you will understand what I am talking about. I even know one gallery that decided against trying to host a show of the Marston’s work because its curators decided it could not afford the initial outlay of buying such expensive pieces.

On the one hand, this criticism has some justification. John and Luke Marston are outstanding carvers, but they are still relatively young and, for all their promise, they are still perfecting their skills. Not that anything is wrong with their finishing skills, you understand, but when you compare them to those of someone like Ron Telek or Stan Bevan, you can see that Marstons still have things to learn. For example, neither shows a strong sense of the grain, and their matching of abalone inlays while adequate, is not always as close as it should be.

On the other hand, the Marstons can obviously receive the prices they are asking. Despite the recession, sales were brisk at the opening. As I write, three days into the show, two-thirds of the works on display have sold, including some of the most expensive.

Judging from the crowd, I suspect that one reason they can charge as they do is that they are breakout artists – ones whose appeal extends beyond the usual Northwest Coast collectors and enthusiasts and appeal to the local mainstream art crowd. You might wonder if their work will increase in value as quickly as other artists’ given its initially high prices, but what are they supposed to do – deliberately undercharge what the market will bear? That seems too much to ask of anyone.

In the end, I decided the question of their pricing was secondary (especially since most of their work was beyond my bank balance). The way the Marstons are developing, the issue is likely to become moot in another five to ten years as their skill is generally recognized.

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