Mouse Woman drawing by Luke J. Parnell
The Beat
A monthly newsletter about the art of
First Nations on Canada’s West Coast
Welcome to the nineteenth issue of The Beat, a free, independent newsletter that brings you up-to-date on the art, artists and events of the First Nations on Canada’s Pacific Coast.
We respectfully acknowledge the Coast Salish Peoples, on whose traditional territories we live and work, and all the First Nations of the Pacific coast.
Peace and goodwill to you all in 2009!
++++++++++++++++++++
Camus: West Coast Cooking Nuu-chah-nulth Style is a new First Nations seafood cookbook published to raise funds for the Nuu-chah-nulth Nations’ youth programs. Instructions about the traditional preparation of Vancouver Island’s wild foods, including fish, kelp, berries and fowl, are interspersed with recipes for the modern kitchen.
Section 1 presents recipes from the “Ocean”: salmon in many ways, crab and even whale. In the second section, entitled “Beach”, seafood recipes range from the exotic Black Chiton Roch Stickers and Gooseneck Barnacles to fried butter clams. In the third “Land” section, you will find Blackberry Pancakes, Salal Berry Jelly, Venison Stew and, of course, everyone’s favourite Bannock.
The cookbook includes 65 original recipes, 24 full-colour photos, oral history anecdotes from Nuu-chah-nulth members and artwork by Kelly Poirier. An appendix with a Nuu-chah-nulth Phonetic Alphabet helps with pronunciation. The book is $14.95, plus $4 shipping. A wonderful project! For more information and to order, go to
http://www.uuathluk.ca/cookbook.html or telephone 250 954 0112.
The March issue of the Journal of the Haida Nation, Haida Laas, has a theme of smallpox and its impact on the history and culture of the First Nations of Canada’s Pacific coast. An important ceremony at Alert Bay in May 2008 commemorated the deaths of 300 Haida travelers who were assisted by the Kwakwaka’wakw people when the Haida travelers were felled by smallpox near there in 1862 (see The Beat June 2008). In this Haida Laas issue, there are fascinating images, photographs and accounts by the Haida guests at the 2008 commemoration. You can read this very special issue at:
http://www.haidanation.ca/Pages/Haida_Laas/PDF/Journals/Smallpox_Journal.72.pdf
Anthropologist Dr. Martine J. Reid has been awarded a great honour by the government of France. She has been made a Chevalier of the National Order of Merit for her work in promoting cultural diversity, and particularly the Aboriginal arts of Canada.
Dr. Reid came to Canada from France to study the First Nations culture of the Northwest coast, and made Canada her home after her marriage to the eminent Haida artist, the late Bill Reid. She edited Paddling to Where I Stand: Agnes Alfred, Qwiqwasutinuxw Noblewoman (UBC Press, 2004), the first autobiographical portrayal of a Kwakwaka’wakw matriarch.
On May 1 2009, a book will be launched about the long struggle of the Haida people to assert their claim to their traditional territory and to manage the resources there for the benefit of the island communities. All That We Say Is Ours: Guujaaw and the Reawakening of the Haida Nation is by writer and environmental activist Ian Gill and published by Douglas & McIntyre who describe it as “the riveting story of a people’s epic fight for their rights and their homeland”. The strong protagonist in this movement has been Guujaaw, the President of the Council of the Haida Nation, and an artist, drummer as well as a political leader.
http://www.dmpibooks.com/book/9781553651864
Best seller The Flight of the Hummingbird by Haida artist Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas is a finalist in competition for the BC Booksellers’ Choice Award in Honour of Bill Duthie. The winner of the prize will be announced at the Lieutenant Governor’s BC Book Prizes Gala dinner on April 25 2009 in Vancouver.
Yahgulanaas is a panelist in an arts discussion in Ottawa on April 20 at 7 pm at the National Arts Centre in Le Salon. This Art Matters event is a part of the huge BC Scene celebrations outlined in The Beat March 2009. Chaired by Western Front Society director Hank Bull, the event is also part of a series sponsored by the Governor-General to bring together artists and the public to examine issues facing culture in society.
For more on the many, many events in BC Scene between April 21 and May 3 2009, see http://www.bcscene.ca/
A spectacular event was recently held in Juneau Alaska, Sharing our Knowledge: a Conference of Tlingit Tribes and Clans. The remarkable event included presentations by and about the Tlingit nation, and neighbouring Tsimshian and Haida Nations as well. The conference is a biennial event first held in 1993, but 2009 has drawn by far the largest number of participants. The conference is meant to be part symposium, part celebration, and to bridge the gap between the scholarly world and the First Nations people. From March 21 to 25 2009, there were 97 speakers, academics, community leaders and artists from throughout the USA, Canada and as far as St. Petersburg Russia.
On March 22, Tsimshian Mique’l Icesis Askren, currently a doctoral student in Vancouver, presented Our Neighbors: The Haida and Tsimshian: Bringing to Light a Counter-Narrative of our History. Subjects discussed include language, museums and archives, repatriation experiences, music, literature and oratory, weaving, filmmaking and much more. A Chilkat Weavers Retreat was held in Haines after the conference, from March 30 to April 10.
For more information on the conference, see the web site at: http://www.ankn.uaf.edu/ANCR/Southeast/ClanConference/
Digital videos were made of the presentations, and are available for purchase from public broadcaster Northstar Television in Juneau.
For details, contact fnah@uaf.edu
Next year the 2010 Northwest Coast Artists’ Gathering of traditional and contemporary artists will be held at the Silver Cloud Art Center in Haines Alaska for four days in May.
Juneau’s huge Celebration 2010 will be June 3 to 5 next year.
The Freda Diesing School of Northwest Coast Art is in Terrace in the Skeena Valley of northern British Columbia. The school is part of Northwest Community College which has announced a plan to build a longhouse to house some of the art school’s activities. Waap Galts’ap (Tsimshian for community house), will be built in traditional style and provide a gathering place for students, an elders’ room, a small kitchen, offices and a gallery to display student art. Fundraising has begun. The College President Stephanie Forsyth says the project establishes “the importance of First Nations to this region and to the college”.
An exhibition of work by 2009 graduating students will be held in Terrace on April 25.
From 2006 to 2008, Tsimshian artist Henry Green, assisted by Haida Ralph Stoker, created an 18’ totem pole for the University of Plymouth in England, for the university’s Centre for Sustainable Development. The project commemorates Plymouth’s history of ties with the Americas. The pole now stands on Embankment Road at the university. This year, the city and university plan to re-erect the pole nearby in a restored park, the historic Drake’s Place Gardens and Reservoir. Sir Francis Drake, the 16th-century navigator, was born near Plymouth; he was the first Englishman to map the British Columbia coast.
Alfred Joseph (Gisdewe) is a Witsuwit’en elder from Moricetown British Columbia who has been a prominent advocate for aboriginal land rights since the 1960’s, and a carver and educator on local aboriginal cultures. The University of Northern British Columbia is awarding him an honourary doctoral degree in May 2009.
The carved mural at the new West Vancouver Community Centre by Squamish artist Rick Harry Xwa-Lack-Tun was inaugurated on March 28. The theme of the yellow cedar panel, which has a thunderbird on top, a bear and sea serpent in the deeper main panel, and rays below, is a welcoming invitation to those entering the meeting room to work together as a community. The City of West Vancouver also calls the centre Smelakwa-awtxw the traditional Squamish name for the site, where small waterfowl used to gather.
Newly installed stained glass windows by Musqueam artist Susan Point will be formally inaugurated on Palm Sunday, April 5 2009, at Christ Church Cathedral in downtown Vancouver. There is a special celebration service and reception at 4 pm.
The five beautiful lancet windows form one image of The Tree of Life. The Tree stands against a west coast background of sea and mountains, loosely drawn with graceful and flowing lines. The project was sponsored by the late Jean MacMillan Southam. On Christ Church Cathedral’s web site, the artist states: “the artwork celebrates the beauty of our surrounding land, and our enduring connection with it– a connection honoured and celebrated by a living Salish culture, and by the many others who have chosen Vancouver as their home, and as a place to visit. The colours reflect the mountains and ocean of the Pacific Northwest, emphasizing the importance of the landscape within our lives.”
You can watch a YouTube video of the making of the glass and its installation at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-iAxxQciTuU
At the Vancouver Art Gallery, a fine exhibition called Enacting Abstraction includes a quite arresting non-figurative work from his 2001 Oval series by Lawrence Paul Yuxwelupton. The style of the large painting is a contrast with his better-known and more surrealist work from 2000, Guardian Spirits on the Land: Ceremony of Sovereignty. The latter painting hangs in Vancouver’s Western Front Gallery from March 13 to April 3 2009. Guardian Spirits is the only artwork in the exhibition, although a nearby shelf of pulp science fiction paperback books, “creates visions of alternate realities, transformations of the modern world and an apocalyptic future of disaster, conflict, exploration and conquest”, according to the curators. The painting, some thought, stood well enough on its own.
For more on the Western Front art exhibition, see http://front.bc.ca/exhibitions/events/3261
The American Indian & Ethnographic Art sale at Skinner Auctioneers in Boston, mentioned in The Beat January 2009, included about 50 lots of art from the Northwest coast, with very few going unsold. The two mentioned in the article in The Beat, a silver bracelet by Charles Edenshaw, estimated at $4-6000, sold for $8,888. A late 19th-century Chilkat Dance Blanket, estimated at $20-30,000, sold for $46,215. An unusually high price was fetched by a 19th century 14” Haida argillite pole with lively carved figures; it was estimated at $1000 and sold for $22,515!
For more details see http://skinnerinc.com
The 5th Cowichan International Aboriginal Film & Art Festival will take place from Thursday April 16 to Sunday April 19, 2009 in Duncan, the traditional lands of the Cowichan people on the southeast coast Vancouver Island.
This annual event is a celebration of indigenous films, dance and art, featuring award-winning films from leading international indigenous and Metis filmmakers. It is presented by the Cowichan Intercultural Festival of Film & Arts Society, with the support of Cowichan Tribes. For more, call 250 746 7930 or see http://www.aff.cowichan.net
imagineNATIVE Media Arts Festival is held every fall in Toronto. It celebrates the latest work by Indigenous peoples around the world on the forefront of innovation in film, video, radio, and new media. ImagineNATIVE is seeking features, shorts, documentaries, dramas, comedies, and animation by international and Canadian Indigenous filmmakers and producers. All genres and lengths are welcomed, including submissions from first-time, student and emerging directors. Deadline for submissions is June 1 2009.
More information is on the web site http://www.imagineNATIVE.org
The Squamish Lil’wat Cultural Centre in Whistler British Columbia is exhibiting the historical Joe Capilano blanket, worn by the chief when he journeyed to England in 1906 to address land issues with King Edward VII. This treasured part of the Squamish Nation’s cultural heritage will be exhibited for six months, on loan from the Canadian Museum of Civilization in Ottawa. The Squamish Lil’wat Cultural Centre is open daily from 9:30 to 5 pm, and is located at 4584 Blackcomb Way in Whistler.
In London England there is a festival on May 5 to 10 2009 of aboriginal culture, Origins: First Nations Theatre from Around the World. The festival was initiated by the Australian government in 2007. This year there will be Canadian presence. From Vancouver, Margo Kane, director of the Vancouver’s Talking Stick Festival, will speak on a panel of Native American playwrights at the British Library on May 11 2009. Other indigenous cultures participating are from New Zealand, USA and Australia.
Vancouver’s Dana Claxton (Hunkpapa Lakota) and Larry McNeil (Tlingit/Nisga’a) have work in Visual Sovereignty, an exhibition at the C.N. Gorman Museum at the University of California at Davis, from April 3 to September 3 2009. In the same museum, on view until June 13, is a film documentary Ancestors in Captivity: The Protest against UC Berkeley’s Non-Compliance with the Native American Graves and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA).
For more, see http://gormanmuseum.ucdavis.edu
An important book about Northwest art and culture is being re-published, for release on June 16 2009. The late Allen Wardwell’s Tangible Visions: Northwest Coast Indian Shamanism and Its Art, first published in 1996 by The Monacelli Press, will be available through Random House.
In Portland, Oregon, the Quintana Galleries is exhibiting the archival photographs of Edward S. Curtis in April. A David Boxley exhibition is planned for May. See http://www.quintanagalleries.com
A May 1 2009 deadline approaches for First Nations artists wishing to participate in Tacoma’s Washington State History Museum this summer. The juried art exhibition, In the Spirit: Contemporary Northwest Native Arts Exhibit, runs from July 9 through August 30 2009 at the museum.
For more information about how to submit your work for possible inclusion in the exhibition, see http://www.wshs.org/artsfestival/
The Northwest Native Arts Market & Festival planned by the museum is on August 8 and 9.
Art Vendor applications for the August market (with a deadline of June 1) can be obtained from the same web site as above, or call 360 867 6413.
The Whatcom Museum in Bellingham will hold an event Weavers Teaching Weavers, and a Native American Basket Mart on Saturday April 18 at the Museum. Baskets and other woven items made in traditional ways by Native American master basket weavers from throughout the Pacific Northwest will be on display and offered for sale, noon to 3 pm. Jacqueline Rickard will demonstrate making pine needle baskets covered with traditional beaded designs of the Paiute tribe. A mobile exhibition vehicle from the Wanapum Heritage Centre will be on site for visitors.
The Whatcom Museum is in downtown Bellingham Washington, at the Old City Hall Building at 121 Prospect Street.
See http://www.whatcommuseum.org
++++++++++++++
Comments, news and new subscribers to this free newsletter are welcomed. Please write to: editor@coastalartbeat.ca
Past issues are available at our website http://www.coastalartbeat.ca
Thank you to David Dumaresq, Martin Landmann, Patrick Walshe, Shannon Cowan, Katharina Patterson, Martine Reid, Joe Thomas and others, for your assistance. If you are searching for particular stories covered in past issues, try searching the web with Google.
The Beat is an independent, not-for-profit project written and published in Vancouver Canada by Ann Cameron.
Copyright 2009 Ann Cameron.