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 twenty-third issue of The Beat, a free, independent newsletter that brings you up-to-date on the art 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. We would like to express sympathy and concern for our communities threatened by fire this summer.
++++++++++++++++++++
In Vancouver, Continuum: Vision and Creativity on the Northwest Coast at the Bill Reid Gallery of Northwest Art (see The Beat) until January 31 2010 is an exhibition of 24 works by emerging and mid-career First Nations artists on the west coast. It is rare to see such a range of styles and media in a group exhibition, and a must-see. For more: http://www.billreidgallery.ca
The show is reviewed in the Vancouver Sun on July 25 2009, at:
http://www.vancouversun.com/Confident+Raven+lands+coast/1828182/story.html
The Nuyumbalees Cultural Centre at Cape Mudge on Quadra Island (near Campbell River) has expanded to include the KwikGillas (House of Eagles) Carving and Education Centre and the ?awaqwes, a place to relax and tell stories, and has attracted many visitors this summer. The Centre’s exhibition of traditional coppers is unique in its richness of information and beauty.
A fundraiser auction will be held in mid-October, showcasing the fine artists in this community. For more information call 250 285 3733.
The Museum at Campbell River has exhibits of great interest to visitors interested in First Nations culture and the history of British Columbia.
In the opinion of many visitors its outstanding presentation is The Treasures of Siwadi: within a darkened theatre, a local chief narrates the heroic story of his ancestor, while lights reveal a series of contemporary ceremonial masks of the epic characters in the drama.
A new exhibit Barks, Roots, Grasses: Basketry Traditions of the Central Coast is on at the museum until the end of October. It is interesting to note that the earliest baskets so far recovered from sites in the Campbell River area have been dated to 4400 years ago.
During the summer, many activities for children and adults are available for visitors.
For more information, see http://www.crmuseum.ca
The website of the Council of the Haida Nation has interesting videos (under Photo Galleries), of the recent pole-raising ceremonies on the Haida Gwaii. You can enjoy watching the Xaad Xilaa, Haida Medicine Story pole, carved by Christian White, being raised June 18, and also the poles raised at the Haida Heritage Centre, one carved by Donnie Edenshaw (raised on June 21), and the other by Jaalen Edenshaw (raised on June 24), all 2009.
The Haida Gwaii Museum at the Centre in Skidegate has an exhibition, Fifty Years of Haida Weaving: the Robert Davidson Collection, curated by Kwiaawah Jones, running to August 28 2009.
In the Haida Gwaii (Queen Charlotte Islands), there is an exhibition by Haida artist April White, running until August 31 2009, at the Dixon Entrance Maritime Museum, located at 2182 Collison Avenue in Massett. For more information, call 250 626 6066
Haida artist Jay Simeon has created an unusual work called Kuniisii. Simeon has designed a piano exterior case which was unveiled recently at Vancouver’s new Convention Centre, for a grand piano by Steinway & Sons of New York. The top lid of the piano shows a Raven, and other supernatural forest creatures cover the body of the instrument. The piano will be on display at the instrument store Tom Lee Music store at 929 Granville Street in Vancouver. It will be sold after the 2010 Olympics, with some of the proceeds going to a charity for disabled children. A video of the piano is at:
http://www.tomleemusic.ca/main/newsroom.cfm
This
fall Haida artist Michael
Nicoll Yahgulanaas will
exhibit work at the Glenbow
Museum in Calgary,
including large-scale works on paper and major sculpture. The
exhibition will be accompanied by an
installation of a Haida
Manga Reading Room curated by Vancouver-based Liz Park. This space will provide visitors
with an opportunity to become intimate with the artist’s graphic
works through his books and a selected archive of his works on paper.
The U’mista Cultural Centre in Alert Bay on the British Columbia coast is hosting a workshop Caring for Totem Poles October 6 to 9 2009, in partnership with the Canadian Conservation Institute and Canadian Heritage. The workshop is described:
“Totems present special challenges: How do we best respect the traditions and knowledge of the peoples who own or create totem poles? What can we do to help maintain and care for totem poles? What causes the poles to deteriorate and what are the best things to do if we want more time to understand the poles before they return to nature? This workshop will address these questions in an open and thoughtful manner.”
Registration must be submitted by September 15 2009. Cost is $100. For further information and registration forms, see:
https://www.cci-icc.gc.ca/lo-od/adp/umireg-eng.aspx
For general information about the Canadian Conservation Institute, including internship opportunities, see
http://www.cci-icc.gc.ca/index-eng.aspx
In Toronto, at the McMichael Canadian Art Collection in Kleinburg Ontario, see Challenging Traditions: Contemporary First Nations Art of the Northwest Coast runs until September 25 2009. A Globe & Mail review by James Adams is at:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/arts/mcmichael-takes-a-bold-new-path/article1209802/
A five-minute video of curator Ian Thom as he discusses some of the art chosen for the McMichael exhibition is at:
http://www.openbooktoronto.com/video/ian_thom_challenging_traditions
Vancouver’s Buschlen Mowatt Gallery is exhibiting work by Salish artist Lawrence Paul Yuxwelupton from July 24 to August 14 2009, in a show called Colour Zone: Ovoids. Surrealist-style paintings by the artist are included in the show. For information on the gallery, see http://www.buschlenmowatt.com
Two works from Yuxweluptun’s Ovoids series have recently been acquired by the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa. For more about the artist, see http://www.lawrencepaulyuxweluptun.com
Grunt Gallery in Vancouver welcomes Tania Willard as its new Resident Curator, from August 2009 to August 2010. Tania is an artist, curator and designer from the Secwepemc (Shuswap) Nation in the interior of British Columbia. The residency is supported by the Canada Council for the Arts Assistance to Aboriginal Curators for Residencies in Visual Arts program. See http://www.grunt.ca
Daina Warren is the curator of the current exhibition at Vancouver’s Centre “A” art centre, Cosmologies anything that exists has a beginning, showing until August 8 (see The Beat June 2009). She is of the Montana Slavey Cree Nation. A graduate of the Emily Carr University of Art and Design, she has worked widely as an artist and curator and was the most recent Canada Council’s Aboriginal Curator in Residence at the Grunt Gallery in Vancouver. She was the “witness” in Rebecca Belmore’s performance piece of 2008 Making Always War.
Daina has been appointed to a curatorial position at Canada’s National Gallery in Ottawa. There will be more information in later issues of The Beat.
The influential Salish carver from Cowichan British Columbia Simon Charlie, also known as Hwunumetse, died in May 2005 at the age of 85. He was honoured by his family and a crowd of 1000 people on July 11 2009 in Duncan in a remembrance ceremony. He was a recipient of the Order of British Columbia and the Order of Canada. His work is in the Royal British Columbian Museum in Victoria, in Ottawa outside the Canadian Parliament, and also in Europe, Australia, Washington State, Georgia, and New York.
Important commissions are being created by members of the distinguished Marston family of Chemainus. Salish artist John Marston, who recently had an exhibition at the Inuit Gallery in Vancouver, has created nine ceremonial paddles for Vancouver Airport. His brother Luke, also in the Inuit Gallery show, is carving The Healing Pole for Government House, home of British Columbia’s Lieutenant-Governor, in Victoria. Their mother Jane Marston, and Luke and John, have graphic works in Vancouver’s new Convention Centre. She names Charlie Simon as her artistic mentor, and carved with him from 1984. Her daughters Angela, Denise and Karen are also deeply involved in Salish art.
Mike Epp has carved and raised a pole in Metlakatla, a Tsimshian community near Prince Rupert British Columbia. In June the artwork was raised on the shore in front of the attractive new Metlakatla community centre, the first raised in that community in over 150 years. It represents the four clans, the Eagle, Raven, Wolf and Killer Whale. For a picture of the fine pole, see
http://www.bclocalnews.com/bc_north/thenorthernview/community/48813017.html
The winner of the title of “Best in Show” has been announced at the In the Spirit: Contemporary Northwest Native Juried Arts Exhibit in Tacoma Washington, which runs until August 30 at the Washington State History Museum. We Hold the Future, a painting by Cree/Iroquois artist Chholing Taha, a long-time resident of Washington State, was chosen from among the 32 works selected for the exhibition by a jury.
The Washington State Historical Society and Museum in Olympia has an exhibition, Respecting the Knowledge: Ethnobotany of Western Washington. Photographs of native plants and descriptions of their traditional usage among First Nations are accompanied by a display of handmade tools and implements, baskets and a bentwood box. For more information, see
http://wshs.pmailus.com/pmailweb/ct?d=IzojKAGiAAEAAAKbAAMHfA
++++++++++++++
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, Wanita Sharkey, Catherine Gilbert, Lesia Davis, Adria Karchut, Dana Claxton, Hank Bull and others, for your assistance.
If you are searching for particular stories covered in past issues, try searching the web with Google, and include “coastalartbeat” in your search words.
The Beat is an independent, not-for-profit project written and published in Vancouver Canada by Ann Cameron.
Copyright 2009 Ann Cameron.