Blog # 71…July 2017
I’ve noticed, maybe you have too, how many blogs I’ve
devoted to art and indigenous people.
The relations between us, both past and present compete with climate change to be at the top of my personal list of stuff that absorbs me. Thought I’d switch it up
and do something else this time…but guess what, not gonna do it (remember Dana Carvey
doing GW?…and that reminds me, a major digression here, I'm loving Al Franken’s book, Giant of
the Senate). But back to blogging…
I was lucky to be in Ottawa recently, the jazz festival,
Canada Day - people wearing red maple leaf shirts over their saris and caribou
antlers on top of turbans…all of us crowding together, mostly happily, to huddle
under umbrellas and jump over muddy bits.
What struck me most though, was time spent in the new
gallery of Canadian and Indigenous Art at the NAC. I’m not sure about the name
of the gallery, which seems to imply that indigenous art is separate rather
than part of Canadian art. On the other hand, and probably what the curators
were thinking, it features and dignifies indigenous art which has historically
been relegated to folk arts and crafts. Whatever its name, the gallery succeeds
in telling a new story about art in Canada.
A caption attributed to Louis Riel reads, “My people will
sleep for 100 years but when they awake, it will be the artists who give them
their spirits back.” Voices and images from Kent Monkman, Rebecca Belmore, Alex Janvier and Daphne Odjig call our attention to indigenous life’s joys and sorrows, balancing and enriching our
own view of our history.
Daphne Odjig was born on Manitoulin Island in 1919 and died
in 2016 - that's right she was 97. A member of the Indian Group of
Seven (take a look at Blog # 48) her many accomplishments and honours include being chosen as one of 4 international artists to paint an homage to Pablo Picasso for the Picasso Museum in Antibes and being commissioned by El Al Airlines to create The Jerusalem Series. There’s a rich collection of her work to see online; I was particularly touched by a piece from 1975 titled Mother Earth Struggles for Survival.
With the giant slice that broke away from the Larsen C ice
shelf recently another alarm bell sounds, echoing Daphne’s concern from more
than four decades ago, As well as informing our past, indigenous artists warn
us about the future. “Alarming messages
can be paralyzing and counter-productive” writes my favourite Elizabeth
Renzetti. And she in turn quotes George
Marshall, whose book Don’t Even Think About It: Why Our Brains Are Wired to Ignore
Climate Change, who says that a more positive way to mobilize people may be
what he calls “a narrative of positive change.” He describes this as telling
compelling stories about how people can come together in pursuit of a more just,
equal and not so sweltering planet.
I’ll leave you to think about that and about our Iraqi
refugees who arrive in Toronto next Tuesday morning. It’s been a long wait for them and will be a
steep learning curve for all of us.
