Nigel Fox Artworks

Dean Heron, Stan Bevan and Harold Demetzer

Today was the first day back for us students at Freda Diesing School. Many were busy over the break working on their masks. I was busy, too; but not as much as some others. Dean confirmed today that there will be a presentation from Roy Henry Vickers on Thursday and Friday. This is not to be missed. We were told that Roy felt inspired by Harold’s presentation a few weeks ago. Roy is a superb public speaker and during his last official talk that I attended, in 2008, I was quite taken in. This should be a good talk.

Also, I learned today that we will be making deer hide drums this semester. Very cool.

One more thing is that we are making plans for our year end show in April. Stay tuned for this.

Todd, Sophia, Paula, me and Dempsey

Well, the meeting with Sophia today was a hoot.  Everyone showed up and we even had a surprise visit from Dempsey Bob and his wife, Margaret.  We all had tim’s coffee and talked about a variety of things from teaching kids to showing in art galleries.  It was a surprise to see that Sophia knows a bit of sign language and it looks like she must have learned it somewhat fluently, because she was able to speak it faster than I could understand; granted, I only know a few words.  We have another artist friend who is deaf and speaks sign language, so it is always a good thing to know how to sign.  Sign language is quite a fascinating language and, like painting and carving, it is a visual language.  I think that it is a good idea to teach young children and toddlers how to sign because I have heard that they can learn to sign before they can learn to speak.  It’s worth investigating, either way.

We have come to the end of our reading week today and start school again tomorrow.  This should be a really great week.  We are continuing to work on our portrait masks and we have an official visit by Roy Henry Vickers.  Roy is going to do a presentation this week, on Wednesday I think.  I also think that Roy will be speaking on motivation, though this may have changed since I was last informed, too.  Anyways, I hope to keep putting out updates during the week.  Stay tuned.

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I am planning on meeting up with my artist friend Sophia and some other artist friends tomorrow. Sophia is an artist of Ts’msyen, Heiltsuk, and Haida descent from Lax Kw’alaams (Port Simpson, BC).Her work can be described as delicate and beautiful. One of her favorite items to produce are pendants, though she has worked on a variety of carved objects, including a talking stick installment for the YVR airport in Vancouver that she completed as part of the YVR scholarship award. For all her accomplishments at such an early stage in her career, she is very humble. Her encouragement was one of the main reasons that I enrolled in Freda Diesing School. In fact, she also helped me get funding so that I could go to school. I think that I’ll buy her coffee tomorrow, as a start.

Anyways, please check out Sophia’s page at http://www.sophiapatricia.com/.

Harold Demetzer

I managed to get Harold’s permission to post his photo onto my blog, today.  Originally, Harold didn’t want “anything done” with the photos we took of him, I managed to convince him to let me show this as he pulled out the camera to take photos of us this afternoon, though.  He tells me that this will be one of two photos of him on the internet.

Harold spoke of west coast artists today and the connections between the artists.  Harold went highlighted a list of seventeen artists from the Haida, Nisga’a and Gitksan nations today.  Although it was clear that more artists were on the list that we didn’t manage to cover today, what we did cover was quite informative and even a bit inspirational.  Starting with a tree graph of the connections between the various artists, Harold highlighted who taught whom.  For example, Bill Reid taught Robert Davidson, Don Yeomans and Jim Hart; Robert Davidson taught Reg Davidson, Freda Diesing and Chuck Heit; Freda Diesing taught Dempsey Bob and Glen Wood; Dempsey Bob taught Stan Bevan and Ken McNeil.  Harold pointed out that all great north west coast artists taught.

Harold then went through a list of these artists one by one, starting with Bill Reid.  Bill was an artist who stood out, as Harold described it, because of marketing and talent.  Bill’s career as an artist spanned many decades and in the later years, he had many artists working under him.  One of Bill’s most famous works is on the Canadian $20 bill, “Black Canoe”.  When the 3 meter high bronze sculpture was made and installed, Bill specifically stated “Do not prevent people from touching it.”  The patina has since naturally worn off in spots on the bronze sculpture located at YVR.  Bill died in 1998 of parkinson’s disease.

Next Harold went on to speak of Haida artist Don Yeomans.  One of the most interesting thing about Don was his tendency to mix art and subject matter not typically north west coast with the north west coast style.  Ken McNeil reminisced that the first time that he met Don, Don was wearing a elephant frontlet headpiece.  A frontlet is part of the head dress of a simoyget, or chief, and typically has a motif of either a human or figure from nature found in the west coast.  Elephants are not found on the west coast.

Harold went on to tell us about Haida artist Robert Davidson.  Harold said that the first time that he and Robert met was very similar to the last time that they met.  In between these times, Robert was an amazing example of a northwest coast artist.  Robert started his career raising a pole that was the first pole in 90 years in all of Canada, since the potlatch law of 1884.  Incidentally, before the pole was made, Robert was talking with his grandma, Florence Davidson, daughter of Charles Edenshaw, about the need for a pole and how he said that he should raise one; Florence quite seriously agreed that he should.  And so in 1969, the pole was raised.  Robert went on to be an instructor at Ksan, and even taught Freda Diesing, herself.

Harold went on to describe artists of Nisga’a lineage.  Including the Tait brothers: Norman, Alver and Josiah.  I know that Josiah worked on a few major installations in Prince Rupert, with Freda Diesing.

Students from Freda Diesing School stand in front of a large plaque at the Prince Rupert Hospital. The plaque was designed by Freda Diesing and carved by Josiah Tait.

Harold then went on to describe some Gitksan artists, such as K’san co-founder Walter Harris and controversial artist Ya’Ya (Chuck Heit).

Todd Stephens working on paddle design commision

I did something today that I have been meaning to do for a while now, I visited Todd Stephens in his carving studio, Wilp Simgan (House of the Sacred Tree).  Todd is a very amiable person, who likes to brag that he has never been in a fight.  I dropped in on his studio this afternoon in order to catch up on things and work on my alder spoon for class.  Todd and I talked from any number of things from aliens to religion to business and we went our separate ways at closing time with more of an understanding of each other and our backgrounds.  Todd and I have very similar backgrounds, we both are from Prince Rupert, we both went to PRSS, we both know little about the family on our father’s side.

I know that my father is Ojibway from the Sagamok reserve near Massey, Ontario, I know that his mother’s name was/is Mary, I know that he was taken into custody by child services at infancy, I know that he had severe hypothermia at the time, I know that he was raised in the foster care program, but I know very little else.  Neglect seems to be a common theme among aboriginal people that I know, such as in my dad’s case.   And according to a 2003 Canadian Incidence Study put out by the Canadian government, neglect is the most common form of child abuse among first nations [1].  And although, I try to keep the subject matter of this blog art-related and on a positive note, I feel that I have to say something about this.  As a christian, I believe that God looks after those who have no fathers, the widows and the orphans.  And for exactly the reason that God values what man rejects, I went with a notion that God is among the first nations people, myself included, in a way that is unique and strong.  And I have seen him do great things on my behalf even in these past few months.  And as the book of Romans says, in the Bible, God works all things to the good for those who love him, who are called according to his purpose.

God has blessed me with a purpose, and I believe that God is the source of my aspirations and inspiration.

Kitimat Exhibit

Well, another busy week is over and the Kitimat show opening has come and gone, the exhibit goes on until March 26th.  It truly was an honor to show along side artists such as Sammy Robinson and Lyle Wilson.  I got to meet Summer Breeze-Kent for the first time as well.  I’m glad that I did.  We have similar backgrounds, in that we both have computer science degrees and it turns out that we both drew in our youth.  I told Summer that I drew my first comic book when I was twelve, she upped me on this and told me that she drew her first comic when she was twelve, too, plus she made a replica by hand.  She was in to color and I am in to color.  Ironically, as she left, she said “talk to you on the internet” to me, which is probably exactly what we will both do.  I even think that we have similar plans to expand our respective art businesses.  It was funny.

Anyways, the exhibit went good.  A lot of people commented on the high quality of the work being displayed.  A few people commented on the contemporary nature of the work that was there.  I think that they were right in some regards.  But as Dempsey always says, “the contemporary always has to come from the traditional.”  Because, “you can’t make something from nothing.  Something always has to come from something.”  I believe he meant that even the contemporary art forms have to have roots, but that is my own paraphrase.  It is so true.  I find more and more people saying that they buy the “traditional” art work, but what I think they mean is that they buy the work that has a sense of history.  It seems to give the work meaning.  Incidentally, we were also displaying our work beside museum pieces of old bent wood boxes, petroglyphs, and other artifacts.  They were so much more than artifacts in this context, though, and like the Terrace exhibit was a retrospective of the old, along side the emergence of the new; the Kitimat exhibit was a juxtaposition of ancient and fresh.  Sort of like combining the enthusiasm of the new with the temperance of the old.  It made for quite a powerful show in its own right.  The exhibit will be on until the 26th of March.

Gary Wyatt, a director from Spirit Wrestler Gallery in Vancouver, came in to talk to the class today. He spoke on numerous topics in the west coast art world. His words varied to almost a poetic stance at times. One thing that stuck with me is that “formline is a language…formline is music.” Which is totally true. There is a certain creative formality to west coast native art that allows it to stand out in melody, rhythm and tone.

You could just feel Gary’s enthusiasm for the art, even after many years in the business. It was quite refreshing and very informative. Gary seemed to want to make the presentation fun, yet educational and throughout it all, he had integrity. He seems like the perfect gallery director for an artist to work with and I hope to do business with him in some point in the future.

Gary Wyatt and the FDS Teachers Walking Away in the Snow