Needing No Eyes

Abstract

Needing No Eyes Duane Niatum (bio) Challenging Traditions: Contemporary First Nations Art of the Northwest Coast. Edited by Ian M. Thom. University of Washington Press. http://www.washington.edu/uwpress. 186 pages; cloth, $65.00. Challenging Traditions is a breakthrough study of First Nations artists from Canada. Ian M. Thom, the editor, did not include just anybody on the scene. Instead, he made it a point to focus on artists who are producing extraordinary work that references traditional forms. He is clearly not willing to support work which has been produced for quick sale to tourists. His interests are for artists who reflect deeper artistic concerns. He, therefore, chose only those artists who show a high level of technical accomplishment, have an exhibition record, and have self-identity as artists working within or referencing traditional First Nations aesthetics. In fact, all the artists had to demonstrate a unique style of their own. By using these criteria, he was sure of presenting the independent thinkers and weeding out the mere imitators. He looked for artists who might base their work on a thorough knowledge of the formal language of the "classic," and have used this language in new and innovative ways. Thom points out that the great revival of art from the Northwest Pacific Coast that started at least half a century ago continues to thrive and grow in several directions. The increased number of artists and tribes represented has been a wonderful boon to young artists just beginning their creative journeys. For the first time in their tribal histories, the young native man or woman can now seriously consider making a living as an artist rather than as a logger or fisher. The change could not have come at a better time, since the rape of Northwest forests by the logging industries has been as extreme as greed-hog fishing in coastal waters that have been drastically altered by pollution and climate change. Thom emphasizes the importance of the screen print to the growth in popularity of First Nations art and the development of a marketing infrastructure to present the work to the world. We learn that beginning in the early 1980s, Northwest Coast art began to be regularly presented as fine art within the art market in British Columbia and elsewhere. I beg to differ a little on this. Acceptance of the art as fine art rather than mere artifact started to make waves in the 1970s and kept increasing through the decades to the present. Thom helps us understand the process and the means by which these artists enter the field. First Nations artists can learn their trade through traditional apprenticeship programs, mentoring, and the more formal means of art schools, notably the First Nations program at Emily Carr University of Art and Design and the Freda Diesing School of Northwest Coast Art in Terrace, B.C. He also mentions that programs of individual study with master artists have been influential to the development of many younger artists. We can be grateful that the start of the twenty-first century saw First Nations artistry thrive and expand in a number of different directions. Senior figures such as Robert Davidson, Dempsey Bob, Beau Dick, and Tim Paul, to name but four, have major national and international careers and have been thoroughly embraced by the art community of Canada and abroad. Thom asks some poignant questions regarding the contemporary First Nations artist. Should the artist adhere to the past as closely as possible? Or should he or she change tradition, adapt it, or even ignore it? As Thom says, the forty artists discussed in this book must all confront these essential questions. And the reader will discover forty different answers. As the Haida artist Don Yeomans remarked, "Nobody has the truth alone." Thom went on to interview each artist specifically for this book. Some of the statements by the artists are profoundly moving and eye and mind openers of the most vibrant imagination. Now to discuss two of those outstanding artists included in this volume. The first, Klatle-Bhi, of mixed Carrier, Kwakwaka'wakw and Squamish (Coast Salish) ancestry, is an artist who creates works that honor tradition while traveling...