Toronto based Aboriginal filmmaker Shane Belcourt premieres his latest short film titled, “Say Yes” on Mason Journal.   Viewable exclusively on this site only until April 30, 2012.

To learn more about the award winning filmmaker, read the interview Mason Journal recently had with Shane.

(Shane Belcourt premieres his latest short film titled, “Say Yes” on Mason Journal.   Viewable exclusively on this site only until April 30, 2012. )

Discovering your personal identity is a long journey; discovering your personal identity as a minority with a mixed heritage in a multi-cultural context is even more so.

Toronto based filmmaker and writer, Shane Belcourt, provides insight into his understanding and exploration of his Aboriginal identity.  Born to prominent Metis Rights Leader, Tony Belcourt, and Nova Scotia musician, Judith Pierce Martin, Shane adopts film as a medium to explore his own roots.

Mason Journal recently had an opportunity to speak with the award winning filmmaker to learn how he describes Aboriginal identity in an urban context, the stages it took to discover his own identity and how this discovery currently informs his work.

Mason Journal: Is filmmaking something that has always been important to you, or is it something that you came into later in life?

Shane Belcourt: My first observation with your list of questions here is that there are no yes or no’s, true or false’s … so this is about to get verbose. And the first question here is a doozy.

I’m going to be honest with you: I have a love-hate relationship with filmmaking.  There are times when I’m an absolute film geek, watching them, studying them, breaking them down, carding a film and finding the perfect turn in an act, seeing two shots come together on a monitor during editing and seeing how the film comes to a whole new unplanned level.  Love that.  But I’m not going to win any contests that involve being patient.  The time it takes to write a film, the notes and re-writing, the pre-production planning, breaking things down and adjusting for funds; it’s a “busy-bee” life that has few “completions” over the course of an entire creative life. So much work goes on behind the scenes, into authoring a film beforehand, and looking at an empty page and asking, “you think you have something to say?  Let’s hear it.” Then the clock starts to tick-tock louder and louder.  I’m saying it’s harder than I thought when I first ran towards this and I’m whining a little about it.

On one level, I wasn’t really interested in film until high school.  I watched shows – you could not keep me away from the TV when the Dukes of Hazard was on!  But I wasn’t aware of the “art form” that people made these things.  It was happening right there in front of me and I was totally immersed in it as a kid.  In high school, as I started to get into Letterman, I started to read articles where people worked in “writing rooms” and lived in New York.  That was interesting.  All things were New York to me at the time and Catcher in the Rye was THE book that launched my interested in reading (in grade 10 – nice, I know).  Watching all of Woody Allen’s films through high school was the most logical step and I was suddenly aware that people made these films and stories and it involved a whole host of art forms and collaborations.  What I was most interested in was the authorship in film; that someone had internal longings and questions that were put forth in a drama or a story that had music, tempo (editing), and photography.  I was hooked.

I should also mention that around high school, my father who had been involved in the Aboriginal communications his whole life, was now running a docudrama educational production company out of our house.  We had a little off-line editing suite in his office upstairs.  I would watch him do his work and wound logging footage.  I was taken on set where I would hold reflectors or cue cards; lucky coincidence?

But just to be clear, there is a level of filmmaking that is a nerdy surface level and that for sure started in high school – not sure if that counts as “later in life”.  This involved trying to figure out HOW to do it (camera, shots, framing, story arcs, act structure, etc.)  The basis of the art (emotions and story) is the WHAT and WHY of filmmaking; I can trace that back to being 4 years old rocking it out to the Rolling Stones at full volume.  With “Get Off of My Cloud”, I would be jumping with aggression; then quiet contemplation and picturing in my mind the images of “As Tears Go By” and FEELING something.  Being allowed to feel something without being made fun of or scolded at school.  In that core way, film, arts, creativity, life/living has always been vital to me.

MJ: Can you describe what an “urban aboriginal identity” is in a Canadian context?

SB: It took me an hour and forty minutes in Tkaronto to scratch the surface of this question, so let me try to narrow it down here (be prepared for an epic failure).  On one level, historical images depict one story or message about what an “Indian” is – buckskin clothes, feathers, horseback, living off the land immersed in nature.  In the city, you can’t exactly live out in the bush, honing the abilities to track deer or maintain your trap line.  Like everyone else, you live a modern lifestyle.  But the message being sent by media (even ones we send to ourselves) is that “Indian” is out there and outside of the city.  To join the city you have to leave “Indian” out there and become something else.  Obviously, it’s insane that “Indian” is reduced to a historical image or lifestyle, and it begs the question: is there something deeper than appearance (dress) and survival lifestyle that defines “Indian”?  So, um, my “answer” to your question is that being an “urban aboriginal” is in many ways a search or a challenge.  I think many “ethnic minorities” can relate to because on the one hand you want to join the urban bustle and work side by side with everyone, but on the other hand, you want to maintain your cultural roots.

When you’re an Anglo Saxon living in the West, it can be hard to understand this “outsider-ness.” You get the outsider part, but the cultural-outsider part can be a stretch.  I’ve heard many say to me in a free-flowing conversation, “yeah, I don’t have a culture, I’m just Canadian.”  If you aren’t this “Canadian” thing -the “white” thing – you can more obviously see that the cultural Canadian “norm” is not you or your background or your culture. “Outsider-ness” is what prompts you to want to come together with other like-minded “outsiders” and form a community and see yourself in the people around you.  That is the urban aboriginal identity in a nutshell.

(If I may: “Jesus, this Shane dude looks white, he’s ‘Metis’, whatever the hell that is, what gives him the right?  He doesn’t have a clue.” I grew up in a city, my Mom’s White, what the hell do I know?  I’ll take you one farther: music is music, spirit is spirit, soul is soul, and the ultimate awakening is beyond culture; it’s Universal.  But culture is the grounding to go deep within towards the Universal or to look up and out and see the Universal.  In a way, these cultural identity questions don’t matter, in some ultimate truth awakening sense, but in the immediate day to day people need and can’t escape their cultural roots.  If you’re Aboriginal in an urban environment, it’s a celebration, a question, and a challenge.  The more intact “they” are, the better an urban Aboriginal person does in everything -including transcending cultural towards the universal soul.)

Well, fuck, I tried right?

Keeping Quiet from Shane Belcourt on Vimeo.

MJ:  How do you describe your own urban aboriginal identity?  What are some important factors or stages in your life experience that contribute to the discovery of this identity? 

SB: I describe my own urban aboriginal identity as “community”, or family.  On my own, I think I know it a little, a smudge or what have you, but I don’t know it-know it.  I’m just a guy stuck in his own head.  However, when I’m with family and friends from the community I know it as something living, a connection from within us all that connects us and it only “turns on” when we’re together with each other.  In those times I “know” my aboriginal identity because it is being lived.  In a sense, it’s not a thing, it’s not static, and it’s hard to pin down.

In terms of coming to grips with being “aboriginal,” it’s been and continues to be a life-long journey/struggle/celebration.  On the street I grew up on, Dads (parents) looked white like my Mom, but my Dad didn’t.  He didn’t wear buckskin or ride a horse like Tonto, so he wasn’t an “Indian” in my mind as a kid – he was my Dad.  My Dad had certain jewelry on that was different, he brought friends home that look like him and could talk like him, and he took us into these worlds that only existed wherever he went, like pow wows, gatherings and ceremonies.  You’re a part of it, but you’re not a part of it because other than doing it with your Dad, you’re at school with everyone else or playing street football hoping to be Warren Moon.  As you get older and you can choose to do things, go to events, participate with this or that community and exercise your choice – that is when the “discovery” and understanding of identity and culture begin to emerge.  What do you want to be a part of?  As I became more of an adult (still struggling with that, or “emerging”), I chose to participate with my Aboriginal, Metis and ancestry/community.  Did I choose it, or did it want to express itself? Either way, I went out in “search” of it – only to find that you never find “it” you just live “it” with others.

MJ:  Is the investigation of Aboriginal concepts in your film an exploration of self, or a method to inform?

SB: At best I consider myself an idiot savant, and the “savant” part is yet to be determined.  So for me to “inform” someone and to showcase what I know would not only make a boring film, it would make for an embarrassing one. In that way, I’m making films that may or may not have Aboriginal issues or concepts in them, as I’m trying to explore and understand myself and people who are in my community of family and friends that are like me.  And of course, the irony of art is, when you try to be completely personal and individual, you stumble unknowingly into a Universal.  And for those moments in a film of mine where there is “information”, a teaching, a wording of an idea: those aren’t “mine.”  Those are things that I have learned from others that I want to put in front of “me” as a character in the film hearing it again for the first time.  Re-enacting the discovery opposed to consciously trying to inform the audience about something.

MJ:  You are involved with a number of community based organizations.  How does the involvement in these activities inform your work?

SB: I’m lucky enough that my involvement with community based organizations is my “work”. My nine-to-five (yeah right) job is working with organizations in its most basic level as a storyteller; teaching others how to tell stories, make films, use technology, find their voice, etc.  Or it involves working on an educational or promotional video that tells the story from their perspective.  The work part of my life is really about honing the storytelling skills, attuning the brain to wipe away the decorations and get right down to the base level meaning, the core, and then pick and choose the “decorations”, the creative options from that “discovery”, the core, the “what this is really about is __________.”

But I will absolutely admit that a life lived informs the stories I tell (the characters, perspectives, ideas, struggles, etc.)  For example, in Tkaronto, much of the lessons that the Jolene character learns from the Elder Max were in fact expressed to me by Lewis Cardinal while I was on tour with the National Aboriginal Achievement Awards directing and shooting their inductee interview videos. Sometimes, in that case, it’s literal, others it’s layered down.

MJ: Your background is in both film and music; are there similarities in process in these two realms?

SB: Last night I was sitting with my daughter Claire as she was practicing writing down numbers.  She has her letters down, A to Z, easy as pie.  Numbers for some reason, she can read them but when she writes them, things get turned around.  As she was writing them out, and I would try to help her through the tough ones, she would hide her face and get embarrassed and start to get really stressed out.  So, we had one of our talks.  I asked her what she thinks her Dad does all day and she rattled off a list of things she’s heard.  I told her that what I really do all day is make mistakes, constantly, never ending.  That it seems is my job, and the work of any artist: try stuff, make mistakes, think “hmm, that’s interesting”, and wash and repeat.  To me, the first similarity between music, film and in all arts or creative life in general, is that you have to pursue and embrace failure, learn from the short comings and develop a fearlessness that has nothing to lose. You don’t sing good notes until you’ve sung hours of bad ones. Hopefully behind closed doors (I can’t say the behind closed doors is true in my case).

Aside from the base level “artist as explorer” approach to film and music, what is most obvious between the two is that they’re a temporal art form: the count in or count down and then go! The art plays out over a set continuous time with a beat, movement, rhythm or pace and works towards a climatic ending and resolves to silence at the end.  As with the music or the films I’ve made, I’ve been fortunate to play not solo projects, but been highly collaborative, and in many cases left with loads of room for improvisation.  I started in music, when I got my first guitar and amp it was to learn how to play Blues music (Stevie Ray Vaughan, Albert Collins, etc.), and in that you know the basic form.  You hit the major marks but in-between you feel it, you go for it and you let emotions come forth.  If you pre-think it too much and play some pre-arranged “perfect” solo, then it’s not going to have the feel.  The “it” comes out in the moment; you know the form, the lines of the scene, and then you forget them and play the song for the first time.  That desire to feel, to be in a moment, to be surprised, to fall into something is obvious in music or as an actor in front of the camera.  The trick is as the director or filmmaker for me was to push the creatives to be “collaborative”; to create a space where others can feel free to improvise, to try things, to fail, and to reach these unplanned heights.

But ultimately, in both forms it comes down to this: you have a world of emotion, both combustive and harmonic inside and the only way to “deal” with them is to create a platform to let them out or for them to unfold in a story over time.  The song and the film are the same thing at the core in my mind.

MJ: How has the Canadian film industry evolved since you have been in involved in the community?

SB: To be honest, I don’t identify with the “Canadian” film industry.  It’s a success level I’m still striving to achieve; I don’t feel I have an experience in it to speak about it.  However, in regards to the Aboriginal film industry, we spoke earlier about the urban Aboriginal identity and the struggles there within, that moving to the city is an exercise of living with technology (modernity) and moving away from nature (living off the land).  The irony in regards to film is that the advances in technology have been without a doubt the biggest boon to Aboriginal filmmaking.  Technology such as digital cameras, editing on your laptop, etc. does not replace the need to learn skills or even remotely alleviate the struggles of trying to tell a story or having something to say. But, the tools can be placed into marginalized communities’ hands so if they so choose, they can now tell their own stories with themselves at the helm.  This is no small thing.  As such, more and more Aboriginal filmmakers are diving in, picking up a camera, and not only exploring the medium, the art form, and developing their skill set, but they’re telling their own stories.

The first thing you notice when you go to an Aboriginal film festival, where films come from all over Canada or North America, is that this “Aboriginal” thing is actually VERY diverse.  There is no single beads and feather “Indian-ness” – it’s nuanced, regional and differential.  And you won’t necessarily capture these differences in the Aboriginal community if a “Canadian” filmmaker makes a film about “Aboriginals”.  When an Inuit filmmaker makes a film from and about their community, it has a life to it that is its own.  Same too with a film from a Navajo filmmaker or a Metis filmmaker, so on and so forth.  Yes, there are “Aboriginal” similarities amongst all, but the specifics astound; not to mention the other massive variable of what outside filmmakers or genres mostly influence said filmmaker and their “Aboriginal” work.  You can’t have this discussion and start splitting hairs or be amazed unless technology makes filmmaking more accessible to all communities as it has.

The technology is here and the audience is here.  There are many new platforms to share work and god knows the stories are out there in the communities.  It’s a matter of developing the skills and the professionalism on both sides of the camera.

(My father has been an Aboriginal rights leader/politician for 40 years and apparently in that last bit, the apple hasn’t fallen far from the tree.  And yes, my fellow Aboriginal community members, the use of “apple” here can be a bit loaded, but I mean it the other way, the common way, you know that I’m like my Dad … look I’m white on the outside, so … forget it.)

Tkaronto: trailer from Shane Belcourt on Vimeo.

MJ: Are there any aspects of the Canada film industry that are unique compared to an international realm?

SB: I’ve had the pleasure to travel to Los Angles and meet with a few folks and those travels have provided me with an awakening.  I can see a crystal clear the difference between the Canadian film industry and the American (Hollywood) one.  In Hollywood, the question is not “what do you want to say and how can I support that unique and important singular voice.”  Rather, it is “what can you bring to me that we can package, get green lit, and make money off of – go!”  Huge difference.  Our Canadian Industry is smaller with smaller budgets, but the funding bodies look towards empowering an artistic voice – film as art and expression as opposed to purely commerce.  (I have no idea what the inner workers of Telefilm are at this point.  Perhaps this has changed or is changing).  Suffice to say, this is a huge opportunity that is unique to our Canadian industry that your voice and vision for small personal films are going to be supported here.  Doesn’t mean they aren’t south of the border or internationally, but it is most certainly the case here. So, great to know that that box is ticked off, now onto the actually writing a story that has something to say part…

I would also add that Aboriginal films, like “foreign language films” (Quebec films),  are in a unique position to take advantage of not only the production opportunities but also the audience opportunities.  There can be a temptation to think, “my film’s in English, like Hollywood movies, and therefore I should make a Hollywood style genre film and rich and famous!” However, when you are starting from “my film is in a language no one really speaks,” or “my film is about this marginalize group of people that no one really knows about and isn’t really packed with bankable movie stars,” you start with what can be seen as a handicap.  But really, it’s an opportunity: to be more specific, be more honest, and to be more fearless.  It can’t be an exercise in making a film “marketable” or “relatable to a movie going audience”.  That’s sunk from the get go – it’s a low budget film (relative) with no stars. BUT it’s from this unique world and with these unique story/character elements, that comes from this specific voice/culture; basically embracing fully that all of us in Canada are making “foreign” films.

(This message has been brought to you by some guy you never heard of with a semi-informed opinion.  Proceed with caution.)

MJ: Do you have any words of advice to budding filmmakers in Canada? Or more specifically, do you have any advice for budding Aboriginal Canadian youth looking to enter the world of film?

SB: When I give my “talks” with budding young filmmakers, Aboriginal or otherwise, it always begins with: “I’m jealous”.  To come up now and to be able to have these new technologies available to you to learn on and experiment with that are damn near professional grade?  Unreal.  Unimagined back in the day (yeah, I’m old enough in this technological world to use “back in the day.” I sported a cassette Walkman dude!).  There’s opportunity to just do, so just do.  The first works are going to suck, but they’ll be these flares, these moments, this style, this you-thing that will start to emerge.  And that’s why you play and mess about.

Going to film school to advance your career seems odd to me.  Just use the time with no stakes to explore and make mistakes and try shit and discover your voice; that is what this early development time is about.  When you get old, you discover that there is no difference between “then” and “now”, or old technology or new ones, or emerging and arrived; filmmaking is storytelling, and storytelling requires voice and vision and spirit and all of that elusive, ever-changing, unexplainable, non-static, swing blindfolded at a piñata “success” and “knowing.”  Forever a child.

MJ: What new projects can we look forward to seeing from you?

SB: After all of the above gibberish I’m sure the reader is DYING to know what my answer is to this one! (Does the sarcasm read?)

I’m working on completing another super low budget film script which “in-house” (my home) we (my wife and I) refer to as “Tkaronto 2.” A film about a couple that is struggling with marriage; a total “wow, where did this film idea come from?!”  (Like I said, “Tkaronto 2″) The hope is to shoot it next year (I’ve been saying this for 2 years).

Also working on feature film script that Telefilm paid for and is now rightfully demanding from me (long overdue) about a boy who loses his mother and searches for the “better place” where he has been told she’s gone.

And the other “big work” I’m chipping away at is a TV series that is being developed through the National Screen Institute Totally Television program.  My co-creator (Duane Murray) and I head off to Banff in June to…well, we’ll see.  The hope is that we’ll successfully sell the idea to a broadcaster, but with any opportunity comes the rope to hang yourself with (and I mean that in a funny fun way).

Ongoing: I try to have some fun with a camera and make short films for Vimeo.  Towards that end I should have a new short film, “Say Yes”, online middle of April.

And with that, I better get back to it…

MJ: Thank you Shane for your time to do this interview and for launching your short film, “Say Yes” on Mason Journal.  To learn more about Shane Belcourt, visit his website at www.shanebelcourt.com or view his work at www.vimeo.com/shanebelcourt

Paintings of European colonization in the North America landscape were presented in a romanticized fashion by 19^th century artist such as Paul Kane, Albert Bierstadt, Thomas Cole and John Mix Stanley.  By skillfully adopting this painterly technique, Toronto-based artist Kent Monkman challenges these historical painters and their contextual interpretations. In an explicit narrative utilizing idealistic western landscapes as a backdrop to homoerotic interventions, Monkman creates a radically alternative view of the Canadian Aboriginal peoples.

With a Swampy Cree and English/Irish ancestry, Kent Monkman is a First Nation Canadian and a member of the Fisher River Band in northern Manitoba.  Though film, illustration and visual art, Monkman is inspired by his ancestry to explores the impact of colonialism on the Canadian Aboriginal people; a history that largely bore a decimation of aboriginal culture, an exposure to Judeo-Christian values, and modified views on sexuality due to the influence of the church.

Colonial paintings during the 19^th century, according to Monkman, were often biblical in nature and had a consistent message of Christianity; not only the landscapes that were painted, but the Aboriginal’s that were represented within them.  The Anglican Missionary in the 19^th century translated the Bible and Christian hymns into the Cree language, “and so just the very existence of this form of writing credited to this Anglican missionary, this impact of the church on aboriginal people, that this written form of the language was developed. So from that body of work with that sort of theme in mind, I started to think.  I had these human figures grappling sort of beneath the layers of syllabics and they were quite sensual, sort of erotic figures of bodies wrestling, so I was playing with the idea of how through this intersection of culture through Christianity, you know, meeting aboriginal cultures, it’s often…a space that can be one of conflict and one of consent, and I think it’s very easily, sometimes too easily polarized or set up, that you know Christianity has had profoundly negative influence on aboriginal people, and so it was about opening this dialogue and saying well there’s been many different ways that Christianity has impacted aboriginal people and through that investigation with that Cree text and the Christian hymns that I was translating onto the paintings, this idea of the impact on sexuality came through. At the tail end of that series I started to imagine what these figures might look like set in a landscape and it really came as a sort of, I guess a purely logical extension of that work.”

(Kent Monkman – Artist and Model, 2003 – acrylic on canvas. Collection of artist.)

(Kent Monkman – Triumph of Mischief, 2007. – acrylic on canvas. Collection of the artist. Photo courtesy of the artist.)

Sexuality became a dominant concept in Monkman’s work; where sexuality is a hierarchical exploration of power between the Aboriginal people and European colonization.  In “The Moral Landscape” series, the interpretations of the Aboriginal as “caretakers’ of the land” by historical painters are re-interpreted by Monkman to show this sexual manifestation.

Recognizing the misrepresentation of sexuality in Aboriginal cultures through many of the 19^th century paintings, Monkman explores the idea of berdaches to play on the inaccuracies.  The berdaches, or Two-Spirit People, are those who simultaneously embody both the masculine and feminine spirit; capturing a third gender that performs the traditionally associated roles and dons the garments of both men and women.

The European painters who were set to paint the cultural landscape selectively chose to ignore the berdache.  “Many of these artists were commissioned by wealthy patrons. So in effect they were sort of fulfilling a commission. So there was this influence of their patrons, wanting these artists to create images that fulfilled their own imagination or their own ideas about what the west was about, what Native people were about.”

Through Monkman’s investigation, he discovered that there was a general acceptance within Aboriginal cultures in accepting homosexuality and two-spirited persons prior to the colonization and the subsequent onset of Christian principles.  Within certain tribes, these individuals were revered for their ability to bridge the gap between genders; often adopting the roles of healers or medicine people:  “…everything that I’ve learned through my investigation and studies of this subject… alternative forms of sexuality were present…They were definitely here and accepted before contact.”

(Kent Monkman – Dance To The Berdashe, Video installation, 2008. Bruce Bailey Fine Arts, © Christopher Chapman.)

(Kent Monkman – Louis Vuitton Quiver, 2007. Collection of the Artist.)

(Kent Monkman – still from Shooting Geronimo
Written and directed by Kent Monkman
Cinematographer and Executive Producer: Gisèle Gordon)

To bring the two-spririted into the art they were previously ignored from, Monkman developed an alter-ego drag persona: Miss Chief Eagle Testickle, who is a reoccurring character in his paintings, videos and performances.  Originally inspired by the performer Cher, “this whole (Eagle Testickle) persona is to take that Hollywood Indian stereotype and present it as a really empowered persona who has in my paintings a lot of sexual power.”  Often found wearing seven-inch platform heels, or a raccoon jock strap, Miss Chief Eagle Testickle is Monkman’s opportunity to play off the “egotistical” and exaggerated perspectives of the 19^th century painters.  Miss Chief becomes a glorified representation of the relations between the European and Aboriginal cultures.  In “Si je t’aime prends garde à toi” Monkman demonstrates this egotistical perspective where a European sculptor’s kiss brings to life his marble sculpture of an Aboriginal creation to life.

Though Monkman presents conceptualized views the two cultures that he possess, he defines himself first and foremost as a painter.  “So before I set out to create work that is concept driven or anything like that, it’s really about painting. But I think my work is primarily informed by an attempt to define that space between the two cultures. I think that’s probably the strongest way of…or the simplest way of defining how my work’s informed.”

(Kent Monkman – Si je t’aime prends garde à toi, 2007. Collection of George and Arlene Hartman. Photo Isaac Applebaum.)

Monkman has shown in solo exhibitions at the Montreal Museum of Fine Art, the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art in Toronto, the Winnipeg Art Gallery, and the Art Gallery of Hamilton; site specific performances at the McMichael Canadian Art Collection, The Royal Ontario Museum, and at Compton Verney. His award-winning short film and video works have been screened at various national and international festivals, including the 2007 and 2008 Berlinale, and the 2007 Toronto International Film Festival.  His work is represented in numerous public and private collections including the National Gallery of Canada, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Museum London, The Glenbow Museum, The Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art, The Mackenzie Art Gallery, the Art Gallery of Ontario, and the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian.

Cover image: (Kent Monkman – The Trapper’s Bride, 2006. – acrylic on canvas. Private collection.)

References:

http://kentmonkman.com/main.php

http://www.urbannation.com/main.php

http://www.gallery.ca/cybermuse/showcases/meet/artist_e.jsp?artistid=26919

http://www.mbam.qc.ca/en/expositions/exposition_141.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent_Monkman

http://www.thestar.com/article/278281

Faye HeavyShield is known for her large scale site-specific installations featuring repetitive use of small hand-crafted elements with a minimalist approach to composition exploring the cultural influence and natural elements of Western Canada. Her use of abstract form and direct cultural representation is what makes her work particularly enlightening.

Born on the Kainai reserve in Alberta, Faye grew up on the reservation as part of a very large family. The Kainai Nation, or Blood Tribe, is a First Nation in southern Alberta and part of the Blackfoot Confederacy.  She was educated as a young girl at St. Mary’s Catholic school; a program instated by the 1876 Indian Act.  Her Catholic education and the influence of Christianity on her life as it relates to her ancestry, forms the backdrop of her body of work. Through her sculpture, HeavyShield depicts provoking memories and recollections of her upbringing on the reserve, the connection to her community, her ancestry and the strength of the natural surrounding environment.

My art is a reflection of my environment and personal history as lived in the physical geography of southern Alberta with its prairie grass, river coulees, and wind and an upbringing in the Kainai community (with a childhood stint in the Catholic residential school system). The past, present and imagined make up the vocabulary used to realize my thoughts and ideas; responses and references to the body, land, language. – Faye HeavyShield

Imagery, materials, and symbols derived from direct cultural and religious references are manifested in installations of delicate hand-crafted objects often assembled in repetitive large-scale collections. The repetition and delicacy of the objects appears meditative in not only in their final resolution, but in the methods that she takes in hand-crafting the work.

In her piece entitled Kuto’iis (Blood), hundreds of small knotted balls of cloth are painted in deep red and attached to the wall in a frenetic assemblage. The repeated act of hand-making the knots, and assembling the repetitive pattern has been described as a recreation of the sounds of language, story and song. Similarly, in her work ‘Body of Land’ images of human skin are printed on paper and then folded into miniature teepees and scattered rhythmically across a white wall.  Her installation speaks to the stability of her community, language and history.

In her work entitled, Aapaskaiyaawa (They are Dancing) twelve yellow canvas figures are assembled in an informal circle suspended serenely in mid-air. The forms engage with one another as though they are gracefully dancing and swaying like spirits, symbolic of the strength of cultural traditions, family and ritual.

One of my earliest and strongest memories is that of my father skinning a deer: the beauty of the animal’s eyes, serene in death, the smell of blood, the crackle of fat as the hide was peeled away, and the great taste of the meal my mother cooked. This image and others I saw later in statues of Jesus on the cross, in the architecture of the old homes – tepee poles before the skin/canvas (covered them) and structures left over from the Sundance – and in the bodies of the old. When I began my formal art training, these influences surfaced in the form of biomorphic images, skeletal armatures with vestiges of “flesh”, using architectural and figurative language. Monochromatic, after the solitude and simplicity of the prairie. Sometimes building the surface up and then working back from there, peeling the layers. – Faye HeavyShield, 1992

Sources:

Robert Houle on Faye HeavyShield

Mentor in Residence

National Gallery of Canada

In My Lifetime

Works:

Aapaskaiyaawa (They are Dancing), 2002
Acrylic on canvas, plastic filament: 178 x 366 x 183 cm

Body of Land, 2002-2006
Inkjet printer paper

Kuto’iis, (Blood), 2004

Cloth, red dye

Sisters, 1993

Plaster, moulding compound, tinted gesso, shoes: 105.00 cm

McMichael Canadian Art Collection

Untitled, 1992
wood, cement, acrylic: 190.5 cm diameter installed; elements: 244.5 x 13.5 cm diameter each

Ned Pratt is a Canadian photographer whose body of work expresses a continual search for beauty in the unforgiving Newfoundland landscape.

His deep connection to the island and the people who inhabit it informs his approach to photography; an investigation of the subtleties of the landscape. While much of his photography captures human interaction with the environment such as structures built along the ocean’s edge, roads and infrastructure stretching across the province, it is evident that the ferocity of the landscape is not compromised by such intrusion.

Mason Journal had an opportunity to speak with Ned to discover how his connection to Newfoundland, the Maritimes and his Father, a Canadian contemporary painter, Christopher Pratt, has influenced his work.

Mason Journal: What is your personal connection with Atlantic Canada? Can you briefly describe your professional development in terms of your education and work experience in Canada?

Ned Pratt: I have lived in every Atlantic province except Prince Edward Island. From grade ten on I went to school in Rothesay New Brunswick, then to Acadia In Wolfville Nova Scotia and finally NSCAD in Halifax (with a brief interlude at UBC). But my home has always been Newfoundland. I don’t think I ever seriously considered living anywhere else. I certainly don’t now. I am very much tied to this province; I’m very proud of it and of my ancestry. I guess that smacks of nationalism, but I am comfortable with that; those that live here must be, I think. It is an extraordinary place, Newfoundland.

The name of the province is of course Newfoundland and Labrador, but I am specifically speaking about the Island, so I just refer to it. My work, for the most part, is about and from it. Labrador (to the north and part of the Mainland next to Quebec) is sublime; but my history is here.

When I left art school I was fortunate enough to get picked up by a good and controversial local paper, The Sunday Express. Michael Harris was the editor when I started and then David Stuart Patterson. Both were driven and very intelligent people that insisted on hard work. So my plan for coming out of school as an artist (which on some level was the idea) was put on hold for a very necessary and practical set of experiences. Working at the newspaper taught me what I like and don’t like about photography. It made me believe that I had a responsibility for the images I made. It made me see the power it could have and the damage that it could do. I wasn’t cut out for the newspaper world.

I photographed my subjects for the story I was given. If the story put them in a bad light, then I made sure my photo did too. But personally, I didn’t know what was true and I didn’t know the issue, really. Who was I to condemn this person for looking one way or the other? I didn’t feel qualified for those types of judgements. I still don’t.

The paper eventually folded. I was there for three years and on that day, I instantly became a freelance photographer (and my son was born three days after the paper closed). Since then, I have been working for ad agencies, magazines, business and myself. I work mostly on the Island but am lucky enough to have clients in other parts of the country.

MJ: Did your architectural studies at UBC prior to attending Nova Scotia College of Art and Design inform your approach to photography in anyway?

NP: No. But my dislike of the experience pushed me in the direction. It was (and is I suspect is still) a great program. The issues there were with me. If I had become an Architect, many would have suffered. Architecture was so slow and detailed and I also had no idea of what it (architecture) really was. I was too young and had no experience of taking the spaces I inhabited seriously. I didn’t know what it meant to be in a good kitchen, or how important the light in a bedroom could be in the morning, or what it felt like to sit in a room and be satisfied with the shapes around me. These things were just not part of my set of considerations then. I think I could do it now though.

Photography, on the other hand, is fast, easy to experiment with and suits my personality, I love its gadgetry. Any sense of design or composition I may have comes from a place I have always had it seems. It’s as if I have always seen it, but have never been able to show it. I still can’t really. I imagine that’s why I keep at it.

MJ: Your portfolio is extremely extensive and diverse ranging from portraiture, food photography, fashion and landscapes. Is there a particular genre, concept or theme that you strive to retain as the foundation to your work?

NP: I think my approach to design stays consistent throughout the work. It suits some genres better than others and at different times. For instance, my food photography in the past has been very tight and detailed. It was the style at the time. Now the photography you see in magazines and packaging is much looser, more casual. I really had to try and twist my mind to let go of some of my rules in order to stay current. And of course, I am still too tight with that work. I can’t really get away from the way I see things. Even my attempts to loosen up wind up coming back to the core approach.

I enjoy working with ad agencies because I like the collaboration between photographer and art director. A good art director will take abilities and push them to arrive at what is required. I have to switch my mind to their idea of composition. It’s very beneficial, very healthy.

MJ: How do you find the balance between your personal work and your commercial projects?

NP: I feel that, at a certain level, they are one in the same. At least as far as my responsibility goes. All the work I do is my own; whether it’s for an agency or my own art. In the end, I have simply decided to go ahead. Finally, one’s personal work is what one holds dearest. The artist is the sole captain of that one.

To speak about it more practically, I try to use my commercial work to feed the personal work. If I can use the landscapes as an example, they come from a body of work I did for Newfoundland tourism. In a project like that, you try to photograph things at their most beautiful. Unbelievable situations, weather, etc. But that’s not the real Newfoundland at all. So my landscapes, among other things, try to speak about the power and beauty of Newfoundland without any of the exaggerations. Newfoundland can require effort to love. Here, beauty is not always presented on a silver platter. At times, I need to work at it and to me, that is the real Newfoundland, and that is one of the things I try to discuss in the landscapes. Without the commercial experience, I doubt that I would feel as passionate as I do about it.

Another project, the poorly named “Garbage Project” comes directly out of my commercial experience. In that body of work, I photographed other photographs found blowing around in garbage on the street, through plastic garbage bags and in closed store windows. The reason being that, as a commercial photographer, this is where I often saw the results of my own labours; even the editorial work. So, in the end, these found photographs were from nameless photographers working in a very temporary medium. The result of all our efforts from photographers, art directors and account folks (I guess) went up, out, and gone. maybe taken into consideration, maybe not. I enlarged them to 6ft wide and chucked them in a gallery. I’m still explaining that one.

Commercial work is unavoidable. I could never survive as a photographer without it. Fortunately I enjoy it.

MJ: Can you comment on how your father, Christopher Pratt’s career as a painter and printmaker has influenced your approach to photography?

NP: That is a really hard question for me and I think about it all the time. He and my mother have influenced me by simply being good parents. We (my brother and two sisters) were never pushed in any direction. Things were always up to us. One main influence is finding out that it is possible to see beauty in many things and in many ways; to take everything one sees seriously, even if it may seem mundane to many people. Another would be hard work. My family has always believed in it.

In terms of design, it looks fairly obvious that I am the man’s son. But my design is actually quite different. My significant influences actually come mainly from other photographers like Lee Frielander , Andre Kertesz and Charles Sheeler. But I, like all people in the arts, have many influences for many reasons. I don’t expect to ever do anything truly original, but in what I do, I hope to find myself.

MJ: Do you see any design, art or architectural trends which can be described as unique to Atlantic Canada?

NP: The answer is yes, but I am not knowledgeable enough to answer that question. I do fear, however, that we will cling to a quaint approach for too long.

MJ: Can you explain a little bit about how the local culture and the environment influence your personal work?

The local culture influences artist here by simply being a culture that supports and is proud the arts and its artists. That doesn’t mean that everyone is making a good living from it; that is not the case at all. But there is a large art community and it is supportive and diverse.

For me and many others, the environment is crucial to the work that comes from Newfoundland.

Personally speaking, I think of this Island as a living thing; tough, often unforgiving and always beautiful. This island doesn’t care about the very temporary intruders. All our efforts and our presence will disappear and this place will still be here. So I like to examine the frailty of the human presence in this place through the common structures we build and the details found within them.

MJ: What, if any, changes have you noticed in the Canadian design scene in the past few years?

NP: Again, I’m not qualified to discuss this, though I wish I were. It seems to me that the Canadian design scene is not so much a Canadian design scene anymore but one that has entered into a more international scene bringing with it textures and materials from our geographic and cultural diversity. The Canadian design I like is intelligent, worldly and not afraid of humour.

MJ: Can you tell us what we can look forward to seeing from you next?

NP: I have a show here in St. John’s in July at the Christina Parker Gallery, and there is the possibility of a show in Toronto. It is a continuation of the landscape work. This body seems to be more minimal and hopefully, with even less narrative.

I am also lucky enough to be part of a show at the Mass MOCA called “Oh Canada ” in May. Apart from that, I hope to do some more figure work this year and continue experimenting with my food photography. Much to learn.

Ned is currently represented by the Christina Parker Gallery in St. John’s Newfoundland.
www.christinaparkergallery.com

www.nedpratt.com

An icon of Canadian contemporary art has a life of experience that now spans over 90 years. We explore the work of Alex Colville, the man described as one of Canada’s greatest living artist and arguably the most prominent war time artist that documented Canada’s involvement in the Second World War.

Alex Colville possesses a body of work that examines the importance of the ordinary; expected moments of the Canadian middle-class. His subjects are derived from the inspiration that surrounds him; his family, animals he kept, and landscapes in his Canadian East Coast upbringing.

Using highly constructed and precisely calculated compositions, Colville combines this rigidity of technique with a fluid subject matter to create a ‘hyper-realist’ approach that evokes a reaction in the viewer of unease and temporary stillness before inevitable disruption. Through a meticulous procedure of applying infinitesimal spots of paint, the gathered effect further emanates the somber quality of the subject matter.

Colville who was born in 1920 in Toronto moved to Amherst, Nova Scotia at the age of 9. Shortly after their move to the Canadian East Coast, Colville contracted pneumonia and nearly lost his life. This period was a pivotal time for Colville as his 6-month long isolated recovery became a time to read and developed his drawing talents. Nearly a decade later, Colville enrolled in the Mount Allison University Fine Arts programme in Sackville, New Brunswick and graduated in 1942 in the midst of the Second World War. In 1944, he was enlisted and was chosen to serve as a member of the Canadian War Art Programme. For two years until the end of the War, Colville was provided with access to travel across the European centers to paint and document the Allied activities including training camps, the 3rd Infantry in Belgium, and famously, the troops landing on Juno Beach on D-Day.

At the end of the War, Colville moved towards art education and taught at the Fine Arts Department in the school where he himself was educated. After 7 years at this position, he left teaching to devote himself to his art of painting and print making.

In 1950, Colville painted Nude and Dummy which marked his departure from reportage war images towards a more personally reflective direction and experienced a number of medium changes from oil to tempera to synthetic resins and acrylic polymer emulsions. Since that time, Colville has demonstrated his careful dedication to each composition and has produced only 3 or 4 pieces per year.

Colville’s collection includes a significant number of animal subjects, particular domesticated species. He has described his relationship and rapport with animas is greater than that with people. There are other reoccurring themes seen throughout his work including transportation, the sea and relationships between couples and is represented in one of his most celebrated pieces, To Prince Edward Island.

Colville has exhibition on an international realm including the Tate in London, the Beijing Exhibition Center, and represented Canada at the Venice Biennale in 1966. In 1983, a touring retrospective of his work was held at the Art Gallery of Ontario and the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts in 1994. In 2000, the National Gallery of Canada produced Alex Colville: Milestones as a major retrospective of his life’s work. His work can currently be found in gallery collections including the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and the Centre National d’Art et de Culture Georges Pompidou in Paris.

He has received wide spread recognition for his contribution to the arts in Canada and was made a Companion of the Order of Canada in 1982, and was honoured with a Governor General’s Visual and Media Arts Award in 2003.

He continues to live and work in Wolfville, Nova Scotia.

References:
CBC Life and Times
National Gallery Of Canada
CBC Archives
Colville House

During a recent trip to Newfoundland, Mason had the chance to visit the Fogo Island Arts Corporation situated off the northern coast of Newfoundland. The stunning series of artist studios serve as the home to the foundation’s new Residency Program. Artists from around the world come to live in work in the area for several months at a time, taking in the rugged surrounds and working in the clean geometric structures which seem to teeter on the edges of the landscape. The studios were designed by Architect, Todd Saunders who grew up in Newfoundland and founded Saunders Architecture based in Bergen, Norway over 10 years ago.

Mason Journal is thankful for the recent opportunity to speak with Todd Saunders to discuss how his personal relationship to Newfoundland affected his approach to designing the structures, and how his international experiences have given him insight into Canadian Architecture.

Mason Journal: What is your personal connection with Canada, and in particular eastern Canada? Can you briefly describe your professional development in terms of your education and work experience in Canada and abroad?

Todd Saunders: I grew up in Newfoundland and finished high school in Halifax, and then went onto do my undergrad at Nova Scotia College of Art and Design (NSCAD). I also spent some time on the east coast in the United States as an exchange student at the Rhode Island School of Design. I spent some time at McGill University, and then did some traveling. Then I lived in Vienna, Berlin then headed back to Canada to Vancouver for a while I ended up settling down in Norway about 15 years ago. I worked at a handful of architecture firms and then started my practice here within a few years; we’ve been operational for about 10 years now.

MJ: How has the infusion of your international professional experience impacted your approach to the Fogo Island Studios which inevitably hit close to home for you?

TS: The main advantage of travelling was that I saw possibilities. I’ve seen some amazing projects around the world. In particular, when I was in Portugal, it struck me how similar and wild the landscape is to Atlantic Canada. I saw so many similarities to Newfoundland in terms of how unique and unexplored it was architecturally in comparison to the landscape. The possibilities are endless rather than restricted in such places. Canadian architects have the advantage of having open spaces to really be unrestricted. We have all the opportunities in the world it’s just a matter of having the ability to really push it.

MJ: The elements of the Northern Atlantic can be described as severe and untamed, yet the local residents have a reputation for being a gentle and generous people with a deep connection to and respect for their land. How have you found the local residents have responded to your approach to your design solution and architectural expression for the Fogo Island Arts Corporation?

TS: There’s a book, written by Robert Melon about historical architecture of the Island called ‘Tilting’. I purposely avoided reading this book prior to designing because I didn’t want the historical details to distort my thought process. I know the place so well, I wanted to trust my gut feeling and base my decisions on intuition.

A few teachers of mine were on a trip to Norway prior to us starting work on Fogo Island. They went to visit The Aurland lookout, another project of ours. When they found out I was the architect design the Fogo Island Studios, they were instrumental in reassuring the community on the island that they were in good hands. They trusted that I had a good understanding of what the place needed.

We had very little feedback from the locals to start with, but we’ve had a lot of feedback now that it’s designed. It was pretty touching really. I spoke at a lecture series at the beginning stages of the project where I presented our ideas. It was emotional for me to stand in front of a crowd of people that reminded me of my past and my upbringing. It struck me how seriously I undertook this endeavour and the amount of responsibility I felt.

Long Studio:

MJ: How do you perceive Fogo Island Arts Corporation will impact the preservation and rejuvenation of the island through arts & culture?

TS: I wouldn’t say preservation because there never was any contemporary art there. I would say it’s rejuvenating the traditional arts by exposing young contemporary artists to traditional craft such as quilting, the use of wool and furniture making. It allows for dialogue which encourages respect for traditional art forms. Since I’ve been travelling back to Newfoundland a lot in the last five years or so, I’ve seen more homes that have been restored with more traditionally local characteristics; replacing vinyl siding with more traditional wood siding that is more indicative of the area. It’s nice to see this display of pride and this connection to our traditions.

MJ: The body of your work, including the Fogo Island Arts Corporation has a strong contemporary sensibility. Can you comment on this design philosophy and your approach to the use of materials and expression of form?

TS: The materials were easy. I wanted to use familiar materials to not surprise the locals, but put them together in a different way. It was almost like an Italian who moves away, comes back home and then cooks differently but with the same ingredients. I paid special attention to detailing and the joinery work. I focused on creating something new with old or familiar means.

In terms of my approach or philosophy towards the project, a lot of inspiration came from Newfoundland writers, musicians and actors. They’re making music based on the traditions of their culture, but it’s completely relevant today. Actors such as Rick Mercer and Rex Murphy haven’t forgotten where they’re from; they are genuine in who they are. My goal was to make a new Newfoundland architecture without copying the past but giving it a point of view in a contemporary context.

MJ: Has this project prompted you to want to do more work in Canada?

TS: We are designing a house at the moment; Villa Murphy, on the sunshine coast in BC and just finished another residence in Salt Spring Island, BC. We’re also in the middle of a cultural center in Labrador. But we also have a lot of work outside of Canada; we just finished a house in Polynesia and we’re working on a bid for a residence in Brussels, as well as a residence on the Turkish coast for a German writer.

MJ: Apart from these upcoming projects, is there anything else we can look forward to from Saunders Architecture?

TS: We’re looking to open an office in Canada over the next two years. Although we’re focused on staying small, we’re still looking to branch out over there. Right now we have about 5 full time employees and another 3 interns most of the time. We’re also looking forward to a book written about our firm by the Swiss publishing company Birkhäuser, due out in September 2012.

Bridge Studio :

Squish Studio:

Tower Studio:

Credits:

Architect: Saunders Architecture, Bergen, Norway, Principal Architect: Todd Saunders.
www.saunders.no

Client: Shorefast Foundation, The Fogo Island Arts Corporation
artscorpfogoisland.ca

Photography: Saunders Architecture

On display until January 2012, The Art Gallery of Nova Scotia in Halifax hosts the annual Sobey Art Awards. Now in its 9th year, the exhibition displays the top 5 shortlisted artists under 40 representing the most compelling Canadian artists from each region across the nation. The diverse exhibition includes Manon De Pauw (Québec), Daniel Young & Christian Giroux (Ontario), Sarah Anne Johnson (Prairies & the North), Charles Stankievech (West Coast & Yukon) and Zeke Moores (Atlantic).

Halifax plays more than just host to such a prestigious show; out of the five shortlisted candidates, three have studied at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design (NSCAD). Among them, representing Atlantic Canada at the exhibition is Newfoundland born sculptor Zeke Morres. Having earned his Bachelor of Fine Arts at NSCAD, Morres has stated that the influence of the institution is still glaringly evident in his work.

“I think I have that very specific NSCAD aesthetic. For me, in sculpture, that aesthetic is a sense of Canadian realism in an object-based work.” – Moores, The Coast 2011

His prominent contribution to the show included a full scale replica of a porta-potty constructed out of cast aluminium and nickel plated steel. Zake Moores portfolio of work embodies the tradition of counterfeit sculpture which alters your perception of materiality offering a twist on the hierarchy of ordinary materials and objects. Moores uses sculpture to examine every day mass-produced objects recreating them using industrial methods of manufacturing to explore social and cultural economies. Plastic porta-potties, cardboard boxes, and wood saw horses are viewed as archetypical objects which Moores then sculpts out of unordinary and often antithetical materials.

He uses his experience working at Johnson Atelier Foundry, one of largest art cast foundries in North America, to refine his knowledge of material and fabrication. His expertise is evident in the rendering of meticulous forms and textures which are accurately mimicked to alter ones perception of the system of value associated with the banal objects that surround us.

After studying in Halifax, Moores went on to the Univeristy of Windsor where he graduated from the Masters of Fine Arts program. Currently, Moores is showing nationally and internationally, while teaching at the University of Windsor, in Windsor Ontario, and Brock University in St. Catharines, Ontario. Along with the Sobey Art Award exhibition, showing at the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia in Halifax until January 8, 2012, Zeke’s work can also be seen in the show, Rubbish Rubbish at the MSVU gallery in Halifax until November 20th alongside artists, Chris Foster, Roula Partheniou, Lorenzo Pepito and Kate Walchuk.

Zeke Moores, Port-o-potty 2011. Nickel Plated Steel, Cast Aluminum. 7′x46″x46″.

Zeke Moores, Trash Cans 2005. Chromed Steel, dimensions variable.

Zeke Moores, SUV 2008. Steel.

Zeke Moores, Boxes 2010. Cast Bronze, dimensions varable.

Zeke Moores, Happy Meal 2007. Fabricated steel, dimensions variable.

Zeke Moores, Axes 2009. Cast aluminum, dimensions variable.

Zeke Moores, Construction Grade. Cast Aluminum, 8’ x 14’ x ½”, units: 4’x 8’ x ½”

Sources:
The Art Gallery of Nova Scotia – 2011 Sobey Art Award
Sobey Art Award
Canadian Art – Sobey Art Award 2011: Excitement, and an Exhibition
The Coast – Next Big Thing

Mason recently had a chance to visit the lands of Atlantic Canada. This month, we explore individuals of the East Coast who take the distinctive history and culture of the region and produce contextually specific art, design and architecture. We see how their setting inspires their work, how they position the industry compared to the rest of the nation, and learn what the East Coast has offer that no other region in Canada can.