Why Aboriginal Arts are the greatest arts in Canada?
By Miles Morrisseau
This isn’t a joke. I would rather have a Morrisseau hanging in my living room than a Picasso. I would rather see whatever Native Earth Performing Arts, De-Bahjehmuhjig Theatre or Kehewin Native Performance puts on the boards than whatever happens to be the hottest ticket on Broadway this season. I would rather spend an evening with Buffy Ste. Marie than an evening with the resurrected Beatles.
This comes from the heart and is based on spirit. What feeds my spirit and nothing else. Of course so many things come into play when given a choice between getting a free Picasso and getting a free Morrisseau (no relation, for the last time, we are not related, ok maybe distantly), that would probably end with me taking the Picasso. What comes into play is cupidity, which despite the root word has nothing to do with the spirit of love, or at least, not true love as we have come to believe in. Cupidity means an “unhealthy obsession with material gain.” So to have a Picasso, means that you would be the envy of so many people who share the weakness of cupidity. Or if I bought a velvet painting of Elvis or Dogs playing poker and then found a Picasso hidden underneath it, then I would not only have a valuable piece of art but also the jealousy of thousands perhaps millions after the story was posted on the internet. And it is those kinds of stories that always get front-page links on Internet news sites. That’s all that one can hope for in this world your 15 minutes of internet fame and money. Isn’t it? Isn’t it?
And of course, if I found a Picasso in a garage sale and gained my moment in the bright, bright lights of the Larry King show. I would never want it to end. I would double up on my fame a few weeks later when I sold the painting at Christies or Sotheby’s and set the new record for the highest price ever paid at auction for a painting bought at a yard sale and once again garner further media attention and internet hits. With the money I could buy a Norval Morrisseau, a Jean Ash Poitras, a Carl Beam to hang in my log cabin in the bush. So those are all sadly, sadly, realistic factors. So that is not the question that I am basing this statement upon – I would rather have a Morrisseau than a Picasso (please feel free to insert, whomever’s name you like in place of Pablo, you can put in Van Gogh or Rembrandt as far as I’m concerned, I’m not picking on Picasso in particular, it’s just that Picasso and Morrisseau flow really well together, they rhyme and have similar syllables). In order to assess whether you would really chose between two works of art you have to remove cupidity, the desire to be envied, peer pressure and any other voice and vice out of the equation.
The question should be, if you had to chose between two works of art and hang them in your living room so that you see them every single day for the rest of your life and you could never sell them or trade them and when you died they would be burned in your funeral pyre. Then which artwork would you choose and in that scenario I would rather have a Morrisseau than a Picasso. Now I’m never going to make that choice, but when living in Ottawa I did go to the Picasso exhibit and a few years later, I went to the Morrisseau exhibit. I can remember some of the Picasso, but the Morrisseau one still resonates in me like some kind of fever dream that I can’t escape. The colors, the passion, the spirit were like nothing else, something that has only been experienced in dreams or ceremony. In all honesty, when I think about it, I still can’t quite process it. That is an experience only great art can do. Yes, there is something to a piece of art that gives understanding, clarity of experience and helps you interpret the world. I say, in great art, something happens within you that you can’t quite grasp, it’s confusing and overwhelming and what it shows you is nothing less than the Great Mystery. It doesn’t make you bigger, growing secure in your knowledge of the world. It makes you feel less, insignificant in the unimaginable power of the universe. It reminds us, as do dreams and ceremony, to be humble.
Though, I must be honest and admit that the realization was not always there and did not develop in a flash, striking me down with a thunderclap or less dramatically as a light switch flicking on. It was more like a peat moss fire smoldering under the ground for days and weeks until the right combination of fuel and oxygen come together to ignite the flame and bring it roaring to the surface. In my early days at the Canada Council for the Arts, I was a good little soldier who marched along to the same drumbeat that pounded out. One for all and all for one. But after awhile I realized that this wasn’t my job. It was my job to take a position. As the senior Aboriginal Arts officer at the Canada Council, it was my responsibility to take a position. I realized I had to do this when I came to understand that everyone else was already doing it. I had come to the periphery of this understanding when I was in the Theatre section and I questioned why millions of dollars were being handed over without question to a handful of companies. I knew what Stratford was, I knew what Shaw was, I had no intention of ever going to see their work and I didn’t know why it was a foregone conclusion that they get the lions share of the funding meant for the entire country. The position was that this was the most important theatre in the country and had to be supported, no questions asked. Once I had come to that understanding I knew that I too had to take a position on why I felt Aboriginal Arts were the greatest art in Canada. I could say the words, I could make the case, it is what I do; but after a very short period of time I needed to think honestly about what I was saying. I’m not a salesman. I’m not the kind of person that can sell something I don’t believe to someone who doesn’t want it. I needed to take stock of my own feelings; my own experiences and in doing so I came to understand that this was what I had always believed. In nearly every single art form the work that has resonated with me was the work of Aboriginal Artists. I had no desire to see the Royal Winnipeg Ballet; I would never plan a summer vacation that included the Stratford Festival, the Shaw Festival or Shakespeare in the Park by the Lake under the Stars or anywhere else. I wasn’t pretending that I believed that Aboriginal Art was the greatest art in Canada; it was the other way around. I had always experienced Aboriginal Arts as that which touched my spirit and stayed within my heart and mind long after the experience ended. It was this light that I was drawn into and hoped that one-day, in some way I too would shine out.
I knew that day I walked into Urban Shaman for the first time that this was a place that shared the same conviction. On an absolutely blistering summer day, I walked down into the basement below Mondragon to a below ground space which provided no relief from the heat. The space was tight and cramped. The small office looking like it had been hit by a terrorist attack. People working feverishly to get the next show ready for an opening only a few days away. It wasn’t just the heat from outside; it was the intensity of the job, the commitment, and the deadline that was palpable in the air. They were courteous, they liked the fact that I was from the Canada Council and I had dropped by, but it wasn’t like they were falling over backwards to make a connection. They weren’t glad handing, kissing up or slowing down much from the task at hand. In fact, I had the sense that they really wanted me to get out of the way so they could focus fully on the job. I thought it was great because that’s how we are as Aboriginal People, when there is work to be done, help out or get out of the way. I was the money guy, but the money wasn’t what they were running on. That wasn’t the fuel to their flame. It mattered, of course it matters; but great work comes from the effort, from the sweat, that’s why they call it work. They were doing it because they wanted to give Aboriginal artists a space to create and to showcase their work. They were doing it because they believe that the greatest arts are Aboriginal Arts and they were doing more that just believing in this greatness; they were being this greatness.
(Originally published by Urban Shaman Gallery)
No comments:
Post a Comment