Work in progress

It has been slower going in recent weeks. There are those dips in the road where an artist feels the weight of the work and the pressure of trying to support ones family and its medical needs. But even if the progress hasn't been as well as I would like, it is important to trudge along in any case, and work through it.

I was tackling the detailing of the Brown Bear Totem painting, but I was overtaken by the need to begin another totem section. This has been an essential part of this journey with the totems, allowing them to draw me, each in their own time. In light of the dialogs around appropriation concerns, with concerns of First Nations designs being used or re-interpreted by non-Indigenous artists or companies as an example, mine is not to create new artworks in the conventional sense. Mine is not to interpret. I suppose that this self-discipline comes from my years in Byzantine Iconography, where to, I have always trusted the Masters and respected the forms, traditions, symbolism, colours, etc. In doing so, my works avoided error and inadvertently posing questions or scandal. The same can be said for this series, this journey with the totems. I allow myself to respond and to use my skills to capture what I see, and all the details within. It is imperative that I keep adjusting the forms and lines as required, until they are as exact as need be (aware of how precise these forms are from Nation to Nation, imparted with their meaning and movements). I trust the image of the totem and the Master's creation. My task is to capture a facet of a particular moment in time within a totem's life span, preserving the Master's vision and skill. And unlike a photograph, the canvas painting brings a viewer, while remaining true to the original totem, an experience of vibrancy from the totem; the same which I feel when I come in contact with it in real life.

So, being free from trying to come up with an artistic concept for a painting, I can follow the images of various totems as they beckon. And they do. This new canvas is a case in point. I had been considering a few options, keeping in mind the canvas sizes that I had on hand. One of my  JPEGs was from the second lower layer of the House Pole at the Capilano Totem Visitors Center, "Seventh Generation Pole / Honour of the Children Pole". It seems simple enough but the forms and textures within and subtle colourings are actually complex in their simplicity.

The background information about this Totem is as follows:

Seventh Generation Pole / Honour of the Children Pole

• Carved by Wayne Carlick, 1995.
• Raised in 1997.
• This 24-foot pole was designed by James Lewis and carved by Wayne Carlick
  
• It took one year to carve and was raised on Father’s Day in 1997
  
• It was raised to honor all the artists and carvers in the past, the ones who continue today and those who            will pass on their culture in the future
  
• The bottom figures represent the  children of the past
  
• The second row above them are the children of the future
  
• The 3 large figures on the top half of the pole are the elders and teachers of the present
  
• The drumsticks and tools that they’re holding are those that they will pass on to the future generations.