Curator & Collector

As Bill Reid got older, Parkinson’s disease began to take its toll on his body, and consequently, on his ability to produce more artworks. As if in response, Reid’s sense of scale grew to mammoth proportions, a change that required a team of artisans and assistants to help him out. Where Reid had begun alone [...]

See the previous post for information on each pole This post grew out of the preceding one, a brief summary of Hilary Stewart’s excellent book Looking at Totem Poles. The Haida and Kwakiutl poles above feature something that has intrigued me for some time: the presence of multiple presences within the same physical space, a [...]

See below for information on each pole An introduction already aims to summarize a field, but this post aims to be a particularly short summary of some of the material in Hilary Stewart’s excellent introductory book (reviewed in the previous post) Looking at Totem Poles. This post is in part inspired by a very brave [...]

“Looking at Totem Poles,” by Hilary Stewart. Image taken from the Spirit Wrestler Gallery website Today I finished Looking at Totem Poles, by Hilary Stewart, whose earlier, most excellent book Looking at the Art of the Northwest Coast was instrumental in helping me to understand the traditional forms of First Nations northwest coast art. Looking [...]

Nest with eagle and eaglets by Richard Krentz Yesterday I visited for the first time the Klahowya Village exhibits in Stanley Park. The village, which recalls a living First Nations presence in the land that would later become known as Stanley Park, includes several booths with First Nations artisans and artists selling their productions. One [...]

Today I finally filled a blogging hole I have been wanting to get to for some time: I brought a camera to Bill Reid’s amazing sculpture that stands in front of the Vancouver Aquarium. It is, of course, the Killer Whale, a monumental work sculpted in bronze. The energetic, kinetic vitality of the killer whale [...]

I am really enjoying the new textiles exhibit, entitled Time Warp at the Bill Reid Gallery of Northwest Coast Art. The two blankets shown above, are woven in the northern geometric (left) and chilkat (right) patterns. The gallery also features several woven cedar-bark pieces, which I will likely post in the near-future here. The textiles [...]

My second edition Shadbolt [see the preceding post] arrived some days ago, and I read the last chapter and admired all the photographs in it. The photographs are much better, for the most part: they are brighter and sharper than in the first edition. As far as I can see, the text in the bulk [...]

In the last few months, I’ve used my lengthy commuting time to get a lot of reading done. Specifically, I’ve read several books about the aboriginal art of the northwest coast. They are, in the order I finished them: -Solitary Raven: The Essential Writings of Bill Reid, edited by Robert Bringhurst -The Raven Steals the [...]

Supposed Ming Dynasty stolen artwork image taken from the CBC I occasionally call myself a philistine when I mention that most modern art really doesn’t do much for me. I think a lot of five year olds can pull off what some contemporary artists do, and to me it doesn’t matter that the artists could [...]