FIVE WEEKS WITH MUNGO

Cranmer's logging outfit shut down for the Christmas holidays in 1955. During this break, Cranmer was in Victoria visiting his grandmother who was married to Mungo Martin, a renowned Kwakwaka'wakw artist. Cranmer carved miniature poles for something to do.

"I would wait for the carvers [the ones working with Mungo's Totem Pole Restoration Project at the time] to quit, then I would carve things. People were buying them now. Mungo was interested in what I was doing. He would teach me to carve properly."

 

Doug Cranmer, 1994

Interview with Rosa Ho

Mungo Martin working on the Totem Pole Restoration Project

at the University of British Columbia

(Photo by (unknown), c. 1950, collection MOA)

Cranmer had watched other First Nations artists like Arthur Shaughnessy and Willie Seaweed, but before he met Mungo Martin, he had no formal instruction in carving. Although he only spent five weeks that holiday carving with Mungo, Cranmer credits him for most of his early training. Mungo wouldn't tell Cranmer what to do, though:

"...he'd show me. He'd just come around, take it out of my hands. He didn't have to say anything."

 

"I wasn't going to do this for a living, cause I was working. But just to have something to do, I used carve along with Henry and a guy called Godfrey Hunt. But it was great times. We had a lot of fun."

 

Doug Cranmer, 1994

Interview with Rosa Ho

The designs that went onto the animals that Cranmer was carving were anatomically correct, showing the ribs and muscles, the arms, legs and the throat, and the backbone. These were the things Mungo Martin was leaving out, but was asking Doug Cranmer to include. After acquiring more experience, Cranmer says:

"Then I started taking out an awful lot of things that Mungo said were supposed to be included in everything. I did it more and more. I always look for the easiest way, the quickest way."

 

Doug Cranmer, 1994

Interview with Rosa Ho

Dance screen in the Big House in Alert Bay

(Photo by Judy Cranmer, c. 1960)

In Victoria, Mungo Martin designed one of the largest black and white dance screens of its time and Doug Cranmer and the late Tommy Hunt Jr. helped to paint it. It was painted on both sides because it was going to be used in a Victoria day parade.

"Dance screens were just black and white, at one time. This one had colour. We had this thing hanging up in the Big House in Victoria with just a weighted bottom. You'd be painting and every time somebody would open the door, this thing would blow away from you."

 

Doug Cranmer, 1994

Interview with Rosa Ho