Tag Archives: Doug Cranmer

Doug Cranmer: The Man Who Taught Bill Reid Everything He Knew

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By Alyssa Gallant

Doug and Bill Reid carving Wasco (Haida sea wolf) at Totem Park, ubc, as part of the Haida House Project, 1961. moa 2784/3 (printed in 2009); photo by Takao Tanabe.[1]

 In 1958, Doug Cranmer received a phone call from Bill Reid inviting him to help on a carving project that had been commissioned by the Museum of Anthropology (MOA).  Until earlier that summer, Doug had spent most of his life fishing and working in the lumber industry, occasionally studying carving with his step- grandfather, Mungo Martin.  However, that summer the Department of Fisheries and Oceans had imposed its first ten day ban on fishing and in response Doug claimed that he would never fish again.[2]  That year would also be his last logging.  He moved to Vancouver to work with Bill Reid and, as Doug later stated, “That was the beginning of my carving career.”[3]

In the nearly three years the two men worked together, they experimented with various carving techniques and ways of copying images from other, older Haida poles.  In truth, the two men were at the time, quite inexperienced

in carving.  It has since been rumoured that Reid taught Doug how to use the carving tools, such as the adze and chainsaw, and how to carve in general.  However, Reid had this to say: “Nobody, I’m sure, including me, could have influenced Doug one iota in any direction…if he learned anything in that period it was just improving his technique.  He retained his own style, which he still does.”[4]  Doug worked on the project with Reid until 1961, when he accidentally adzed his Achilles tendon and had to spend five weeks in the hospital.  However, the two would work together again in 1962 and 1963 restoring the Wa’kas, Nhe-is-bik and Sis-kaulas poles in Stanley Park.[5]

After his time working with Bill Reid, Doug began carving full-time, and opened one of the first Native-run art galleries in Canada. His work gained international respect and he experimented with a variety of styles and influences – Kwakwaka’wakw and Haida being only two of many.  Doug’s work was very much his own, and it is being brought together in the first ever solo exhibit of his work in MOA’s Kesu’.

Though Bill Reid’s influence on the work of Doug Cranmer is questionable, Doug, when asked if he had ever worked with Bill Reid would respond, in fun, with, “Yes, I taught him everything he knew.”

[1] Jennifer Kramer, Kesu’: The Art and Life of Doug Cranmer (Vancouver: Douglas & MacIntyre Publishers Inc.), pp. 31

[2] Kramer, Kesu’, pp. 31

[3] Doug Cranmer, “‘Other-Side’ Man,” Bill Reid and Beyond, pp.175.

[4] Cranmer, Other Side Man,” pp.175.

[5] Kramer, Kesu’, pp. 32.

‘No man is an island’ – Who influenced Doug Cranmer along with way?

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By Abigail Ettelman

‘No man is an island’ – Who influenced Doug Cranmer along with way?

If you haven’t heard of Doug Cranmer, yet, you will. In fact, if you have seen the sights in Vancouver, whether as a local or a tourist, you likely have seen his work without even knowing it! Not only did Doug restore the totem poles in Stanley Park, but the poles in the replica Haida village outside the Museum of Anthropology are the result of a collaboration between Doug Cranmer and Bill Reid, another famous indigenous carver from British Columbia.

           Courtesy of Vivien Cranmer. Photographer unknown,

 

"Courtesy of the Audrey and Harry Hawthorn Library and Archives." MOA 2005.002.125N. Photo by Leslie Kopas

Knowing just the basics of his life, it might be easy to think of Doug in stereotypical terms. Born in 1927, he was a hereditary ‘Namgis chief who encountered the residential school system and learned to carve through observation of skilled relatives like his step-grandfather Mungo Martin. Yet Kesu’: The Art and Life of Doug Cranmer shows how Doug resisted the typical to create a singularly dynamic body of work as unique as the man himself.

The exhibit is arranged in five modules, each named to reflect an aspect of Doug’s personality: Doug the contrarian, pragmatist, individualist, iconoclast, and mentor. However, no man is an island, and Doug Cranmer’s work was not created out of thin air. Who influenced him along the way?

Doug’s artistic experience did not end with his step-grandfather, Mungo Martin, or his work with Bill Reid. In the 1960s, Doug was involved in the contemporary Vancouver art scene through his art gallery, the Talking Stick, on Granville Island, and he also had a long-term relationship with Vancouver-trained textile artist Judy Tweedie. Tweedie worked hard to generate publicity for Doug’s work, and supported Doug’s incursion into areas such as silkscreen work and abstract imagery. Doug’s style became even more diverse in the early 1970s, when he began to borrow form elements and imagery from other northern Northwest Coast groups, such as the Tsimshian. This was fueled both by his own imagination and the desire to find a unique commercial niche. His success in this meant that his pieces carried a famous name as well as a unique personal style.

His fiscal security was strengthened by his longstanding relationship with the staff at MOA. Doug had proven himself talented and reliable doing both restoration and original work, which MOA was glad to support through commissions, educational contracts, demonstrations, and a residency. His success was not bound to MOA, of course, as Doug contributed to other museums and played a large role in Expo ‘86.

Within his own work, it is easy to see aspects of Doug’s own character, such as his humor, his attention to quality, and his individuality. Though his influences can be traced to many varied communities, he was very independent-minded and experimental, often doing “something different just to be different” (98). The point is that these experiments would not have been possible without Doug’s personal history and later relationships with various people and communities. Doug would be the first to call his work a job over a vocation, although his actions and emphasis on understanding the meaning behind quality work speaks volumes. He understood well the practicalities of his position. His skills, learned from others but honed by himself, as well as his innovation, historical understanding, and down-to-earth way

of seeing his work combine to show us the portrait of a remarkable man who was able to create a niche that only he would be able to inhabit. He was a man of settled paradoxes, who valued understanding the stories behind pieces, but also created affective art objects using the forms of his ancestors with a style all his own.

"Courtesy of Royal British Columbia Museum" RBCM 16635. Canoe painting by Doug Cranmer.

 

Why is Doug Cranmer featured at MOA?

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By Kate Petrusa

As an Anthropology graduate student very new to the world of museums, I didn’t have the slightest idea how much thought and intention goes into selecting and curating exhibits.  Starting March 17, 2012, MOA is presenting Kesu’: The Art and Life of Doug Cranmer, showing Doug’s impact on Northwest Coast art and artists. So significant was his impact that, after his passing in 2006, a large group of family, friends, and community members worked hard raising money and generating ideas in order to recognize Doug. Together, they laid the groundwork that has brought the Kesu’ exhibition and book to fruition, with the enthusiastic help of MOA.

“Courtesy of the Audrey & Harry Hawthorn Library & Archives, UBC Museum of Anthropology.” MOA AOO2294C. by Vickie Jensen. MOA AOO2294C

 

Doug’s influences as an artist, mentor and cultural leader are extensive. He taught a number of well-known Northwest Coast artists, including Bruce Alfred and Beau Dick (Kramer 2012). In 1962-63, with Bill Reid, Doug restored the Wa’kas pole originally from Kwakwaka’wakw territory and now at Stanley Park (Kramer 2012: 32). He carved five major pieces at Expo ’86, helping to put Northwest Coast art on the international art map (Kramer 2012: 55). Doug and his students also assisted with the building of the U’mista Cultural Centre in Alert Bay, BC, a facility dedicated to the survival of cultural heritage of the Kwakwaka?wakw people (U’mista Cultural Society 2011).

“Courtesy of the Audrey & Harry Hawthorn Library & Archives, UBC Museum of Anthropology.” MOA AOO1990C. Photo by Vickie Jensen

 

In 2006, a young ’Namgis carver, Rande Cook, visited Doug and asked permission to create a retrospective of his work. Five months later, Doug passed away from lung cancer, and Rande began the project with the help of Doug’s family, friends, and fellow artists. By organizing an art auction at Victoria’s Empress Hotel on April 7, 2007, they raised significant funds selling donated art (two pieces sold to MOA), and put these funds towards realizing Doug’s retrospective, now embodied in the Kesu’ exhibit and the accompanying book (Kramer 2012: 117).

With funds to jump-start the exhibition, three women stepped in to sustain this project: Vivien Cranmer, Doug’s wife; Gloria Cranmer Webster, Doug’s eldest sister; and Dr. Jennifer Kramer, MOA Curator. Vivien worked to secure MOA as the place to host the exhibition, arranged interviews, and tracked down Doug’s art from private collections. Gloria provided invaluable insights into Doug’s personal life growing up in Alert Bay, contributed one-of-a-kind family photographs, and imparted expert knowledge

concerning Doug’s cultural leadership (Kramer 2012: 125). Jennifer synthesized many hours of interview transcripts, historical data, personal anecdotes, and diverse perspectives to bring forth a concise and integrated picture of who Doug Cranmer is.

The efforts of so many contributors to the Kesu’ exhibition and book demonstrate the extent to which Doug Cranmer was truly a remarkable and unforgettable artist, mentor, friend, and community member. Come take a closer look!

Doug Cranmer: A Man with a History

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By  Mindy Ogden

MOA will soon feature an exhibit on the art and life of Doug Cranmer, an influential artist known for pushing boundaries and broadening the definition of Northwest coast art. It is difficult to succinctly describe this complex and multi-faceted man, who was at once “a person of integrity and wisdom, a chief and a leader, a maker, critic, fisherman, logger, inventor, entrepreneur, teacher, builder, conservator, son, husband and father” (in the words of Anthony Shelton, MOA’s director).  Perhaps the best way to introduce him would be to acquaint you with his roots. In Western culture, we usually meet the person before the family, but on the Northwest Coast, it was, and is, the other way around.

Born on January 18, 1927, Doug was the firstborn son of Dan Cranmer, Kwakwaka’wakw hereditary chief, and Agnes (Hunt) Cranmer. Agnes was from the more northern Tlingit tribe – her father George Hunt is famous for

having worked closely with anthropologist Franz Boas. She was the second wife of Dan Cranmer. Dan divorced his first wife, Emma Mountain, in 1921, because she was unable to produce any children to inherit Dan’s chiefly status and privilege. As was the custom, the divorce was accompanied by a potlatch.

The Canadian Indian Act had outlawed the potlatch in 1884; however, prior to 1921, no arrests had ever been made in enforcement of the law, and many potlatches were still held illicitly. Dan’s potlatch was held at a remote location (Village Island) to escape the eyes of the Indian Agent, but his plans were to no avail. Forty-four of his attendees were arrested and charged with various felonies, such as singing, dancing, and giving or accepting gifts at a potlatch. They were given the choice of either surrendering their potlatch goods or serving a term in jail. The result was one of the largest seizures of potlatch goods in Canadian history (pictured above).

Gloria Cranmer, Doug’s younger sister, made it her life goal to see these goods repatriated. She was seminal in the founding of the U’mista Cultural Centre in Alert Bay, which now houses these items. Here Doug is pictured holding one the masks danced at his father’s potlatch, which was repatriated due to his sister’s determined efforts. Note the resemblance!

“Doug with Imas (ancestor spirit) mask from the repatriated Potlatch Collection, owned by Ned Alvin Innis, 1980. Courtesy of the U’mista Cultural Society and the Audrey and Harry Hawthorn Library and Archive, moA A000961c; photo by Vickie Jensen.”

 

That ought to suffice for famous people in one family, but nonetheless, Doug has even more well-known relations. His step-grandfather, Mungo Martin, has been credited with the revival of Northwest Coast art in the twentieth century, and was key in Doug’s own training as an artist. Clearly Doug and his family have played a pivotal role in the history of Canada and of the Kwakwaka’wakw.