Tag Archives: northwest coast

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.

 

Upcoming Kesu’ Book

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By Samantha Schmidt

Our upcoming exhibit, Kesu’: The Art and Life of Doug Cranmer, focuses on locally and internationally renowned artist, Doug Cranmer. The exhibit is enhanced by a recently published book by the same name, by MOA Curator and Assistant Professor, Jennifer Kramer. (Join us on at Tuesday, February 14 from 4-5 pm to help celebrate the launch of the book!) This is the first publication to consider Doug’s contributions to the international art world and the regional community. It is organized into five chapters, each of which examines a unique aspect of Doug’s personality as reflected in his life and work. Kramer uses interviews with Doug’s friends, family, students, and acquaintances to try to pinpoint a man who was never comfortable with labels. Through the text and many full-color photographs,  Kramer helps us understand how Doug may be seen as perhaps the first truly ‘indigenous modern’ artist.

“Whether you are keen on Northwest Coast Kwakwaka’wakw art or new to this engaging topic, it is a great addition to any library. You can

pick up the book at local bookstores, or in the MOA Shop, when you stop to visit the show, which runs from March 17 through September 3, 2012. A list of talks and tours associated with the book and exhibit can be found at www.moa.ubc.ca/events.

Mosquito. This limited-edition print entitled Mosquito was given as a gift to those who attended the raising of the “New Generation” replica Wa’kas pole in Stanley Park, Vancouver, 1987. 55.5 × 37.7 cm. Collection of Phil Nuytten; photo by Ken Mayer. Page 80.

Marie Mauze

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Last night Marie  Mauzé gave a lecture at MOA as part of the first annual Douglas & McIntyre lecture series. Marie is Senior Researcher, CNRS  at Laboratoire d’anthropologie sociale in Paris and we were excited to have her present. The lecture was on surrealism in northwest coast art and I asked curator Dr. Carol Mayer to tell me what she thought were some highlights of the lecture.

At the beginning of her lecture Marie made the point that the use of the word ‘primitive’ was not considered derogatory during the surrealist movement.  It referred more to a search for something authentic, a sense of place unspoiled by the corruption and industrialization of the western world during

the first quarter or so of the 120th century.  However, she also emphasized that many of the surrealist ideas were riddled with contemporary evolutionary beliefs. It is this contradiction that has underpinned so much of the discourse around the surrealist approach to the arts of Africa, Oceania and the Northwest Coast.

Marie used the ideas of Andre Breton, Man Ray, Levi Strauss and others to illustrate how objects were perceived, displayed, and written about within the non-constructs of the surrealist movement.  They tried to approach objects without going through the process of rational thinking; they believed that objects should circulate (although some were avid collectors); they arbitrarily brought together objects from different cultures and realities in unusual and unexpected juxtapositions, specifically to promote and invoke new thoughts about reality and myth.  Andre Breton, in particular, looked at Northwest Coast transformation masks as the epitome of the Surrealists interest in myth, animism and magic. Such masks literally moved between these interests by the pulling of strings. The surrealists are criticized, especially by Northwest Coast artists, for their appropriation of knowledge, questionable collecting practices and lack of understanding of the cultural meanings of objects being manipulated.  Marie both recognized the difficulty of situating these criticisms within the intellectual climate of a different time and how the surrealists brought new ways of looking at and thinking about Northwest Coast objects that had, up to that time, been viewed primarily as specimens in ethnographic museums.  The discourse continues.

The lecture was a success and MOA hopes to host the Douglas & McIntyre lecture series annualy. Thanks to Marie  Mauzé for flying all the way from Paris to share her knowledge with MOA and UBC staff, students and visitors.

Call for NWC metal work!

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The Museum of Anthropology is in the process of developing an exhibit on the engraved metal work of Haida artist Charles Edenshaw and the basketry work of his wife Isabella. “Signed without Signature: Works by Charles & Isabella Edenshaw” will be shown at MOA from November 25, 2010 to October 2, 2011.
 
Unlike the artists of today, who engrave bracelets flat by affixing metal to wax on an engravers block, carve the desired forms, and then shape the bracelet to fit the wrist, Edenshaw and his Haida peers in the late 19th century shaped the bracelet first, and then held it their hands around a wooden form while they engraved it. By this process, the complete engraved image was never seen flat.
 
To help in the viewing and appreciation of the engraved work of these 19th century artists, MOA curator Bill McLennan has developed a scanning technique that presents the bracelet, which was originally engraved in the round, as a flat digital image. This format enables comparison and helps to determine individual style and chronology of production. It also allows us to create an inventory of work dispersed through museums, galleries, and private collections around the world, which can then be made accessible to researchers, community members, and the general public.
 
To build this inventory, we are hoping to hear from individuals who may have 19th century Northwest Coast engraved metal work, and would like to participate in this unique project by having their objects identified, and their object(s) photographed as part of the project.
 
It would be fantastic if you could help us reach potential participants by having Rick Cluff interview Bill McLennan, MOA Curator Pacific Northwest, who developed this innovative technique, and is also curating the upcoming exhibition. He is

available anytime through the summer. For your information the images shown here are of three bracelets by Charles Edenshaw, originally carved in the round, which have been scanned so that the engraved forms may be viewed flat.


 
If you have information, please contact Bill McLennan at 604.822.5950 or bill.mclennan@ubc.ca.
 
We are very excited to be showing a number of rare and only recently-identified works by Charles and Isabella Edenshaw in “Signed without Signature,” and would love to connect with people that would enjoy sharing in the exhibit’s development and in creating valuable knowledge for generations to come. Many of Edenshaw’s bracelets have found their way into private collections here in the Lower Mainland, and in our experience, people are always excited to share their Edenshaw treasures and their stories of how they came to own them; they just need to know the opportunity is there.