Bill Reid and Beyond: Expanding on Modern Native Art

New Douglas & McIntyre title, which I ordered for its transcript of a speech Doris Shadbolt gave in 1999 on Bill Reid. Having just spent the last three weeks surrounded by Doris' books I wanted to hear her own voice one last time, before dispersing her things to others.

The transcript in the book is a suburb example of Doris' intellectual concision and poise, but not, having now read exactly half of the book on the bus and in 5-minute breaks in Surrey, the best thing in it. That honor has to go to 'Namgis Doug Cranmer's description of working with Reid at UBC in the late 1950s:

"Before we started carving the poles, Bill came up with this idea that you've got to forget everything that you ever learned about carving from other people, because we're going to do it his new way. Herman Collinson was there too; Reid had brought him down from the Charlottes as a helper. We sat and listened to what Bill had to say. Bill took a whole length of brown paper. He had blocked it off and drawn what was going to be on this pole -- exactly, as to what he thought. We said okay. We had this log all rounded off and we stuck the brown-paper drawing on there. He said, "Okay, every time you cut out the line, you take the template and stick it back on, and then draw it back in. Never lose the line." I said, "I don't think it's going to work, Bill." After a couple of whacks at it, you know what the hell's going to happen with this thing: the more you hack away at the wood, the smaller it's going to get. All of a sudden the paper isn't going to fit any more. That's when I found out that Bill had tantrums."
- posted by cjb @ 8:49 AM