**October 2012 Focus - Focus Magazine

Celebrating Local Artists
Fine Art, Jewelry, Gifts
& Crafts by Local Artists
Semi Precious Beads
Jewellery Making Classes
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“T’lisalagi’lakw and Friends” lidded canoe bowl by Mervyn Child, 8 x 10.5 x 23 inches, alder and acrylic paint
A bowl he carved from alder also invites
various readings. A man and woman encircle
the bowl; the man grasps the woman by
the wrists. Their heads are thrown back and
their teeth gritted. “There is some aggression
there, some tension,” Child says. One can
read anger, agony, ecstasy, or anything in
between, all contained within the empty but
charged space of the bowl. A painted split
eagle surrounds the couple on the base of the
bowl and figures are intertwined in their hair.
Child refers to these as “ancestor spirit helpers,
helping those two people interact how they
will.” A human form is in the man’s hair, for
which Child suggests a warrior spirit, and
from the woman’s hair emerges, for this
writer, a frog image.
While describing the frog as an important
ancestor of the Hunt family to which he belongs,
Child allows the interpretation as but one
possibility. Instead, he offers a suggestion:
“Through my eyes I see a frog, and it entertains
my deep memory. Why don’t you use
words like that?” Others might see a horse,
a bear, a phoenix. “Whoever will view the
bowl can interpret it and own that interpretation
and feel good about it,” he says. The
bowl is imbued with intimacy when the viewer
engages in a personal conversation with it.
Francis Dick draws from the deeply personal
in her own practice, whether in performance,
jewellery, or painting. “A lot of my work has
always been about relationships and connection,”
she says. Her painting in ’Lusa’nala’ is
no exception. A nude woman looks over her
shoulder at a departing butterfly. Her hands
rest on that shoulder in a self-embrace. A
hummingbird sits on her sensually curved
upper hip. Beside her, two daisies impart melancholy
and a crisp contrast to otherwise muted
tones in the scene.
Titled “Farewell”, the painting is the last in
a series of five Dick painted as a way to work
through a brief yet intense relationship. “I
have embraced all of the light and the shadows
of this relationship, and I am done,” she shares.
That light and darkness reverberates in
traditional and personal symbolism. The
butterfly indicates transformation and departure.
The swirling forms in the arms show
pure energy, “just about beautiful movement”
unfettered by fear, longing or attachment.
The flowers offer a meditative silence, but a
single falling petal represents Dick herself.
“Having been a foster child, it was difficult…I
always felt alone,” she says (all of her paintings
have a similar, tiny element representative
of her self set apart). “The direction of the
hummingbird is very obvious,” she points
out. “This is about sensuality and expression
of love.”
This painting is particularly meaningful
to Dick, since it signifies letting go while
imparting the beauty of the woman she was
involved with. It aligns with her interpretation
of eroticism within Northwest Coast art
and provides a feminine counterpoint on an
otherwise male roster. “There is a strength
about it for me, and yet, there is a softness;
this contrast,” she says. “I find it erotic in a
22 October 2012 • FOCUS