Art of the Pacific Northwest - The Art of Vancouver, British Columbia

This is the sixth and final post in the series. I've been to Vancouver, British Columbia several times. It was one of the first trips my wife and I took together. I remember going to a bar-restaurant called Puccini's, much like the one from the TV show Cheers. It used to be a jazz/blues club in the bar downstairs from the 60s to the late 80s. We heard that Bette Midler sang there once with backup singers, possibly even the Harlettes. If so, then it must have been very early on before her career started taking off in the 1970s.

In 1986, my brother and I went to Pacific Coliseum for a hockey game and he purchased a celebrity hockey souvenir poster. Not sure who the artist was. It had caricatures of all the original players: Richard Dean Anderson ("MacGyver"), Scott Baio ("Joanie Love Chachi" and "Charles in Charge"), Michael J. Fox ("Family Ties" and "Back to the Future" ), Jerry Houser ("Slapshot" and "The Brady Girls Get Married") and Alan Thicke ("Growing Pains"). Scott Bakula ("Quantum Leap") joined later. In my younger days, I used to do caricatures of family, friends, and co-workers, often doodling their likenesses during meetings. For some, I was even able to draw their faces from memory.

Now for art in and around the city...

Murals

Vancouver has over 50 murals in and around the city. Famous for its Mural Festival in August in the Mount Pleasant neighborhood, the city invites public art by artists of all types. Some muralists are also known as graffiti artists. This one is called, Face in the Shadows, by Linsey Levendall.

Canadian abstractionist painter and sculptor, Beatrice Lennie is responsible for some of the major public art of Vancouver. In 1949, the city commissioned her to create the mural/sculpture Wheel of Industry for the Vancouver Labour Temple.

Aside...

According to Wheel of Fortune's S33/Ep180 (which aired 20 May 2016) Great American Cities: Philadelphia, the 'City of Brotherly Love' has a Mural Arts Program that has produced over 3,800 murals. Did you know that, in honor of the 19th amendment (Women's right to vote), the city has temporarily changed its nickname to the 'City of Sisterly Love' for 2020? Although Canadian women's suffrage was granted initially in 1916 to some areas, and later only to certain demographics, it wasn't until 1960 that the full population of Canadian women got the right to vote.

Girl in Wetsuit (1972), Eles Imredy

Sculpture

Stanley Park has a statue called, Girl in a Wetsuit, by Elek Imredy, which may be inspired by  Denmark’s Little Mermaid by Edvard Eriksen. Although Eriksen's Copyright lasts thru 2029, Imredy's version has a mask, wetsuit, and rubber swim fins and is clearly not a mermaid.

A-maze-ing Laughter (2009) by Yue Minjun is a bronze sculpture located in Vancouver's Morton Park. This looks like a fun and potentially interactive photo opportunity for locals and visitors alike.

Giants on Granville Island's Ocean Cement buildings is a mural painted by Brazilian twin brothers, Gustavo and Otavio Pandolfo (a.k.a. OSGEMEOS) around six silos, creating a 3D sculpture in effect. Apparently, Vancouver is not the only city to grace similar 'Giants'.

A Dance of Death, Vancouver's Canadian Pacific Railway War Memorial (1922), was sculpted by Coeur de Lion MacCarthy to remember those fallen railway workers who died serving in World War I. Winged Victory is either the Roman Goddess Nike who protected ships during sea battles or an angel carrying off a soul to heaven. The Greek version symbolizes peace, fortune, vengeance, and justice. She also symbolizes triumph, peace, and eternal life. 

NYC and London have similar sculptures of such winged angels and goddesses.

                            Birds

For some reason, Vancouver likes statues of birds. This giant sculpture of (male and female) sparrows, called The Birds, was created by Sculptor, Myfanwy MacLeod in 2010 for Southeast False Creek Olympic Plaza. Apparently, the artist was inspired by the 1963 Alfred Hitchcock movie of the same name. Not as horrifying as Godzilla or the movie shark, Jaws, but just as creepy as Daryl Hannah in "Attack of the 50 Ft. Woman", seeing these huge birds in-person would be quite a scary sight. 

On the steps of the Vancouver Art Gallery in Robson Square sits the Bird of Spring bronze sculpture by Inuit sculptor, Abraham Etungat, installed there in 1979. It is one of three castings; the other two are at Ryerson University in Toronto, Ontario, and Halifax, Nova Scotia. I imagine that some sculptors, like other artists who paint, often do studies to perfect their craft or because they get commissioned to produce duplicates.

Bird Wrap by Winnipeg artist Ivan Eyre was once located in the McMichael Canadian Art Collection in Kleinburg, Ontario, then moved to Thornton Park, across from Vancouver Pacific Central Station, in Vancouver (2014-2016) for its bi-annual public art exhibition. It reminds me of the title vigilante character from the TV show Arrow that ran for eight seasons, ending in January 2020. On the darker side, he is reminiscent of Emperor Palpatine (a.k.a. Darth Sidious) from Star Wars. Then again, maybe he's the title superhero character from the Michael Keaton movie, "Birdman". It's curious that the man is wearing a dress shirt, tie, and vest.

In keeping with the sculpture theme and even birds, I have to share part of my collection of Seattle Mariner bobbleheads, Vancouver native pitcher, James Paxton (a.k.a. "Big Maple"). He went to high school in Ladner, in the city of Delta, a suburb of Vancouver, BC. His bobblehead captures the moment in 2018 when a bald eagle landed on him in a patriotic pre-game ceremony at Minnesota's Target Field. Soon after, in November of 2018, Paxton was targeted by New York and traded to the Yankees. Lucky for him, not even a pigeon has landed on him since! After all, he isn't really a statue!!

FYI, in my previous post about Helena, Montana, I tried to find baseball players who were born in Montana, and I only found two -- Washington Senator 2B Herb Plews and Minnesota Twins OF Dave Meier. This is likely because Montana and Wyoming are the only two states that don't offer baseball as a high school sport. Meier actually played high school baseball in Fresno, CA.

Paintings

Blunden Harbour is a post-impressionist oil painting created by Emily Carr (1928-30) of Victoria. It's based on a 1901 photograph of the 'Nakoaktok' Village taken by Dr. Charles F. Newcombe. It has a Cubist feel with its sharp edges and angular shapes. The Vancouver Art Museum is currently exhibiting Rapture, Rhythm, and the Tree of Life: Emily Carr and Her Female Contemporaries

through December 13, 2020.

Among these contemporaries is Nan Lawson Cheney who painted Prairie Harvest in 1929. This is another nod to my brother who loves paintings of hay bales. These look more like mini haystacks that Claude Monet would have painted.

Internationally acclaimed landscape artist, Robert Genn (1936-2014) painted all over the world although his subject matter usually involved Canada's West Coast. He published an online newsletter twice-weekly encouraging artists around the world with advice and sharing artists' quotes. He also published three books. Skeena Sky Window caught my eye with its colors and totems looking longingly at a similarly colored purple sky and mountains. 

Here are two of Genn's quotes that align with the focus of this blog:

"Learning to focus and pay attention, if only for a short time,

has been identified as a primary key to the development of human effectiveness."

"Art, because it is so easy to do, and yet so difficult to do well,

encourages humility in the human soul."

I've learned quite a bit about art in the Pacific NW by doing this series. I hope you've enjoyed reading and maybe get inspired to visit these cities that are so rich in visual arts. As always, I am open to suggestions about art topics to post and I invite other bloggers to propose links to related topics.

Art of the Pacific Northwest - The Art of Helena, Montana

Whimsical Sculpture

This is the fifth in the series. I remember visiting Helena years ago while my mother-in-law was living there, but I don't recall seeing much public art. What I do remember is the beautiful scenery, wide-open spaces, and wildlife.

I don't know if it's Helena's City motto, but I would love to see Take It Easy (by Kirsten Kainz) publicly displayed inside one of our traffic circles. What a great reason to slow down and wait for your turn to enter the circle! The shapes repeated in the sculptures are also circles. Montana's motto is actually, "Last Chance Gulch".

Helena, Montana sculptors Bill and Julie Ryder use rusted metal, scrap metal objects, driftwood, and stainless steel to create their magnificent horses. Driftwood and metal horse and colt #166, shown here without its colt, seems very comfortable in the surrounding Montana landscape. Her eye is made out of glass.

Murals

In 2017, graffiti artist, Ryan “ARCY” Christenson painted this mural of an old mustached miner panning for gold on this downtown Jackson Street parking garage. The other door has his hands and the pan.

Charles Marion Russell's 1918 mural entitled, Lewis and Clark Meeting the Flathead Indians resides in the state capitol building. He was a painter, sculptor, and illustrator.

This partial map represents the location of the Native American tribes of Western Montana, with the starred state capital, Helena central to the region.

Paintings

Russell's 1918 painting Piegans fetched a whopping $5.6M in 2005. I wish I could see this painting in-person and would love to see how he painted the sagebrush in the foreground. The background is an excellent backdrop for highlighting the figures on horseback. They represent one of three Blackfoot tribes on their way to raid the Crows.

Rattle Snake Bear (1914), Scheuerle

One of Russell's friends who often accompanied him to the reservations was commercial artist and illustrator, Joesph Scheuerle (1873-1948). He painted over 200 watercolor portraits of the Native Americans he befriended. Behind each painting is a hand-written vignette about his subject.

Although artist Nancy Cawdrey is actually from Whitefish, Montana, I can't pass up the chance to share some of her work here. I enjoy her colorful paintings of Glacier National Park’s wildlife.

Cawdrey"s rendition of a bear about to catch a wild salmon is reminiscent of Thomas Mangelsen's photograph, Catch of the Day that I included in my recent Animal Art & Wildlife Photography post. I suppose that this is a moment that many photographers and artists live to capture in their art. 

Sculptor and oil painter, Greg Eiselein has been creating bronze sculpture and western landscapes his whole life, all of it in Montana. Once again, I am including a work that includes bales of hay in honor of my brother who enjoys the subject. This one, Distant Storm, is particularly dramatic in the top half. Although the horizon splits the painting in two, the sky itself is like a second painting with the storm cloud taking the upper third of the composition. Here, he doesn't quite apply the 'rule of thirds'.

Eiselein also produced this sculpture, honoring Edward Charles Abbott ("Teddy Blue"), a drover trailing longhorns from Texas to Montana. It was inspired by Abbott's book, We Pointed Them North: Recollections of a Cowpuncher. As of June 2020, the artist continues to work on a life-size monument replicating Teddy Blue Abbott Crossing the Musselshell River.

Michael Blessing is actually from Bozeman, but I find his use of neon lights an interesting addition to his western portraits. Here's Clint Eastwood up in lights from, I'm assuming, The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly (it's actually a triptych -- the other two aren't shown).

Here's another of Blessing's portraits from the Montana Artists: Innovators, Inventors, and Entrepreneurs (MAP Exhibit) of the Hockaday Museum of Art in Kalispell. It's almost like he's channeling Norman Rockwell with this painting of a young woman having her Morning Joe. I enjoy the contrasting colors he chose for the painting -- her red hair and chair back against the turquoise background and carpet opposite the green shoes. All the saturated colors, lines, and even the strong purple shadow serve to frame the otherwise delicately clothed pale subject. The background reminds me of that of a portrait studio like when we once sat for a formal school picture. The similar color of the cup unifies it with the background, and yet against the girl it is highlighted as the subject.

His wife, Meagan Abra Blessing also paints 'portraits' of western animal wildlife. I particularly like the expression on the wolf's face in the work she calls Gravity. And her paintings of horses are awesome as well.


                                                      

Robert F. Morgan, the assistant curator at the Montana Historical Society, was a realist painter from Helena who captured Montana history and wildlife until his death in 2015. He was known as an expert on the art of Charles Russell, who was also his mentor.

J.K. Ralston, born in Choteau, Montana, is an American painter of scenes from the Old West. His 1973 painting of the Women of the West documents a group of Montanan Native American women (tribe unknown) traveling across a Montana valley with pull poles carrying their loads. You can see wolves (dogs) also loaded up with their own pull poles. The emphasis is clearly on the lead woman and her horse with everything else paling off in the distance, except for that golden spot in the lower right corner.

So, which one of these artists is your favorite? It's hard for me to decide without seeing the works in-person. I guess I'll have to return to Helena and continue to explore its history and art.

Art of the Pacific Northwest - The Art of Boise, Idaho

This is the fourth in the series. I've only driven through Idaho on the way to other states. I'm from New Joisey, but I've never visited Boise. Boise has its Percent-for-Art program that allocates 1.4% of all capital funds for art installations. The city has a wonderful website that highlights Public Art & History Locations. I have chosen to show and tell you about some of my favorites. 

Bronze Sculpture

Keepsies by Ann LaRose is a popular life-size sculpture of children playing with marbles. This one was originally adjacent to a fountain in downtown Grove Plaza in 1998, then relocated to Dick Eardley Boise Senior Center in 2017 to make room for other construction in the plaza. I don't know if kids play the game of marbles much today, but I bet it's pretty nostalgic for the Seniors!

In a plaza adjacent to the Boise River is the Idaho Anne Frank Human Rights Memorial, which is located next to the Boise Library and nearby Boise Art Museum and Idaho History Museum. A statue of Anne Frank peering out the attic window where she hid during WWII was created in 2002 by sculptor, Greg Stone. 

Last year, another statue of Anne Frank was dedicated at the National World War II Museum in New Orleans. You may also want to visit the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum located in Washington, D.C. Hopefully, such memorials and dedications will survive the recent vandalism by protest sympathizers. Perhaps some cities will be inspired to commission local artists to erect statues like this one or those honoring the late Martin Luther King Jr. to replace controversial art with new monuments and memorials that will remind everyone that religious persecution and racial discrimination are wrong. MLK statues may be found around the country as listed on the Atlanta Journal-Constitution website.

Last week, in the southwest England city of Bristol, the statue of slave trader, Edward Colston was taken down with the help of BLM protestor, Jen Reid, dragged to the Avon River and tossed in. It was temporarily replaced (without permission) by Marc Quinn's statue of her. The original status, complete with protest graffiti, has been since retrieved and will be placed in a museum. I wonder if the incident had been planned months ago, given how long it would take to sculpt such a figure.

In 2003, the statue of Sacajawea and Pomp (her son Jean Baptiste) by Agnes Vincen Talbot was installed in Julia Davis Park in front of the Idaho History Museum. The young bilingual Lemhi Shoshone woman helped Lewis and Clark on their exploration from Louisiana to the Pacific Ocean and back. She was married to  French Canadian trapper and interpreter, Toussaint Charbonneau.

Likely the most famous of artists born in Idaho is sculptor, John Gutzon Borglum, who is best known for designing and sculpting the heads of the four U.S. Presidents on Mount Rushmore in South Dakota. The monument cost $989K and was completed in October 1941, although the artist died the previous March. Borglum was the son of a family of polygamist Mormons and he apparently had white supremacist leanings. I'll let you read Smithsonian Magazine's The Sordid History of Mount Rushmore yourself. Talk about controversy!

More Sculpture...

Cottonwoods (2017), Dwaine Carver & Zachary Hill

There's a new sculpture outside City Hall that memorializes cottonwood trees (of all things) that line the Boise River. Apparently, the rusted steel structures replaced the flags of the fifty states in 2017. Even as far back as 2015, state flags that honored the Confederacy experienced controversy and caused the Mayor to remove the Mississippi State Flag. Today, these offending symbols are being removed from the flags themselves.

Some public art pieces have been controversial. John Mason's Point of Origin sculpture of three steel squares was created in 1978 then moved in the 1990s to the lawn of the Boise Art Museum, where it could be more appreciated, I guess, or to make room for something else.

Everyone's a critic! But, hey, that's what I like about art -- the ability to evoke multiple reactions and form our own opinions. There's something for everyone; either you like it or you don't. That doesn't mean that it should be criticized or taken down unless of course, it is particularly offensive or in bad taste. And never mind the cost to move or renovate it?

The expensive River Sculpture (actually a 3D mural of sorts) created by Allison Sky in 1999 and etched in an exterior wall of the Grove Hotel was difficult and costly to maintain with its oozing mist and lighting effects. It was reconstructed in 2015, replacing the painted and recessed river background with mosaic tiles (a lot of work!), among other maintenance improvements, at over 100% of the originally commissioned cost. Amazing!

Paintings

Another artist from Idaho is Jany Rae Seda, who was Boise's Artist in Residence in 2009. She not only paints colorful landscapes but also paints the local wildlife. Her Bull painting somewhat reminds me of the Buffalo at Sunset painting by John Nieto advertising the Tacoma Art Museum in Washington.

Buffalo at Sunset, John Nieto

But I really love her painting of the Purple Moose!

California Impressionist, Erin Hanson has painted Idaho landscapes that capture sunshine and scenic splendor in warm vibrant colors. This one is of Boise in the summertime and is called Reflections of August.

Dawn Rising is simply amazing! An impressionistic expression of sunrise in Idaho also by Erin Hanson!

Murals

Imagine driving through this tunnel in Boise, Idaho. OMG, what a distraction! I'm not sure that the city thought this one through. Maybe they thought the passengers would enjoy it.  It seems like anything goes when it comes to 'art'.

Recall the 1980 Op-Art work by Yaacov Agam in my 2020 Palm Springs post? Or the accordion-pleated double portrait of the Danish Monarchs from the Rosenborg Castle in Copenhagen? Here's one from 2004 entitled, Penny Postcard: An American Greeting by Mark Baltes. It's a two-sided mural made of porcelain enamel on steel. I haven't actually seen this, so I don't know what image is on the other side. That's three examples, so I guess it's an art thing!

The Big Back Yard, Lewis

Doesn't this mural remind you of something that Yosemite Sam or Wyle E. Coyote would have concocted to fool Bugs Bunny or the Road Runner in a Looney Tunes cartoon? Artist, David Carmack Lewis luckily painted it on the side of a building adjacent to a parking lot. Like the one inside the tunnel, what were they thinking?

Painted on The Fowler, Lewis' Absence and Presence was thought to be the largest mural in Idaho until he began working on Over The Valley on one side of the eleven-story Key Financial Center building in May of this year.

Don't forget to visit Freak Alley Gallery and Murals, a section of street art and murals along the backside of buildings in the downtown area of Boise. It was started in 2002 and ran and expanded by Colby Akers, then recently taken over by Melissa Nodzu. You can virtually visit by checking out the Silly America - Roadside Attractions blog.

Art of the Pacific Northwest - The Art of Juneau, Alaska

This is the third in the series. I have traveled to several Alaskan port cities just after my initial retirement. Unfortunately, our time there was so brief that we mostly gave our attention to the scenery and souvenir shops. Next time I promise to be more artfully observant.

Missed Opportunities

The Aquileans (2017), Photo by David Purdy

We missed these ten nearly-identical LED-illuminated sculptures (by Cliff Garten) while docked in Juneau, Alaska on our cruise in August of 2016. That's because they were installed over a year later in September of 2017 along with the fendering and mooring dolphins. A dolphin is a man-made marine structure that extends above the water level and is not connected to the shore.

We also missed much of the splendor of the Alaskan glaciers. The weather for our cruise must have been warmer than usual, as there was ice floating in chunks that kept our Captain from visiting certain areas. I was able to get some shots, though not as spectacular as those of a work colleague who inspired our cruise.

Paintings

I did find this watercolor by artist, Mark Vinsel that captures Tracy Arm - South Sawyer Glacier as it looked in 2003. It looks quite similar to my photo as if it could be the same glacier. The painting reminds me of the landscapes of Arthur Wesley Dow, mentor to Georgia O'Keeffe.

Here's another painting of a glacier by artist, Dianne Anderson. Note the rainbow-colored lighting on the mountains in the background. I don't understand what's going on in the bottom quarter of the picture, although it balances the mountain range. I'm guessing it's iced over water with an iceberg in the foreground.

My favorite of these paintings is entitled, Water and Mountains, Juneau, Alaska by artist, Gil Smith. It is watercolor and pencil on paper and was painted in 1959, the year Alaska became a state. The colors are quite vivid and saturated for a watercolor showing high contrast between the snow-covered mountain and the delicate reflection of the city in a wash of blue. This painting was hung in the Smithsonian American Art Museum at one time.

Besides paintings, Alaskan art often includes taxidermy and Native American artifacts such as beadwork, basket weaving, whalebone and woodcarving (masks & totems), canoes, paddles, etc. For now, let's move away from gallery art and focus on public art such as sculpture, including totem carvings.

Since we didn't have much time to explore art on our brief stop in Juneau, I am relying upon online research into the public art published by the city. To that end, I choose to highlight three bronze sculptures, some metalwork and murals, an absolutely beautiful stained glass window, and three bronze house posts and their corresponding carved and painted posts (totems) commissioned to three (Haida, Tlingit, and Tsimshian) carvers.

Bronze Sculpture

Alaskan sculptors love to capture native animals in their work. R.T. Wallen's Tahku, the Alaska Whale Sculpture is a 25-foot tall humpback whale breaching out from a circular infinity pool and fountain. Tahku was installed in 2018 (after our trip) for the 50th anniversary of Alaskan statehood. It weighs in at 6 tons!

Wallen also captured this brown bear in his bronze work, Windfall Fisherman. He captured the texture of the bear's coat very well and it almost glistens as if its fur is still wet.

Our final bronze sculpture is of Patsy Ann, the bull terrier who, from 1929-1942, faithfully greeted the people and ships coming into Juneau Harbor. In 2011, author Tricia Brown wrote the children's book, "Patsy Ann of Alaska: The True Story of a Dog", illustrated by Jim Fowler. Apparently, the dog was deaf but could still sense the surrounding activity.

Metalwork & Murals

I've discovered that Murals don't necessarily have to be painted or even pieced together with mosaic tiles. Some murals are actually 3D, like Ray Peck's 1988 metal wall sculpture entitled, Traditional and Modern Ways of Fishing.

I do, however, enjoy classic murals, especially when they tell a story or capture something historic or of cultural significance. Bill Ray Jr.'s Raven Discovering Mankind in a Clam Shell, painted in 1988, is such a mural.

Stained Glass

Transfiguration is a stained glass window created by Bruce Elliot depicting salmon spawning upstream. Notice how the small river flows upward leaving a few empty clear glass panes. Typically, you would see the entire window space covered in colored glass. This is an excellent use of positive-negative space!

Totems

The exterior of the Sealaska Heritage building in Juneau is decorated with 40-foot metal panels created by Haida artist Robert Davidson to symbolize the supernatural being he calls, "the Greatest Echo". In August 2018, three local Alaskan totem artists installed three house posts (totems) in front of the building. Each artist (Stephen Paul Jackson, TJ Young, and David Robert Boxley) carved his post out of cedar then used them to create bronze sculptures. The wooden posts were later painted and displayed as totems. Boxley's carvings of the actual house inside the building are equally impressive.

Another three totems that were either restored or recurved by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), a U.S. Forest Service program, between 1938 and 1942. The CCC employed over 200 Tlingit and Haida men to preserve the stories captured on these magnificent totems. In 1940, Haida artist John Wallace carved the Four Story Totem (35-ft tall telling 4 stories) that sits outside Juneau-Douglas City Museum.

       

The Governor’s Totem was carved by artists, Charlie Tagcook and William Brown, and stands outside the Governor’s Mansion. In 1941, Tlingit carver Frank St. Clair, aided by two CCC-employed carvers, carved Auke Village Recreation Area’s Yax-te (Big Dipper) Totem. In 2010, the rotting pole was taken down and later recarved by master carver Wayne Price.