The First Step, part 2

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WHAT should be the first step in providing our readers with an insight into the fascinating universe that is behind our art? I pondered on this for a while and decided to go with a pragmatic approach to start with: an explanation about the Woodland School of Art... No artists - or art movement - have more influence on our canvases and jewelry than our Anishinaabe, Cree, Métis, and Dene brothers and sisters who paint in the great northerly tradition of the Woodland School. This is part 2 of the series.
 
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==Establishment of the Woodland Art School==

The Woodland School of Art was established following the successful launch of Norval Morrisseau's career in Toronto in 1962 and became successful after the show Treaty Numbers 22, 187, 1171, a decade later in Winnipeg, displaying works by Daphne Odjig, Jackson Beardy, and Alex Janvier.

The successful exhibition was the precursor of the foundation of the “Professional Native Indian Artists Association Inc.” in November 1973, in which Odaawaa-Bodéwadmi-Anglo artist Daphne Odjig was the driving force. The association, which became known as the Indian Group of Seven, consisted of Daphne Odjig, Jackson Beardy, Alex Janvier, Eddy Cobiness, Norval Morrisseau/Copper Thunderbird, Carl Ray, and Joseph Sanchez. Haida artist Bill Reid, although not formally signing on at the time, was considered the eighth member and participated in some of the groups shows.

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==The role of Manitoulin Island ==

The influence that the  Indian Group Of Seven had on the development of native art in Canada showed up first on Manitoulin Island, home to, among others, Daphne Odjig, Leland Bell, Randy Trudeau, Peter Migwan, James Mishibinijima Simon, and Blair Debassige – and nowadays generally regarded as the center of the Woodland School of Art. A significant factor that spread Morrisseau's and Odjig's influence to what became a distinctive style were the summer art camps through the Manitou Arts foundation, started by Tom Peltier in 1966. Daphne Odjig and Carl Ray, among others, taught at the Arts Foundation and some of the students attending became the second generation of Woodland artists. In 1976 and 1977, the summer arts site was chosen at Dreamer's Rock on the Birch Island Reserve of Manitoulin, a place that has a substantial spiritual significance in Anishinaabe tradition.

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==The role of Triple K Movement==

Triple K Co-operative Incorporated was a Canadian Indigenous peoples-run silk-screen company in Red Lake, Ontario that produced high quality limited editions of several artists within the Woodland School of Art from 1973 until early 1980s.

The name “Triple K” relates to the last name of the three founders and brothers Joshim Kakegamic, Goyce Kakegamig, and Henry Kakegamic, promiment medicine painters from Sandy Lake, Ontario. The paintings by Goyce and Joshim, whose works were shown with paintings by Isadore Wadow in the Waabanda-Iwewin Art Show (1984), are exemplary of the ''second generation Woodland Art''. Besides their own art work, they made editions for others artist as well like Barry Peters, Paddy Peters, Saul Williams, and their brother-in-law Norval Morrisseau/Copper Thunderbird. All artists involved were part of a movement that provided opportunities for themselves and other (mostly younger) indigenous artists; opportunities normally not available in the isolated Native communities of southern Canada, such as inclusion in galleries, access to fine arts education, and the creation of Native artist-run organizations. The movement also included the Indian Group of Seven, which established around the same time.


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==Disciplines and styles==

The New Woodland School of Art primarily features paintings, drawings, and screen printing (linocut) and lithograph, and occasionally jewelry making. The visionary style of this ceremonial and ritual art, which is more influenced by Native Eastern Woodland culture than European culture, is based on a myriad of sacred teachings that has been passed down for centuries, primarily by the Midewiwin and the Waabanoowiwin, two animistic-medicinal institutions representing and safeguarding since human memory the scientific, philosophic and ethic worldview of the Anishinaabe peoples. 

The style often emphasizes interconnecting "lines of power" and "lines of communication" radiating from the spines of the creatures portrayed, divided circles ("unity symbols"), and x-ray views of people, animals, plant life and supernatural beings. The X-ray anatomy, exposing the spiritual guts of animals and human beings, represent the source of Inner Power. This system of interconnecting lines of sacred pictographs, which was invented by Norval Morrisseau, is known as "linear determinatives".

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Using a few elegant, bare lines, I aimed to capture the enchantingly still and cold essence of the Great Lakes in this pencil drawing, titled Wiidigemaaganag (Niizhomaangwag) ("Life Partners/ Two Loons"). This illustration honors the abstract and economical style of the second generation of Canadian Medicine painters. The black-outlined depictions of the sun, loons, and a man and woman, combined with the unusual creatures and 'spirit balls' in the air and water, highlight the culturally inspired imagery established by the artists of the Woodland Painter School.

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The idea behind this magical style that insiders often call ''medicine painting,'' is to depict the ''essence'' or ''soul'' of the object or being that is represented, rather than what just meets the eye. The colors in paintings are sometimes earth-toned, but most often vivid and brilliant. While Morrisseau painted on birch bark initially, the media of Woodland style tend to be western, such as acrylic, gouache, or watercolor paints on paper, wood panels, or canvas. Whereas Norval Morrisseau and other first and second generation ''medicine painters'' like for example Carl Ray, Saul Williams, and Blake Debassige were building a reputation depicting the traditional stories of the Ojibwe and Cree First Nations by creating bold x-ray imagery, Ojibwe artists like Benjamin Chee Chee, Stanley Panamick, Cecil Youngfox, and Clemence Wescoupe added a new touch to the art by adopting a more minimalist and economical graphic style with simple, flowing lines and patterns set against a light background. This resulted in a reinterpretation of the new woodland style, characterized by a formal elegance that proved to be more congruent with the mainstream of international modern art.

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A belt buckle of sterling silver set with turquoise and red coraldesigned and handcrafted by me, displaying a minimalist graphic style with simple, flowing outlines and patterns set against a light background. The subject matter of the belt buckle - which was a gift to a friend - breathes Anishinaabe cultural tradition and worldview; the overlay design is exemplary of the minimalistic graphic style of some of the work of the first and second generation Woodland Art.

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The work of first generation woodland painter Daphne Odjig (1919-2016), probably the most influential woodland artist besides Norval Morrisseau and regarded by insiders  as "the mother of Woodland art", differs from that of other woodland artists in that she is heavily influenced by European Modernism such as Picasso's cubism, be it within a Native context. This extraordinarily gifted painter from Wikwemikong, Manitoulin Island, also explored abstract expressionism, impressionism and cloissonnism, and is influenced by the Northwest Coast art.

Top page image: painting by first generation Cree Medicine Painter Carl Ray 

Photo of Daphne Odjig by TRACEY TONG/METRO OTTAWA

• For further reading please click here (part 3 of the series).
• To read more about the Group Of Seven, click here.

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The First Step, part 1

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WHAT should be the first step in providing our readers with an insight into the fascinating universe that is behind our paintings and jewelry? I pondered on this for a while and decided to go with a pragmatic approach to start with: an explanation about the Woodland School of Art...No artists - or art movement - have more influence on our canvases and jewelry than our Anishinaabe, Cree, Métis, and Dene brothers and sisters who paint in the great northerly tradition of the Woodland, or Medicine Painters, School. This is part 1 of the series.

==Woodland School of Art==

The Woodland School Of Art, also named Woodland(s) style, Woodland(s) School, New Woodland School, Native Woodland Art, or Anishnabe (Anishinaabe) Medicine painting, is a genre of graphic design, painting, and jewelry making among Algonquian-speaking First Nations artists, the greater part being from the Great Lakes area - including northern Ontario and southeastern Manitoba -, and some from Quebec and Nova Scotia. The majority of the Woodland artists belong to the Anishinaabeg - notably the Ojibweg (often written as Ojibwa in Canada), the Odaawag, and the Anishininiwag (often called Oji-Cree or Woodland Cree) -; the Métis; and the Cree. The style is also known as Legend Painting; insiders tend to speak of the Woodland painters as Medicine Painters. Although certain stylistic elements act as a common thread, the Woodland art school is a collective term for at least three generations of artists, many of whom practice various styles and approaches.

==A continuation of ancient traditions==

The term ''Woodlands style'' pertains to a fundamental relationship between the New Woodland School and the ancient artistic traditions of the Archaic Woodland cultures of Adena, Hopewell, and Southern Ceremonial Complex. The continuity of this artistic legacy, which displays striking similarities in form, content, and iconography, suggests that some aspects of the cultural tradition and world view of the ancient art forms in the Eastern Woodlands have been evolved into, and revitalized by, the ''New Woodland School''. The term woodlands style thus suggests an ancient and ongoing tradition forming the basis for - at least some of - the art of the New Woodland School of Art.*

==Creation of the art==

The style was founded by Norval Morrisseau (1932-2007), a First Nations Ojibwe artist from Northern Ontario, Canada, who is alternally labelled as "father of the Woodland Art" and "Picasso of the North". His true name (spirit name) was Miskwaabik Animikii, which means "Copper Thunderbird" in the language of his People. Miskwaabik Animikii was one of the the first to defy cultural restrictions by taking the oral traditions and sacred pictography of the Ojibwe-Midewiwin belief system outside Native communities in Canada. 

Untitled acrylic on moose hide by Norval Morrisseau/Miskwaabik Animikii (year unknow: probably in the nineties.)

Morrisseau’s personal vision and intense commitment to his art and his community provided the catalyst for the style. He learned Ojibwe history and culture primarily from his grandfather Moses "Potan" Nanakonagos and later collected traditional narratives from his people in the 1950s. This oral and pictographic history provided subject matter for his paintings, and he drew upon dreams and visions.

I was born in 1959, the same year Norval Morrisseau started drawing and it was he who opened my eyes - and those of many other artists - to a separate reality - and eventually inspired me into creating paintings and jewelry designs in the Native Woodland style. For this reason I will always be greatly indebted to Noval Morrisseau, and he will be remembered for his trailblazing influence on the art world, inspiring many Native artists and countless folks in generations to come. Anishinaabe painter Simone McLeod, who was born two years later, has an akin experience and similar thoughts on the subject:

"When I began painting in the mid-nineties it was quite the experience to sit and feel a heavy heart at what I believed to be "revealing the ceremonial secrets of my people". It was then that I recalled hearing about Norval Morrisseau. I remember that when I heard others speaking of him they always seemed to be focused on his subject and less on him as the growing father of the first nations art movement. I cannot imagine how alone and in turmoil he may have been in feeling this need to share the "old ways" publicly. Perhaps he was before his time in seeing that one day media outlets would be thee best way to reach out and help our lost Peoples recognize the spirituality of his work and therefore begin the stirrings to search within ourselves and find the spirit memory that has been our way since the sun first shone. I as an artist and as an Anishinaabe woman, will be forever indebted to him for reawakening within me, my path, my memories, my history and my duty as a storyteller and artist and to carry on , on the road he started walking down. His footsteps blazed a trail that will be forever easier for the next one who chooses to follow it."

Toronto-based Nakawe-Ojibwe artist Robert Houle, who was a close friend of Morrisseau's, once wrote:

“Norval, like all innovators, had made a trajectory to contemporary cultural theory, an idea I was not to understand until quite recently. It situated Norval at the centre of a cultural transformation, contemporary Ojibwa art. This legendary artist had created a visual language whose lineage included the ancient shaman artists of the Midiwewin scrolls, the Agawa Bay rock paintings and the Peterborough petroglyphs. As a master narrator, he had a voice that thundered like the sentinel of a people still listening to the stories told since creation.”

Morrisseau himself once said about his art: "All my painting and drawing is really a continuation of the shaman's scrolls." Ojibwe intaglio, pictographs, petrographs (rock art), birch bark incising, and birch bark scrolls, Wiigwaasabak, all brought together in the Anishinaabe term mazinaajimowin', were stylistic antecedents of the Woodland style.

For further reading please click here.

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Image at the top of the page: painting of Copper Thunderbird (Norval Morrisseau) by Steven Snake (2008)
* Source: Amelia M. Trevelyan, Continuity Of Form And Functions In The Art Of Eastern Woodlands. The Canadian Journal of Native Studies IX, 2 (1989): 187-203.


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About the author/artist:

Zhaawano Giizhik, an American currently living in the Netherlands, was born in 1959 in North Carolina, USA. Zhaawano has Anishinaabe blood running through his veins; the doodem (clan) of his ancestors from Baawitigong (Sault Ste. Marie, Upper Michigan) is Waabizheshi, Marten. As a writer and a non-profit artist and jewelry designer, Zhaawano draws on the oral and pictorial traditions of his ancestors. In doing so he sometimes works together with kindred artists.

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Let me introduce us

Hello! This is our first art blog, so let me introduce myself and my friend Simone and explain what we do and what it is we write about.

My name is Zhaawano, I am an American writer and a non-commercial graphic artist and jewelry designer currently living in the Netherlands. I have been a goldsmith-artist for the past two decades. My main source for design inspiration are the oral and pictorial traditions of my Ojibwe Anishinaabe ancestors from the American Great Lakes area and the language itself, which is rich with Anishinaabe symbolism. 

Not only do these traditions offer a wellspring of artistic material, they also provide Simone and me with a set of responsibilities in everyday life. But as artists, we also draw on a more modern visual language based on these ancient traditions: the abstract and contemporary graphical art of the Canadian Medicine Painters, often called Woodland, or Legend Art by non-Native people.

I like to think of my jewelry, which serves as non-commercial teaching devices and is not for sale, as a unique blend of this age old magical world from the northern woods and the minimalism of contemporary jewelry design. In future blogs Simone and I will delve deeper into this topic and give you an insight into the fascinating universe that is behind the visible universe of our jewelry and pencil designs and paintings !

Now, let me tell you something about Simone McLeod, who is my best friend and a co-writer of this blog.

Simone, born in 1962 into the Name doodem (Sturgeon Clan) of her Mother's People, the Azaadiwi-ziibi Nitam-Anishinaabeg (Poplar River First Nation) of Manitoba, is a versatile artist: not only does she paint, she is also a talented poet and photographer. And not only that, she has the world at her finger tips and I honestly believe she has the capacibility to do anything, practice any art discipline, that she sets her mind to.

Simone descends from a long line of Midewiwin seers and healers and artists from what is now the Canadian province of Manitoba. Her traditional name is Aki-egwaniizid, which can be translated as Earth Blanket. Simone's work, which holds a unique place in the art heritage of her People - and finds its expression through the Native school of the Woodland, or Medicine painters -, has been appreciated by several art collectors and educational and health care institutions from Canada, as well as by art lovers from all over the world.

Simone McLeod's work deals with several various, yet interrelated themes, the underlying leitmotiv being child abuse and domestic violence within First Nations communities. Her paintings and writings, have a rare healing quality and they always carry a positive message, emphasizing hope and celebrating educational values and individual accomplishment.

Simone takes pride in creating in her paintings and sketchings and poems a peaceful world in which she and the women and children of her People could live happily. She focuses on humans and animals representing doodem (clan) symbols and describes her sketchings, paintings, and poems as prayers of hope for all.

Simone considers herself a Medicine painter, her artwork testifying of her journey through life and representing the rainbow of people on this planet. 

So if you pay attention, you will find that each story that you find on this blog, whether it is written by her, by me, or by us together, will, in some way or another, express, breathe, or radiate this spiritual outlook that she and I so passionately share.

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Hallo! Dit is het eerste kunstblog dat ik publiceer, samen met mijn beste vriend Simone McLeod. Laat ik mezelf eerst voorstellen. Wie ben ik, wat doe ik en waar schrijf ik over?

Mijn naam is Tammo G. Geertsema, mijn indiaanse naam is Zhaawano Giizhik. Ik ben een Amerikaan met een gemengd Nederlandse (o.a. Groningse en Friese), Angelsaksische en indiaanse achtergrond, en geboren in North Carolina, met wortels in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan. Ook heb ik gewoond in Houston, Texas. Ik woon en werk inmiddels al weer jaren in Nederland, waar ik het grootste deel van mijn jeugd doorbracht. Mijn huidige thuisbasis is een sfeervol atelier  in Warffum, een pittoresk dorp in het hart van het Hoogeland van Groningen, aan de kust van de Waddenzee. Het atelier is gevestigd op de begane grond van een oud herenhuis dat ik met mijn gezin in 1995 betrok.

Ik beoefen het vak van edelsmid vanaf het begin van de jaren 90 van de vorige eeuw. Mijn recente creaties, ondergebracht in een uitgebreide en gevarieerde collectie genaamd ZhaawanArt Originals, verenigen verschillende Native (indiaanse) edelsmid-tradities uit mijn vaderland, zowel klassiek als eigentijds,  en zijn bovendien verrijkt met een vleugje Europees design. Sinds 2004 specialiseer ik me het ontwerpen en uitvoeren van bijzondere, niet-commerciele sieraden die dienen als verhalenvertellers ("teaching tools").

Mijn grootste inspiratiebron is de moderne grafische kunst van de Canadese School of Woodland Art: deze kunst, ook wel Legend- of Medicine Art genoemd, is geworteld in de orale en picturale traditie van mijn eigen indiaanse voorouders, de Ojibwe Anishinaabeg. Dit is een Algonkisch sprekend nomadenvolk dat al ruim 800 jaar in het Great Lakes-gebied, in het grensgebied van de V.S. en Canada, leeft.

Ik beschouw mijn sieraadontwerpen als een unieke mix van enerzijds deze eeuwenoude, magische wereld uit de Amerikaanse northwoods en anderzijds het minimalisme van hedendaags sieraaddesign.  Ik hoop in vele volgende blogs dieper op deze materie in te gaan en op z’n minst een tipje van de sluier op te lichten van dit fascinerende universum dat achter het tastbare universum van mijn sieraden schuilt.