Although I had met Tsa-qwa-supp one time his body of work has huge impact on all of us in this art practice. He was notorious for being a difficult person and I head many of them of how I shouldn’t talk to him. But I’m reminded of the misunderstood and how to me Art was a Sirus Black figure met with a touch of Han Solo and Captain Jack Sparrow.
Tsa-qwa-supp
I’ve been leaning on this idea of hindsight as 2020 in the literal sense because it’s easy to call out figures who were perceived villains and anti-heroes. Don’t get me wrong there is true injustice and corruption all around and I don’t have any issue with speaking to it.
Perhaps now more than ever it’s important to look at reform and for what Dave Chapelle said in his stand up years ago “an honest discourse with ourselves as a nation”. Tsa-qwa-supp was shaped by abuse of a boarding school system which few could relate to today. He shaped that as difficult as he was at times into work that would show a side of his culture and identity shared with the world that stemmed from it but transformed.
In this field of work like any other there are ups and downs and mentors and students alike. Working with Loren White he shared a few small prints that I admired from Art’s earlier works when he was truly coming into his own style of expression. It’s not easy for many to read unless you look at the body of work that an artist creates over years and even decades to arrive at.
That was one thing I was most grateful for to curate alongside Bill Holm and Susan Point for the Burke Museums Exhibit. Looking in the collection of how these heroes of mine started out like anyone else with some lesser refined work but work nonetheless.
I recalled in documentaries Isabell Rorick talking about the pains of learning to weave and watch her teacher take the weaving back and reduce it by half with few words if any. At the same time it was the value of knowing there was a standard that was needed. I feel that is something needed. Necessary to be good at what you are committed to. It takes great sacrifice to learn the skills and what it will take. Some could say that was overcompensation for our people deemed as savage and or primitive. The contrary being how well skills where developed on a relationship with the land and the value of making items to the best of your ability.
Art said what he had to so without holding anything back. He was a lion and in a lot of ways I wished I had been able to work with him despite the stories. It is all a matter of who is willing to trade the time to a challenge and survive. I’m not advocating violence in a workplace by any means but at the same time it exists and in many cases not to make the student better.
I was told a story about Art cussing someone out asking about how to paint and he just shrugged them off and said to figure it out. It became somewhat of a legend and the longer I thought about that it was like asking a guitar player on tour how to tune their guitar.
I’ve looked at writing this off and on for a long time and one thing came to mind of my older keynote talks going over them where I featured one of his masks that I always admired. It is called “Money Maker”.
Money Maker, Tsa-qwa-supp cedar, paint feathers.
The mask has the dollar symbol stylize and a not to the green of money. Two levels of this being the high value of our old masks that aged copper and iron to create the bright green/blue color. I always theorized that it was an expression of the time in which we live. Our old masks from this region were about ceremony honoring hunters, fisherman, whalers and nature with story. Today we are just making currency move along.
The irony here is this mask was stolen because I wanted to find a way to include it in an exhibition.
What I wanted to say. I mentioned that I met him once during the Victoria BC Canoe journey. He had a drum he had just painted and he looked fairly approachable. I was nervous given all the stories about him but I went up to talk and note who I studied with and that I was a fan of his work. That I had just bought one of his prints for my cousin.
He was smiling a lot and I was a little taken back about the monster he was made into. He was proud of the drum he just painted and we talked a bit about painting. At a pause his grandson probably ten at the time pulled at his shirt and said “grandpa, what kinda paint do you use” snickering and in a loud childish whisper. He said looking at me “this isn’t one of those guys” and put his hand on my shoulder. I asked if I could take his picture and he agreed and said he should sit down to look stoic. But his grandson came back to photo bomb the pics and he couldn’t help himself and said to just shoot the photo but he wasn’t showing he was angry.
Tsa-qwa-supp at Victoria, BC photo by Qwalsius - Shaun Peterson
It wasn’t long after I learned he was diagnosed with cancer. He passed in 2003. A few years later when I went thru a hard time I was gifted the print of that drum design and one called Baah-booq. And not long after my relative I gave that print to sent a photo of the Wolf Pole that is one of my favorite public works. The story of wolf dances coming to the people.
The First Wolf Dancer Pole