Kwakwa̱ka̱ʼwakw artist's new memoir recounts his journey to reconnect with his culture
Credit to Author: Dana Gee| Date: Fri, 15 Nov 2019 19:00:59 +0000
Northwest Coast artist David A. Neel’s new visually stunning memoir The Way Home tracks his return to his hereditary home and his reconnection to the past and his subsequent development as an artist.
A member of the Kwakiutl First Nation, Neel has had dozens of shows in museums and art galleries, and his work is in many public collections.
Postmedia caught up with Neel, who is currently doing live book events, to ask him a few questions.
Q: Why do this memoir now?
A: I realized some time ago that most people don’t understand my work because of variety of multimedia that I work in, so I set out to write a book about my unusual art practice. As I started to write it became apparent that how I found my way home was the real story.
Q: What do you hope people take away from the book?
A: I hope that people will see that it is possible to achieve one’s goals, even when starting from a modest beginning. There are a lot of people today who are interested in reconnecting with their heritage and finding their way home, and reading about how I did it — despite being away for 25 years — may give them hope. The book is a positive message about Indigenous culture, and its tenacity and relevance in contemporary society, and I think that there is a need this kind of message today.
Q: You came across a mask carved by your great, great grandfather Charlie James (Yakuglas) in Fort Worth, TX., over two decades ago. It changed everything for you. What was it called?
A: Tsegame, the Magician of the Red Cedar Bark. .
Q: What do you remember thinking when you first saw that mask?
A: When I first saw the mask I immediately (knew) that it was from my father’s people, and then I got the feeling that it was by a family member. It communicated something to me at an instinctive level, and I couldn’t get it out of my mind for weeks afterwards. Shortly afterwards I just knew that I was meant to carve like my great-great grandfather.
Q: What is one of your first memories of reconnecting with your father’s side of the family all those years ago?
A: I recall it being difficult at first reconnecting with my family and the people on my father’s side. There was so much that I didn’t know, about family history, our culture, essentially everything, and I felt very sensitive, kind of embarrassed that I was so naive. I think that anyone returning home would find it difficult at first, but you just have to keep to the course and things get easier.
Q: How did reconnecting with your roots affect your creativity?
A: I was well into my career as a photographer when I returned home but I was able to start carving within weeks of arriving back in Vancouver. I was extremely fortunate and I met Beau Dick and Wayne Alfred shortly and I apprenticed with them for two years. So just a few weeks after my return I was carving and learning from two of the best artists of my generation and 32 years later I am still working and learning.
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Q: You must have had amazing conversations while doing your first book Our Chiefs and Elders? What was it like to work on this project? What stays with you?
A: Doing that book I had an opportunity to meet people who spoke their traditional languages and had grown up in a different world. I went to their villages and interviewed them in their homes, and stayed with them sometimes. It was truly a life-changing experience, and I learned so much. It was my introduction to what it means to be Indigenous. I will never forget their kindness and willingness to share their knowledge and life experiences.
A younger David A. Neel is seen here in 1991 leading a procession of Kwakwa̱ka̱ʼwakw chiefs and elders. Behind Neel (from L-R) are Chief Willy Hunt, Chief Edwin Newman, Chief Ernie Willie and Emma Tamlin.
Q: As a kid what did you dream of doing when you grew up?
A: I was always going to be an artist like my father, and I had a romanticized idea of what it meant to be an “artist,” based on my father’s paintings in the family home when I was young. Later I studied contemporary art in university, and apprenticed as a photographer in Dallas, Texas, but in the end I still became a carver. The calling is difficult to ignore.
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Q: Your father died when you were not even two but you write about how his art informed you? What was one of the pieces that you still find yourself thinking about?
A: His sculpture, Thunderbird and Killer whale, was highly symbolic for me as a child and it represented my father to my young mind. My mother told me that he carved those animals because they were my family crests, although I had no idea what that meant at the time. But I intuited their significance, even as young child. His art, especially that carving, was highly symbolic for me.
Q: Your grandmother Ellen Neel was referred to as the first woman totem pole carver. When you think of her what comes to mind?
A: My grandmother was a working mother decades before that became commonplace, and she was something of a feminist, again, before that term came into popular use. She was also the first Northwest Coast Indigenous artist to use silk screen printing, as Roy Henry Vickers told me once. The thing that stands out in my mind is the time that I visited her east Vancouver home. I recall the scent of yellow cedar chips in her studio, and even today yellow cedar reminds me of her. That is the only memory I have of my grandmother, who passed away when I was six years old.
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Q: How does storytelling affect your work and for you what makes a good story?
A: The ancient stories are the essence of Northwest Coast Indigenous art and culture. I continue to research the stories as they are the inspiration for much of my work. To me a good story has elements that makes in relevant to people of all cultures and stands the test of time.
Q: What is it about being Kwakwa̱ka̱ʼwakw that makes you the most proud and inspires you the most?
A: The traditional culture of my people, the Kwakwaka’wakw, is beautiful and symbolic. I feel so fortunate to be able to be a carver and follow in my family’s footsteps. For me it is a lifelong dream, although it took me 25 years to make it come true.
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Q: What are you working on these days?
A: Currently I am working on the follow book to Our Chiefs and Elders, which was published in 1991. It combines photography and text, and will explore the role of traditional culture in the digital age. I want to learn from the elders what will be the role of our traditional culture in the age of transformative technologies such as artificial intelligence and robotics. This will be a different experience as I am not the young man I was when I wrote the first book.