Wake The Stone Man (17 page)

Molly

chapter twenty-two

By the end of August I had all the pieces ready for the exhibit. The artist's statement was written. As I waited for Dr. Thompson to arrive I read it over one more time.

Witness

In 1968, with a Brownie Camera and black and white film, I went out into the streets of my hometown, Fort McKay, Ontario. I was a shy kid who melted invisibly into the background, and that day I realized invisibility gave me a unique perspective. I walked unseen through the day, my camera a dispassionate observer. I stopped time, and in that suspended plane I saw beauty in the small details that connected the people and place.

The paintings are done in black and white and I have used colour to lead the eye into the heart of the image. In these simple images can be found a layered and complex portrait of the human politics of a small northern town.

Here is a town suspended in a moment before change — before the closing of the grain elevators and the shutting down of the mill. This is the moment before the shops and movie theatres become boarded up because so many were out of work.

Look beneath these details to see the narrative below. Witness the wealthy ladies in their fur coats and the white men in black suits who run the town. Look at the grain handlers and millworks who crossed the ocean to find a better life. Look at men sleeping rough on park benches and native children held captive behind the chain link fence of the residential school.

The hands of the clock on the tower have stopped and in that suspended animation we can see all the layers that connect. We see the fierce frontier spirit and below it a dark layer of racism and class division. Look deeper at the strata below and see a pristine land before Europeans, before the fur trade. Look at the pines twisted in the wind and the silver hidden safe below the Stone Man.

Witness it all, good and bad, set in stark isolation on a rugged geography, the people as strong and resilient as the granite shield below.

“You've been busy.”

I hadn't noticed Dr. Thompson come into my studio. “I've added four new pieces.” I said.

He took the artist's statement from my hand and walked around the room slowly. I could feel the muscles in my gut clench. He was tough on students and didn't hold back with his opinions. I admired that — in theory. Not as easy to take when I was on the firing line. I watched his face to see if I could read his reaction. Nothing.

After walking around the room he dropped down in a chair across from me and read the papers I'd put in his hands. Every so often he would look up and look around the room at the images. Felt like I was sitting there for hours.

Finally Dr. Thompson raised his head and said, “So what?”

I looked confused.

“What's it about?” He said gesturing to the paintings.

“Well, I thought I explained in my artist's statement why…”

He lowered his glasses on his nose, raised the paper and read, “To witness the people and place. ”

“Yes.” I said.

“You ‘suspended time.' Big deal. What you don't say is why. Why that time and that place?”

“I don't understand.”

“Almost all the work you've done over the past three years is linked to that time and place. Why?”

“I don't know.”

“You need to know. If you can't answer that question then all this means nothing.”

I got up and walked around the room. The basket man, Mary Christmas, the clock tower, Dad in the boat with the Stone Man behind him.

I looked at the photos mounted beside each painting, yellowing with age, edges torn. The photos were just the outside shell of what I was trying to say. But what was I trying to say?

I looked at the painting of the oak tree in front of Knox United Church and the painting of Nakina in the jingle dress. Nakina sitting in the booth at the Lorna Doone. Me with my camera reflected in the window taking the shot of Nakina in the restaurant.

The paintings were a way to hold on to Nakina when she had been gone so long. They got under the skin of the photos to the emotional places where words could not go. So much left unsaid.

I turned to Dr. Thompson, certain now.

“I'm sorry.” I said.

“What for?”

“You asked me why I keep going back to that place and time. I keep going back because I need to say what I didn't say then. I'm sorry.”

“Then say it.” He got up and walked out of the room.

I picked up the painting of Nakina and put it on the easel and with a fine tipped brush began to paint each word on the glass of the window of the Lorna Doone.

“I watched them hurt you and did nothing. I'm sorry.”

***

The Lunenburg gallery politely declined. Well, I understood — they were a small gallery and were already booked for over a year. The gallery in Toronto was encouraging, but they also declined. When the letter arrived from the Fort McKay Gallery I wasn't hopeful.

Dear Ms. Bell,

We have reviewed your proposal and are pleased to inform you that we would like to host your show “Witness” at the Fort McKay Art Gallery.

Given the subject matter of your show and the fact that you are from Fort McKay we feel it is an excellent fit with our mandate to support new and emerging northern artists.

We have an opening in the new year, and as we are preparing our promotional material now I would need you to confirm with us as soon as possible. Once we receive your confirmation we can discuss details.

Sincerely,

Merika Goodchild

I sat holding the letter for a long time. I read it over and over again. I had a show. In Fort McKay. It was what I wanted, what I had worked for, and yet … holding the letter in my hand made it real, which meant that the work that had been private for so long would be public, and the idea of feeling so exposed terrified me. People might hate it. People in Fort McKay might be offended by what I had to say, and what if the show wasn't good enough?

I packed a sleeping bag and some food in a backpack and took the letter with me. I rented a car and drove down the coast to a provincial park and hiked in for half a day, finally setting up camp by a small lake. I needed to get away and I needed to be in the bush. That night I cooked a pot of beans over the fire and sat by the edge of the lake looking at the reflection of the moon in the water. It felt good to be out of the city. In the silence of the woods I thought about the offer from the gallery. I could say no to the exhibit. I could. Wait till I felt ready — more confident about my work. But when would that be? No, I had been working for years towards this moment. I had an exhibit. In Fort McKay. I wasn't going to run away.

When I got back to Halifax I wrote a letter accepting the offer and phoned Toivo and Kikko. Kikko was over the moon, and Toivo said he was really proud of me, which choked me up so I had to tell him I had a cold and that was why my voice sounded weird.

***

That spring, the night before the opening, I walked down Main Street for the first time in many years. The stores were closed. Some men were hanging around on the street waiting for Mission House to open, all their worldly belongings tucked under their arms. Beside the shelter the windows of the Lorna Doone restaurant were boarded up with plywood. In the apartment above the restaurant a pigeon perched on the cracked glass of a window. It was serenading the homeless men with its coos. The hardware store was gone, replaced by a government office, and the hotel on the corner was now an apartment building. My footsteps echoed as I walked, and there was a sense of melancholy in the street.

I got back into Toivo's truck and drove down to the waterfront. As I walked out onto the wharf, the sun was setting behind the reclining figure of the Stone Man. I sat down on the edge of the wharf, swinging my legs over the side the way I used to when I was a kid, waiting for Dad to bring the boat around. I looked out at my old friend, the Stone Man.
Always present, ever watching, ancient wisdom.
He had been waiting patiently for me to come home.

The night of the opening Kikko and Toivo walked into the gallery beside me. The lobby was crowded. People were standing around drinking wine and a young man was circulating with a tray of hors d'oeuvres. Beyond the lobby I could see people walking around the exhibit hall. Someone offered me some food but I was too nervous to eat.

I saw people standing in front of my paintings. I saw faces I recognized from school, from the library, friends of my parents. Here to see my work. I felt naked.

I hadn't felt this way at the graduate student show. It was different in Halifax — no one knew me and I wasn't exhibiting alone. Coming back to Fort McKay brought all my old insecurities to the surface. Standing there that night I was still the weird, skinny, silent kid who never fit in.

“Molly, good, you're here.” Merika Goodchild grabbed me by the arm and steered me forward through the crowd into the main exhibition hall and introduced me to a photographer from the local newspaper. He took a photo of me in front of the painting of Nakina at the Doone, which was hung in the centre of the hall. He asked a few questions about the paintings but it was hard to concentrate with all the people milling around.

The room was getting crowded and I couldn't find Kikko or Toivo. I needed to get some air so I made my way out of the main exhibition hall into a side gallery and sat down on a bench.

“I thought I'd find you here.”

I looked up to see Merika smiling at me. She handed me a glass of water.

“So?” I asked.

“Relax Molly. People love it. It's a great show.”

“The lighting on the Stone Man looks good.” I said.

“It does. I wanted to tell you that I think the painting of the residential school being torn down is really powerful.”

“Thanks.”

“My grandmother was at that residential school. She never said much but I know it was hard for her there. She was happy the day it was torn down. A lot of people were. Did you know Morriseau was there?”

“Norval Morriseau?”

She nodded to the paintings around the room. “Founder of the Woodland School. One of Canada's greatest artists. He was at the residential school.”

“I didn't know that.”

“He was there for a short time, then he went back up north to live with his grandfather, who was a shaman, and began painting. These two panels,” she pointed directly across from where we were sitting, “form a diptych titled ‘The Storyteller,' painted in honour of his grandfather Moses Nanakonagos.”

I looked at the two tall narrow panels. In the panel on the left, in deep blues and strong reds, was the powerful presence of the shaman storyteller. The panel to the right was more muted with yellows and browns and the small figure of a boy looking upward, receiving wisdom. Between them birds swirled in black-lined circles of deeper and deeper blue, eyes yellow, piercing the soul.

“We should go back in,” Merika said. “Time to get the formal part of the evening out of the way. You OK now?”

“I'm good.”

I went back into the main hall with Merika and she gathered people around the middle of the room.

“Good evening everyone. My name is Merika Goodchild and I am the Director of the Fort McKay Art Gallery. I want to welcome you here tonight to the launch of our inaugural series of new and emerging northern artists. This series is designed to nurture artists whose artistic vision has its roots in the north. It is my great pleasure to introduce Molly Bell, who tonight launches her show ‘Witness.' In a series of acrylic images Ms. Bell suspends a moment in time in Fort McKay in 1968. In describing her work, Molly Bell says, ‘In these images can be found the layered and complex portrait of the human politics of a small northern town.' Please welcome Molly Bell.”

I stepped to the front of the crowd and could feel my legs shaking. I had prepared some notes to introduce the show but as I looked over at Toivo's smiling face I slipped the notes into my pocket. “It is good to be home,” I said. “When my plane was landing the other day we flew over the Nor'Westers and across the Kam River over the Riverview Cemetery. In that cemetery, buried in the red clay soil along the banks of the Kam, lie my ancestors — my parents, grandparents and great grandparents. My roots are here. I grew up in the shadow of the Stone Man. This is the geography that shaped me and the inspiration for ‘Witness.' It is an honour to be here tonight to share my work with you. Thank you.”

When the crowd began to thin Kikko and Toivo grabbed Merika and asked her to take a photo of the three of us in front of the Stone Man. Toivo was complaining that there wasn't any beer and Kikko said her feet were killing her so I headed to the lobby to get our coats. I walked across the exhibition hall. As I passed the centre of the hall I noticed a woman in a red dress.

She was tall, with dark skin, and her hair was pulled up under a silk scarf. She was looking at the painting of Nakina — Nakina sitting at the Lorna Doone — me outside the restaurant reflected in the glass. The words of silent apology between us. As I walked behind her, the woman in the red dress turned.