Yes the cat currently sharing my home is a two year old, brown, tiger striped bundle of mischief called Willy. Willy is a very bright, funny and talkative cat that brings laughter to my life. I'm writing about him to identify this entry as an up to the minute description of events that are drawn from my past.
I'm now in the final stages of my second sculpture from the mourning series. The first, "Grief" was finished last week and I'm nearing the end of he second in the series "Grief and Comfort". These two sculptures are small versions of the life sized pieces I did back in the sixties. When I told Julie about making them again in miniature, she was very still for a moment and then said "oh Claire I'm so glad, it's like spitting in Alfie's eye". I was so surprised by the happy vehemence in her voice, I whooped with laughter. So unlike Julie to be bitchy.
Later Freya and I went to Market Hall to see Tomson Highway and Patty Cannu in a Cabaret performance of songs from Thomson's plays. It went back to the The Rez Sisters and through to Rose the last in the series to date. Did tonight's marvellous performance ever take me back to the late eighties and early nineties - happy days at The Native Canadian Center in Toronto studying Ojibwa language and culture. I met Tomson when he was Artistic Director of Native Earth Performing Arts, and I saw all his plays at the little theatre in The Native Canadian Center. He was a young struggling playwright then and I was newly assigned to develop strategies for communicating and consulting with Aboriginal communities for the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources. I knew very little about First Nations issues and even less about Aboriginal cultures but I was very keen to learn. I saw this assignment as an opportunity to learn and make a positive contribution. It was also a huge challenge.
One day, I had lunch with a board director from Native Earth who was bemoaning the financial shortfall between the grants they received and the actual cost to send the Native Earth cast and crew to Edinburgh. Native Earth Performing Arts had been invited to bring the Rez Sisters to the Edinburgh Festival in 1991. A very big honour and coup was endangered for the lack of $30,000. Before I knew what was happening, I heard my voice saying "I'll raise that money for you".
I struck a committee of Junior League doers to raise the money. We had three months to accomplish this. We needed to meet every few weeks take stock. I was so firmly convinced by the merits of sending an Aboriginal Canadian theatre company to Edinburgh, that I was convinced we would have no trouble raising the funds needed. Well, I was wrong. I met prejudice against "Indians" head on in the highest corporate offices. In the end, we only raised about $6,000 in cash and the rest by in-kind donations, such as Air Canada shipping all the sets, props and luggage free if the cast flew Air Canada. Since they had to fly anyway, this was a huge help. These in-kind donations really worked out well in the end, but I became very discouraged. Companies like Beaver Canoe and Roots that identified themselves with all things Canadian and natural, had no interest in helping an indigenous Canadian theater group go to an internationally recognized arts festival. Beaver Canoe's imagination only extended so far as wanting to hire some dancers and drummers to perform at the opening of a new store. I was close to banging my head against a door in frustration.
Well, in spite of all that, they got to Edinburgh, and I got to know Tomson through those awful fundraising meetings at my house. He would arrive and quietly seat himself next to the refreshments while we droned on about shortfalls, corporate presentations, and targets. Every so often we asked him a direct question about technical requirements, cast needs etc. He would answer and quietly eat all the refreshments, then rise and slip away. He always walked downtown form my North Toronto home. He didn't take the bus. It was hard to equate this quiet shy man with the clever, whimsical and multi-talented performer on stage. This was shortly before the time that Tompson lost his incredibly gifted brother Rene to HIV/Aids.
Tonight I had the opportunity to meet Tomson again after the show. He didn't immediately recognize me asking, "are you Swedish?" No Dutch, I replied. He said, "what's your name?" I told him and his face crinkled into a huge smile followed by an even bigger hug. He turned to another woman standing with us and said "Claire helped us get to Edinburgh". The woman was one of the original cast that went with The Rez Sisters to Edinburgh. She hugged me too and I basked in the warmth of recollected moments before we started comparing how old we all are now and how fatiguing it is holding our stomachs in - all very funny and good natured.
The performance was brilliant, moving and sooo professional. The meeting was genuine warmth and totally goofy. I had a wonderful evening and came away so glad to be alive. Freya had a great time too.
The irony is that I didn't contribute much to understanding Aboriginal culture while in the government, but it seems I did contribute to the success of Aboriginal theatre in my corner of the world.
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About Me
- kingmisha
- I'm bigger than a pile of breadboxes, but smaller than a Sherman tank. I'm overeducated, underpaid but very content with my life. I have loved infrequently but intensely. I dated a poet, divorced a Dean, had an affair with a jazz pianist, was engaged to a diplomat, and widowed by my child's father. The men in my life were all very special. Not all grand passions but much loved in their time: Leonard Cohen, Alfred Pinsky, Billy Horn, Wendell Goodin, and Elliot Hirschman. Thanks for the memories... I'm a lapsed artist which doesn't really trouble me because I'm a very successful parent. I lacked the requisite conceit to persevere as an artist. I just couldn't make myself believe that my art came before my child. The world really doesn't need another sculptor (even a good one), but it does need another good human being. It can use all the good human beings we can turn out. I present Mambolica as my evidence so judge for yourselves.