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Description

A pencil drawing and poem on a bookmark. The bookmark and drawing are both vertically oriented. On the front-side of the bookmark, an image of an abstract whale with a mask, is depicted in pencil. At the top, an image of a decorated mask, taken from a book, is glued to the bookmark; two lines of pencil continue the contours of the mask onto the paper. An active blowhole is drawn below the mask along the right edge of the page. A dorsal fin, decorated with a thick dark grey border, three unshaded ovals, and two unshaded tower shapes, is drawn below the blowhole. The body of the whale is decorated with a thick border of grey pencil, three uncoloured ovals, two ovoids, and one shaded tower-shape. A small human skull is drawn upside down in the largest uncoloured oval. The whale's tail is drawn near the left edge of the paper; it extends outwards from the body and is decorated with an unshaded tower-shape with a grey circle at the top. Below the drawing is the poem, "First, under the sea Then, over the land Into the sky Finally, the long journey And then the fall back to Nisma..." written in pencil. The reverse-side of the bookmark is a machine-printed image of a crowd of people gathered in front of a brown bookstore on a winter's night. The phrase, "BOOKS for EVERYBODY," is printed in indigo at the bottom of the page.

History Of Use

These 62 small works (3223/1-62) comprise a collection of drawings in pencil, ink, pencil crayon, and felt pen made by the artist between the years 1968 and 2015. During that period the artist has identified himself by the following names: Ron Hamilton; Hupquatchew; Ki-ke-in; Kwayatsapalth; Chuuchkamalthnii; and Haa’yuups. The drawings are, for the most part, applied to the backs of bookmarks acquired from a range of bookshops; some are applied to other pieces of paper or cutouts from his earlier silkscreen prints. Many of the images represent killer whales, often in conjunction with accoutrements and symbols of Nuu-chah-nulth whaling. The juxtaposition of bookmark and representation of Nuu-chah-nulth himwits’a, or narrative, is a deliberate and meaningful placement of two distinct knowledge systems in relationship with one another. Ephemeral drawings like these were not created for the market; the artist has long made them for himself and sometimes as gifts for relatives and friends; they are a way of sharing his knowledge and experience about Nuu-chah-nulth ways of knowing, thinking about, and being in this world; they are expressive of what he calls kiitskiitsa: marks made with intention.