Drawing Item Number: 3223/60 from the MOA: University of British Columbia

Description

A drawing of a whale on a tan coloured paper advertisement for a bookstore and artisan studio. The paper is horizontally oriented. On the left half of the front-side, two two-story buildings with signs above their doors are machine-printed in red ink; an address and a small map, enclosed by a border, are printed in red ink on the right half of the page. Positioned above the building entitled "Artisan's Studio" and the address is a whale hand-drawn in pencil. The top horizontal red border is used as the back spine of the whale. The mouth of the whale is lined with baleen. The whale's eye is a circular ovoid; above the eye is the whale's blowhole. The pectoral fin is grooved and is decorated with an elongated diamond-shape, a tower-shape, and four crescents. The whale's tail fluke is decorated with a small tower-shape and a crescent. On the reverse-side, the left half of the page lists the commercial information of the artisan's studio; it is printed in red ink and is enclosed by a red border. The right half of the page lists the bookstore's commercial information; it is printed in red ink and is enclosed by a red border.

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.