Tag: canadian-landscapes

Ken Kirkby: A Painter’s Quest for Canada

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Excerpt

There is no such thing as old hat when it comes to this. It’s like it all happens
for the first time each time. It grew more and more intense. We lay
there on the ground and I don’t know how long we lay there. The shafts of
light rippled up in an arc all around us, and they came to a centre point
directly above us and that point was a black hole. All the rest was light, and
the colours were showering down – purple, gold, green, blue, red. The words
don’t work. It was as if we were laying on the floor of a cathedral the size of
the universe. The earth was no longer an issue – we weren’t even part of the
planet. I can see how religions began. It was stuff like this – it undoes one.
All the rational explanations we have for this are nonsense. They just don’t
work. You have to find a bigger answer. This is too big, too beautiful, and too
mysterious.
Something holy descended on their souls. Ken felt as though they had
had a direct experience of God and the magic of that night clung to them
during those ten days in the Thelon.
The Thelon was like no other place on earth. When the glaciers had
retreated they had left behind a vast amount of chirt, a very dense stone
that had formed into eskers or low humpbacked hills from forty to a
hundred and fifty feet high. The stone was so dense the permafrost could
not penetrate it and as a result the vegetation that grew there, born from
seeds carried by migrating birds, was that of a more southern landscape.
But because of the severe winters and punishing winds, it was a landscape
in miniature. Trees that might grow to a hundred feet in the south grew to
only a couple of feet here, but they were flawlessly formed. At the base of
each esker was a perfectly round small lake, so thick with Arctic grayling
you could almost reach your hand into the water and pull one out.
When they got back Ken promised himself that this time he wouldn’t
leave on another trip until he had finished the painting. He locked himself
in his studio and from October 1990 to May 1991. He emerged only
long enough to eat and sleep.
The epic project neared completion. Elaine suggested a decorous and
dignified gathering to commemorate the event. Ken and the word “decorous”
were obviously never meant to meet. He insisted on a “last brushstroke”
party that would be more extravagant than his “first brushstroke”
event ten years earlier. Decorum in his studio? A studio that had a sign at
the entrance identifying it as “The Zoo?” Karen had even presented him
with a road sign he had admired in Yellowknife: Ragged Ass Road and
Lois Lane.
Ken had actually tried to steal the sign more than once, but each time
he had attempted it, someone had gotten to it before him and taken off
with it. He guessed that the City of Yellowknife works department likely
had a full time employee doing nothing but erecting a new road sign at…

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Ken Kirkby, A Painter’s Quest for Canada

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excerpt

As they walked around the ramshackle town, whose only buildings of
note were the grand churches of competing denominations, he described
his first sight of the place and how he had come to buy food for the people
who were to become his family.
An Inuk man, named Amy Ahangona, asked them to have tea at his
home. As they walked toward his house, people smiled and nodded. Amy
explained that the people in the Arctic knew about Isumataq and about
the spotlight of attention Ken had been focussing on the story of the
Inuit. “What can we do to help?” he asked.
Ken made one request. Could Amy take them out on the Coppermine
River? They spent a day on Amy’s boat, motoring up the river to Copper
Mountain where the natives had mined the yellow mineral and beaten it
into knives, and had thus become known as the Yellow Knives. They went
to Bloody Falls where Ken stood on the same boulder he had straddled
when he first crossed from the western into the eastern Arctic. He saw
again the boulder where Samuel Hearne had carved his name in the sixteen
hundreds and felt the emotional rush of history overwhelm him.
From Coppermine, they flew to Rankin Inlet where they discovered
that Keith had asked Michael to spend the summer at his camp, working
as a guide. They flew across Hudson’s Bay, east to Iqaluit (Frobisher
Bay), another ramshackle settlement, except for the new high school in
the shape of a giant igloo.
They continued on to Pangirtung, an ancient settlement at the far end
of Cumberland Sound on Baffin Island, where the Inuit had made camps
for many centuries. But, it was also an old European whaling station and
remains of the industry and skeletons of giant blue whales were still scattered
on the shore.
They visited the local high school, where Ken gave a talk. When one
young student asked him what he would do with Isumataq when it was
finished, he said he wanted not one opening as was common with works
of art – he wanted many openings, all of them to take place across the
Arctic. Yes, the student persisted, but where would he show it first. “Well,
first I have to take it to Parliament,” he said.
Afterwards, Karen said. “I’ve never heard you say that before. What’s
this idea of going to Parliament?”
“It was just a joke,” he said. “It just came off the top of my head.”
“Some joke! It’s perfect.”
“Maybe.”
“Seriously – it’s perfect. That’s it!”
“First I want to bring it here.”
“Fine, but I tell you I love it – I love it a lot more than your crazy idea
of going to Rome and unveiling it in the Colosseum with a pair of lions.

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Ken Kirkby, A Painter’s Quest for Canada

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excerpt

…Michael, and John Harris, a journalist, travelled deeper into the tundra to
one of Keith’s remote summer camps. They took few supplies, expecting
to find food and warm bedding at their destination. When Ken assessed
the situation after the float plane dropped them off, he realized they were
ill-prepared for their stay, and the trek back to the lodge. The supplies
at the camp consisted of a boat, a tent with no tent poles, a large can of
dried mushroom soup, and a few bedrolls and fishing rods. To make matters
worse, the weather turned and the hot summer winds were replaced
with the chill of an early fall. The grays and greens of the tundra began
to turn scarlet and heavy rain fell, which then turned to sleet and later, to
wet snow.
Blindly, they putt-putted around the shore, searching for the river that
would lead them back to the lodge. When they found it, it was too shallow
to navigate because the waters had drained to their summer depth.
Resigned, Ken and John jumped into the water, one pushing and one
pulling the boat, while Michael walked along the shore searching for obstacles.
The cold, wet, backbreaking labour continued all day. In the evening,
they propped the tent up with paddles, lit two Coleman stoves inside
their shelter and fried the fish they had caught, augmenting the meal with
vile-tasting mushroom soup.
They pushed on for four days, the time collapsing into itself until all
they felt was cold, wet, and bone weary. When they finally made it to Ferguson
Lake they were as thrilled as though they had found the elusive pot
of gold. A helicopter circled overhead and a large boat motored toward
them. They were well overdue and Keith was relieved to find them alive
and uninjured.
When Ken got back to Toronto he had one priority. After showering at
the studio he called Karen, “How about supper tonight?”
In the week Karen had been back, she had filed for divorce. Ken told
Marsha the next day that it was over. When he told Diane about the situation
she quit her job.
Karen rented a house on Belsize Avenue off Yonge Street and gave Ken
a key. The chaos of broken relationships roared around him and he had
never been happier in his life. With Diane gone, Ken turned the entire
space into his studio and hired his lawyer’s sister-in-law, Elaine Ross, who
had a background in publicity. She skillfully kept contact with the media
who hovered constantly in the background like hungry jays.
Michael visited frequently and he and Karen became good friends.
Watching them together, Ken was often startled by the intensity of his
feelings. At times, he could hear the beating of his heart, pounding like a
steady and welcome ache in his chest.
Karen applied to write the bar exam for the Northwest Territories on…

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Ken Kirkby, A Painter’s Quest for Canada

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excerpt

They were marvelling at the line of diminutive Inuksuit that curved along
the water’s edge toward a far-off boulder that seemed to reach almost fifty
feet into the sky. The Inuksuit told a story, Ken said, and after a lunch of
fresh fried fish he led them toward the boulder. As they walked the boulder
diminished in size until they stood beside it and found it was about
three feet tall, pink, perfectly smooth, and resting on top of an immense
gray rock that had been partially heaved out of the tundra.
“This is a fishing Inukshuk,” he told them. “It tells you that this is a
good place to go fishing. How does it say that? If the fishing is good, the
Inuit take a stone out of the water and put it on top of another stone
with little Inuksuit leading the way. A passerby who had never been in
this land would know immediately that he could catch fish here. Other
configurations of stone describe what kind of fish are here. Essentially,
this is a language.”
He explained that the permafrost lurks just under the surface of the
tundra, and below that lay thousands of feet of ice. The ground above the
permafrost where the ice melted consisted almost entirely of rich humus
built up over eons by the tiny plants that grew and died there. An eightinch
tree takes hundreds of years to grow to that height in the Arctic’s
short season. The fibres of the humus stretched out along the surface and
down to the permafrost, siphoning the water from the ice and sending it
into the atmosphere. As the wind travelled across the surface of the land
in buffeting gusts, it created rudimentary magnifying lenses of the millions
of tiny water bubbles streaming into the air. The farther away you
were from an object the more lenses you were looking through and the
larger the distant object appeared.
That night after supper he walked down to the dock with a fly-fishing
rod. Arctic grayling congregated in the shallows here and after a few causal
casts, he landed a fine three-pound fish. As he unhooked it and slipped
it back into the water he noticed Karen sitting on an overturned bucket
at the far end of the dock.
“I’d like to try that,” she said.
He handed her the rod and described the process but even after all
these years he still had no idea how to explain that it was a line with no
weight and it needed to fly guided by minimal strength and energy, and
perfect timing.
She cast a couple of times and smiled. “I like this,” she said and while
the fly lay on the water, a large grayling took the bait. Ken disengaged it,
gave the rod back to her and left her to sort out the tangles and continue
casting. He sat on the overturned bucket at the far end of the dock and
watched.

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Ken Kirkby, A Painter’s Quest for Canada

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excerpt

…where all the things that are common in your life don’t exist. Imagine a
place where the only things that do exist are things that are uncommon
to you. You will be in a state of sensory deprivation and sensory overload
at the same time. There are no trees. There are no cities. There is nothing
– but there are vast numbers of insects so pray that the wind blows. There
is almost no night. The size of the horizon is so immense that the prairies
by comparison are claustrophobic. It will just eat away at you and you’ll
have to go through the experience of feeling a bit wobbly and perhaps
teary and that’s fine. I would be worried if you didn’t have an emotional
moment or two. You would have to be completely insensitive.”
In the weeks leading to the departure day, dozens of incidents demanded
his attention. First on the list was the long-planned show at the
Ontario Legislature buildings, which was a great success. The Premier
steered Ken from group to group, demanding that Ken tell the stories that
explained the paintings – even relating some himself that he had heard so
often he had committed them to memory.
Then Ehor Boyanowsky, his voice almost incoherent with excitement,
called him. Ken must fly out to Vancouver right away for an emergency
meeting of the Steelhead Society. There were problems with the dam
project in Quebec.
He drove into town to deliver a painting to London Life on Avenue
Road, on the day of his flight. When he got back into his car, a large
cheque in hand, he heard Peter Gzowski, radio’s “Mister Canada”, interviewing
John Fraser, who was now Speaker of the House. The interview
had almost ended. “So, Mr. Speaker,” Gzowski said. “Your life seems to be
completely taken up by your office.”
“Well, it is,” Fraser, replied.
“I know you’re a fanatical fly-fisherman,” Gzowski said. “Do you ever
get to do that?”
“As a matter of fact, yes,” Fraser said. “This afternoon I’m getting on an
airplane to go to Vancouver and I’m going to meet my good friend Ken
Kirkby, the painter, and I am going to be honoured at the Steelhead Society
dinner. I couldn’t imagine being in finer company. I’m just delighted.
So yes, we are actually going to steal some time – but don’t tell anybody
– and we’re going to have a few meetings to talk about some problems,
which I’m sure we’ll resolve, and then we’re going to go fishing. And the
people putting this on have some surprises for us too.”
Ken chuckled. So, that was why Boyanowski had insisted he fly to Vancouver.
He knew that Ken would never have pulled himself away from
Isumataq for a mere fishing trip.
When Ehor greeted him in the baggage area, with an immense bear
hug, Ken told him that the jig was up. Ehor shrugged. “I wondered if you
might be listening to Gzowski’s program.

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Ken Kirkby – Warrior Painter

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excerpt

The Minister was a Maritimer and his open, neighbourly manner
delighted Ken. Their meeting resulted in the eminently successful 1975
exhibition of Ken’s Arctic work in Spain, and in the fashion of one domino
tipping the next, the first Canadian exhibition of the Arctic works was
triggered. Once the unusual, haunting images had been seen, and the origin
of the work was explained, all the right people wanted to own one of the
paintings, and gallery owners were clamouring to exhibit them. Best of
all, to Ken’s mind, it had been accomplished without cost to the Canadian
government beyond their public support and a few phone calls.
This was the beginning of the long road to the national introduction of
the Inuit, their stories and experiences, and the growing acceptance of the
symbol of the Inukshuk as a uniquely Canadian icon. It could be argued
this was the pivotal step that led to the Inukshuk becoming the distinctive
symbol of welcome for the 2010 Vancouver Olympics.
The Arctic paintings sold by the hundreds, nationally and internationally,
to the point where, a quarter of a century later, Canadian Art galleries were
objecting to anything other than ice, snow and Inuksuit displaying the
Kirkby name. It was ironic.
~~
Despite the history, the lack of outlets for Kirkby’s west coast images
promised a lean period ahead for the painter. He decided to force the issue
by withholding all of his art until the galleries accepted his new works. The
businessmen amongst the owners appreciated the fact that a painting with
the Kirkby signature translated into a certain sale, and Ken’s experience had
proven they’d come around when their stock was depleted.
He continued to work late, the bright light a beacon, spilling warmth
from the loft window. And then, one night he returned to the cottage to
find the message light blinking on the answering machine. That was the
start. While gallery managers still hopefully requested the Arctic series,
they agreed to hang work from his Vancouver Island series. Happily, new
customers liked it and previous Kirkby collectors were intrigued. Ten
years since that breakthrough, his work is more popular than ever and…

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Ken Kirkby, A Painter’s Quest for Canada

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excerpt

…grandly feted and on another day, he and Marsha visited the village that
had been his home. They walked up the Avenue of Princes and stopped
in front of number twelve – his home. In the garden, he saw a couple
talking with the gardener. Ken leaned over the garden wall, introduced
himself, and asked if he could look inside his old boyhood home. The
couple frowned, turned their backs on him, and walked into the house,
locking the door behind them.
The gardener said, “You’re Ken.”
“Yes.”
“I’m Francisco’s nephew.”
“How wonderful to meet you. But why are they so upset?”
“They think you’ve come back to claim the house.”
Ken laughed. “I just wanted to go inside and look. I thought it might
be very nice.”
“Oh no. People have been wondering when you would return to take
back what is yours.”
“I’ve never considered it mine,” he said.
They walked on through the village and then down to the beach. Nothing
had changed. The wall he and Francisco had built was still there and
still trapping the sand to create a beautiful stretch of beach. Even the
remains of Francisco’s cabin still clung to the cliffs.
They drove to Peniche, the home of their friend, the Count. Even here
Ken was recognized, not so much for himself, but for his father; a saint
according to the owner of a restaurant, who closed the café in celebration
of Ken’s visit and served up a feast for his honoured guests.
Back in Toronto, Ken settled into a routine that was continuously interrupted.
When he was not working on Isumataq he painted canvases
for the gallery and for the financial company’s new collection. His biggest
challenge was that the media liked him too much. They wanted to know
why he was meeting with presidents in Europe; they wanted to know his
plans – what was next? Too much good press was boring so they sought
out the malcontents – those who had accused him of appropriating a
culture that wasn’t his. He needled them until they fired back. He had
come back from his latest Arctic trip with letters from the grandmothers,
written in Inuktitut and translated into English, stating that they not
only approved of his art, but had also asked him expressly to do what he
was doing. The letters were tucked in a file that Ken suspected might be
useful one day.
Bad press was interesting but outrageous press was better. He had
about twenty unfinished paintings, stacked in a corner of the studio, that
he would likely never complete. He spread them out on the floor and
paced between them.
“What are you doing?” Diane asked, poking her head into the studio.

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Ken Kirkby, A Painter’s Quest for Canada

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or not – it all depends on the environment. I suspect that you haven’t
thought your way through it – and I’m not trying to be rude, or difficult.
Usually, when people come in and ask for something that’s completely
outside their understanding, they, probably, aren’t asking for the right
thing. I’d like to suggest that I come down and make a presentation to
your company, on what I think you’re looking for.”
“You think so?”
“Yes. You don’t seem sure about why you want it, and you’re not sure
about the environment it will be in. I suspect that no matter what I paint
you won’t be happy. Painting what is in someone else’s mind is almost
impossible. So, would you do me the courtesy of letting me come down
and make a presentation, and see if that is what you want?”
“Certainly.”
A few weeks later, Ken walked into the formidable skyscraper in downtown
Toronto and gave the board members his analysis. They wanted a
large painting for the foyer. Fine – he could supply that, but it wouldn’t
be as large as the Reichmann painting. And, it would be the first of several
canvases. A smaller one would hang in the boardroom, and several others
would hang throughout the premises. The preliminary sketches and
drawings would be framed and hung as well. The paintings would tell a
story that would be repeated in a booklet. A six-minute film would also
tell the story, and it would play on a large screen television in the reception
area. When a client arrived for a meeting, he would sit and watch the
movie.
“Now, they have something interesting,” Ken said. “This is something
they have not anticipated seeing, and they realize that you are a lot more
than just what you do. When you meet the client, you tour them around
and show them all the works, and then you sit down and get down to
business. By now, they realize that you are interesting people. You have
things going on other than making money. When your business is concluded
you hand the client a copy of the book – signed by me and your
CEO – as something to take away and remind them of the meeting.”
Ken suggested they take a holiday during the month of August and
turn their offices over to him. When they returned the space would be
transformed – not just because the paintings would be hung. What good
were paintings if the background didn’t complement them? He proposed
changing the furniture to set off his work and painting the walls in appropriate
colours. Everything had to work – it had to be of a piece.
The cost, he said, was irrelevant – the accountants would write the
whole thing off. He thanked them, told them he had to return to his
painting, and left. During the next few days several of the board members
visited his studio. A couple of weeks later they accepted his fee of four
hundred eighty thousand dollars.

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Ken Kirkby, A Painter’s Quest for Canada

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excerpt

His scaffold was built, ladders leaned against the walls, tubes of paint –
by the carton – were stacked in the studio, and alarm clocks ticked beside
his narrow cot. He was ready to begin painting.
I felt very, very much that things had now solidified. This was now a fact,
and for the first time in this entire campaign, I actually knew that I was going
to make it – not only the painting, but also my fight for Nunavut. This
was it. It was now only a matter of physical labour to complete the vision.
There was a different feeling now. The desperation was gone, and there was
only a huge engine driving me. Now, there was only confidence. Now, I had
access to politicians, business people, media – an infrastructure so massive
and on such a personal level that I would be able to get this story through
and by hook or by crook it would come into being.
It occurred to him is his newfound euphoria – “We need to celebrate!”
He announced the “First Brushstroke” party and invitations went out in
the shape of artist’s palettes that hit the desk of every media contact in the
city. Every couple of days a new invitation in a different colour, embossed
with an Inukshuk, went into the mail. He called Keith and told him to
fill a plane with choice Arctic food. Bob Engels, the North’s most famous
bush pilot, volunteered to fly the northern contingent to Toronto. On
an evening in early September 1986, Ken climbed up on a ladder, from
which he made a speech to a roomful of people, and then splashed a giant
brushstroke across the towering, white canvas.
Then he settled into a routine that was to last for almost a year. He
painted the sky for several hours, slept for two hours, went back to work,
and then slept for two hours. As he painted he had a sense that this was
what he was meant to do – to paint on this scale. Every other painting
seemed too small – even the giant canvas that hung at First Canadian
Place was undersized. How could he ever go back to painting something
on a lesser scale? What he really wanted to do was buy Saskatchewan and
paint it from helicopters.
One day a woman, wrapped in a fur coat, swished in on stiletto heels.
She glanced around the studio and waved her arm at some paintings leaning
against the far wall. “I’ll have that one, and that one, and that one.”
“Madam,” Ken said from his perch on the scaffold. “I don’t know who
you are. I suspect you know who I am or you think you do. I would invite
you to go outside, take a walk around, come back in, and say – ‘Good
morning!’”
She took a step back. “Well! I have never been spoken to that way before!”
Ken waved his hand. “Go on! Go. Shoo… Shoo.”
She stalked out, and returned ten minutes later. “Good morning,” she said.

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Ken Kirkby, A Painter’s Quest for Canada

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“Do you like it there?”
“No. It’s not where my heart wants to be but it is where I have to be.”
“I was in Toronto once. I married Hilu’s father and he was from Ottawa,
so I’ve been to Ottawa too.”
“What happened?”
“I don’t know how you people can live in a place like that. It’s soulless.
It’s like people living in caves up in the air. It’s just not human. How is it
that someone who isn’t born here, who doesn’t live here, and only spent a
few years here, can love this place and these people so much?”
“I don’t know,” Ken said. “I don’t know how that happened. We can
have a lot of ideas and we can say a lot of things, but the reality is that we
don’t know these things. We don’t know the first thing about love – we
haven’t a clue. We have all sorts of feelings and all sorts of passions. We
call it love and hate, but that’s just a lazy way of expressing something
we know nothing about. I think love is something that is lived. It doesn’t
have very much to do with the other person although we focus the idea
on one person. I think it’s a life lived in a particular way. It encompasses
all the things that are in that life and it depends on how that life is lived,
whether the invitation to love will be heard and accepted. I don’t think
there is any language, including Inuktitut, that truly expresses what that’s
all about. The only conclusion I can come to is the one I’ve given you.”
Joan let a long silence hang between them. Ken finally asked her again,
how she knew this was the place where he had witnessed so much death.
“It’s not just you knowing,” he said. “There’s something more concrete to
it. This is a specific place where a specific thing happened.”
“I know this is the place because my mother knew these people and
knows their story and she knows about you,” Joan said. “This was the
time of my grandmother, and my grandmother knew you. My grandmother
found you very interesting. They called you the quiet Kabluna
– the mysterious white man who had the capacity of silence. That’s how
I know about you.”
“Would it be possible to visit them in Baker Lake?” Ken asked.
“Yes.”
“Could we visit now?”
“They’re away.”
“Away?”
“Visiting.”
“Family and friends?”
“Yes – very far away.”
“So we can’t go and see them?”
“No.”

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