We are preparing to arrive at our  imminent deadline. Here are some pictures of Michael  at work on RED.  RED, published by Douglas & McIntyre is  one of the world’s largest comic books. Presented in its book form as 108 pages of fullwatercolour and ink in the Haida manga style it is also a mural. For imperial holdouts that means the mural measures in at 14 ft X 6 ft. Metrically advanced would see a 3.9 m X 1.7m.  While RED is large it is only a mere 6.6 sq meters compared to the European grand daddy the Bayeaux Tapestry which measures in at a very impressive 35 sq m!

Flight of the Hummingbird is flying very well. We have finished Raven’s Call and are waiting for the website team. I will update here and in a direct email alert to anyone requesting a personal update. Send request “Update me for Haida Anime” in subject to: mny@island.net.

We are also looking at going back to the Flight Anime which really is a beta and throwing in some serious audio tracks and additional video detailing.

mny

MUSIC VIDEO review
source: http://brettnissen.blogspot.com/2009/01/paper-lions-cdb-fresh-video.html

CHANGE THE TITLE…please

I enjoy Paper Lion and given their collection of east coast nominations it is obvious that they have earned a loyal and growing number of fans.

But.
As I watched the video “Queen Charlotte of the Hyenas” ( Jan 02, 2009) by Paper Lion ( http://www.paperlionsmusic.com ), I kept looking at that crown wearing animal head prop.
It suddenly seemed that the Animal head designed as a Hyena was that of a bear.
Leaving aside the notion that a “Hyena” is just a-all-too-clever way to advance the Band’s name and considering that Paper Lion did write the song on the Queen Charlotte Islands (sic), the lyrics also appear to call out for such a reclassification.

Once the prop was a Bear, the music video became connected to place.
Good music, good lyrics and image blended together as an orchestrated relevance and left me with a richer musical experience.

Why would it matter if the Hyena was a Bear?
It matters because the band has announced that they wrote the song while on the Queen Charlotte Islands.
It matters because the band names the song “Queen Charlotte….”
It matters because fans are complex intelligent people.

So let’s meet the Queen Charlotte Bear.
It is an endemic species that is this Bear is found no where else on the planet.
It is the largest black bear in the world and there have being times, some very recent when Bear and Man lived together.
The Bear mother is one of the most ancient and iconic clan symbols for Haida and most Indigenous Peoples of the coastline of the eastern Pacific.
The Bear mother is also the formative myth for Korea and parts of Siberia and Japan.

More recently Bears would often drop by for a visit and to show off their cubs to Gerry Hawke who lived in Queen Charlotte City. The Hawke house had been built on the end of a Bear trail by Gerry’s parents. They and the Bears had discovered a way to live and accommodate one another. Gerry grew up in a rare closeness and comfort with the Bears. For most of his life this is a story of magic and wonder. Sadly the story is also profoundly tragic. Gerry’s friends were killed one by one, first by a frightened neighbor and later by the Province of BC.  Fear is a destructive force and once unleashed it claimed Gerry’s death at his own hand and amongst the bodies of his slain friends. The Province of BC confirmed its role as a dark character by issuing a license to commercially kill Bears on the Queen Charlotte Islands.

While this recreational kill obviously raises issues that illuminates a deep cultural disconnect, and while we remember the last time the Province and the Haidas squared off in the forest, Canadian residents of the archipelago are also apparently somewhat disgusted by the idea of rich men leaving their distant homes and jetting in to pay money to kill Bears for fun.

Yes Bears are a very big issue on the Queen Charlottes and it is hard to imagine that a group of fine musicians could be there and not be aware of the Bear.

A reworking of the title to Queen Charlotte of the Bear would position the video as a direct socially relevant comment rather than just a good song.
Otherwise the narrative in the video appears much disjointed from its namesake island and remains just the latest good piece of musical offering from the Paper Lion.

michael nicoll yahgulanaas
mny.ca

June 27, 2009 through Labour Day.
McMichael Canadian Art Collection
10365 Islington Avenue
(Islington Avenue north of Major Mackenzie Drive on the east side)
Kleinburg, Ontario

The McMichael show will have an accompanying publication by Douglas & McIntyre.

http://www.meet.asso.fr/meeting2008/publications.html

Flight of the Hummingbird is now published in Spanish, French and English. An earlier version is also available in Korean and Japanese.

Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas Reading at the Vancouver Public Library

www.williampitcher.ca/

What Use Art History?

Bookmonger: Small Book, Powerful Lesson

Now that students are back in school once again and seriously hitting the books, it may seem contrary for your book reviewer to discuss a book of manga this week.

But hear me out: manga — the cartoon style that originated in Japan — has been embraced by people around the world, and has become a respected art form as well as a forum for ideas.

Just look to the work of Vancouver, B.C. artist Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas. As a member of the Haida Nation as well as a Canadian, Yahgulanaas has devised a felicitous new genre — Haida manga — that blends cultures and includes a powerful environmental ethic.

His beautiful new book, “Flight of the Hummingbird” is an invitation to reflect, to learn, and to act.

Published by Vancouver’s Greystone Books, this slim volume contains a parable that derives from the Quechua people of South America, but is illustrated in Yahgulanaas’ Haida manga style.

Dukdukdiya is the Haida word for hummingbird, and in this tale, she and her fellow creatures live in the Great Forest. One day, a terrible fire starts to crackle through the trees, and all of the animals must flee. At the edge of the forest they huddle together and bewail their misfortune.

All except one.

Little dukdukdiya has been flying to and fro, between the nearest stream and back to the forest fire. Each time, she carries a drop of water in her beak, which she then drops on the fire before returning to the stream to pick up another drop.

When the other animals finally look up from their commiseration to ask what she is doing, her reply is, “what I can.”

Yahgulanaas has illustrated this tale with stylized and utterly enchanting images of creatures from squirrel and frog to wolf and owl — and of course, the diminutive but valiant dukdukdiya.

This little book has the support of some pretty powerful friends — Nobel Peace Prize winners Wangari Maathai and His Holiness the Dalai Lama.

In a cheerful, pragmatic foreword, Maathai insists that “We can’t wait for others to do it for us; we need to take action ourselves.”

She speaks from firsthand experience — when she took action by planting seven trees nearly 30 years ago, she inspired the Green Belt movement which has resulted in the planting of 30 million trees across Kenya since then. And in an afterword that is both urgent and optimistic in tone, the Dalai Lama stresses the importance of individual acts that can have a powerful cumulative effect when informed by a sense of universal responsibility.

Finally, Yahgulanaas points to a tradition in Haida stories where the tiniest creatures often are the ones to offer up the solution or critical gift. He counsels faith in the power of the small and he too encourages “acts that we as individuals are entirely capable of undertaking.”

This is a wise and inspiring book. In this season of back-to-school, it contains a lesson for us all.

source: http://www.kitsapsun.com/news/2008/sep/07/bookmonger-small-book-powerful-lesson/