Good evening to each and everyone who continues to find me here at Jacobson native art. Life has been running more smoothly for me these days. I’m back to creating more in the studio and my heart and soul is healing from the revelations of this on going genocide by Canada as the direct result of the residential school children being discovered. With thousands of unsolved murders going unpunished at this point in time and these active crime scenes unwilling to be investigated by the international criminal court, it makes it super difficult and challenging at this time of my life to be in a place of inspiration.
So while I continue to heal during this time I thought it would be nice to share and reflect on my life and journey as a well established woodland school master artist. I’ve been in this process of reflecting on what separates me from Norval Morrisseau and the different timelines of experiences thus far as a leading force in this woodland school of art. I’ve been at this now for over 36 years. Almost four decades now and as I continue to focus on mastering me and my potential, I have come to truly realize just how far I’ve come and how much I’ve grown.
I started drawing woodland art when I was 11 years old. I am a self taught artist. My whole fascination really began when my dad gave his mom, my grandma, a native art painting. It wasn’t until I left for Thunder Bay Ontario at 13 years of age that I actually made my first woodland art painting. It was on a canvas board, about 18 x 24 inches with the subject matter of a crane with a fetus inside it, painted in simple black outlines with a red sun in the top right corner.
Here’s a similar example taken from 1989, a small piece representing my humble beginnings:
Over my three and half decades of experience and practice thus far, I have come a long long way. I have travelled and sold my art all over North America. I have held numerous exhibitions throughout the land and abroad. I have made my way by relying on me. Unlike Norval who had hundreds of people holding his hand along the way. Most of them enablers who always had their own invested interests and financial motives. This is one of the key reasons why Morrisseau was so destructive.
He had around him a cast of characters that he could manipulate because of other people’s motives and desires. Most of that being a money machine that Morrisseau ended up being for countless art galleries and dealers along the way. All hustlers. All wanting a piece of the pie. So sure, one can get a little sloppy with their decisions and choices in life. As they say, you are who you surround yourself with. I got to see so much of that regarding my 15 years of investigating the art fraud surrounding Norval Morrisseau’s legacy.
It was much like being at some haunted house of horrors show in dealing with hundreds of various people along the way of Morrisseau. Too much brokenness, sorrow, lies and deceptions, betrayal and selfishness. Just about everyone of them on both sides of the Morrisseau coin including his own children and family members who betrayed him needing bigtime treatment and healing. That is what I saw as I devoted all those years of my life in being the key architect in saving his artistic legacy. Just as he had asked me to back in 2005.
I still have to say that it remains as one of the shittiest and darkest experiences of my entire life. It’s left me with a bitter taste, a hardened heart. The amount of loss and brokenness around Morrisseau is staggering. I can honestly say to my inner most self that I helped to clean up a ton of karmic mess around this whole thing. If I had never gotten involved the way that I did, this fraud investigation would still be in dead waters. Getting involved in helping to save the lives of all those victims was really the foundation stone of all of this. Justice for those sexual assault survivors, justice for Norval Morrisseau, the world art buying public, collectors, countless museums, galleries, institutions and their various academics and obviously including the Norval Morrisseau estate.
You know after all these years and experiencing all the truth I discovered around all of this I’m actually quite glad to have moved on. Mostly from all the broken people who played a role in finding a way to hurt me. That was the hardest part. Putting my faith in people close to Morrisseau who I thought were the good side. They were of the dark side...and unfortunately were only primarily concerned with themselves. They were cold, calculating and lied to me about who they were.
Title of painting:
The divine realms of Rainbow Thunderbird
In the end learning about the life and art of Norval Morrisseau really did teach me so much about myself. Not so much in the similarities as there are many, but more in our differences along this journey. Look, he’ll always remain the first master of this art form but he most certainly isn’t the only. There are plenty of others in my book who have taken the art form and made it better. I myself can be included in that conversation along with Roy Thomas, Carl Ray, Saul Williams, Leland bell, James Jacko, Roger Kakegamic, Rocky Fiddler, Lloyd Kakepetum, Gelineu Fisher, James Mishinabajima, Isadore Wadow, Richard Bedwash, Brian Marion, Gordon Fiddler, John Rombough, Jim Oskineegish, Blake Debassige, Moses Amik Beaver, Jay Redbird, Randy Trudeau and a few others.
These are the big names I see who have made it their mission to perfect and enlarge upon the style, movement and woodland school itself. The 4th and 5th generation seem to be growing as well but indeed some of them have kind of lost their way. This current decolonization movement called “indigenizing” seems to have gotten off the track. I personally feel like we dont need to Indigenize anything because it’s already here. With us. We are just that. Indigenous. So adding stupid things like a can of Pepsi to a woodland art design or adding cartoon characters to this style seem more about garnering attention on social media than protecting the integrity of our art forms and culture.
I just think there’s no real merit in that shit except stealing colonial ideas, themes and concepts and trying to make it “native” or “indigenous”...lol. It just defeats the purpose really and I don’t think there’s any real magic in any of that. Pop culture shit really and there’s just too much of that garbage floating around now a days. I prefer real spirit in the art I make. That is me. This is my view and experience. I also don’t agree with white people painting this art form, selling it in galleries and passing it off as native art. We all know it’s not so stop pretending. You know who you are...
Paintings by:
Norval Morrisseau (Flowers, birds and butterflies)
In researching the many sides to this Morrisseau puzzle regarding the extensive size and scope of this art fraud and in meeting Morrisseau himself and spending a great deal of time with him before he died in 2007, I have come to see the many differences between him and I. He was definitely more destructive to himself and his family. The disease of alcoholism being fuelled by his own trauma of being in residential school and suffering sexual abuse really took its toll. Even right up until the end, he would sip on a Mickey that Gabe Vadas would give him on our many trips and visits. I saw it with my own eyes so I know the truth. (It’s unnecessary for the estate to lie about Norvals sobriety)
This was and continues to be one of the greatest lessons Ive learned from the life of Norval Morrisseau. Even today I haven’t taken a drop of alcohol in over 23 years now. Sobriety and walking the red road each and everyday has been the catalyst for me getting better and better. Not only as an artist but as a human being as well. I also don’t suffer from the many passions and obsessions that Norval Morrisseau did. I have mastered many of those obstacles where as in Morrisseau those things really defined his experience even up unto his death.
Maybe it’s true what they say, more money more problems. I can only reflect on what I saw and what I experienced and indeed that for me is what defines the differences. Today I would rather hang a Jacobson original in my home, than a Morrisseau. I’ve owned Morrisseau’s and I still own 9 pieces today and will always appreciate the beauty and power of most of his work. But after everything that I saw and learned regarding his art, life and legacy? I’d hang a Jacobson over a Morrisseau any day of the week. I suppose that is one of the telling signs when you’ve outgrown your mentors, those before you and so on.
As we should, building upon the great foundations of those before us. I think they would want it that way. That each of us should take the lessons of those before us, truly learn from them and continue to build forward and upward. That is what an art movement should be all about. Perfecting it. Making it better from one generation to the next. I know there will be others like me who see the challenge as a great one...and why not? For it is the very inspiration that creates the hunger for even greater innovation in the ingenuity and creativeness in the human spirit, the human being. The human soul. All my relations....MAJ
Title of painting:
In honour of our son - Sagein Wisdom
