Art Napoleon hosting First Nations art, music gala
Art will be all around the room, and Art will even be talking, singing and telling jokes.
Multitalented television personality, recording artist and aboriginal leader Art Napoleon will be the guest host of the third annual Ying’hentzit First Nations Art and Music Gala presented by Carrier Sekani Family Services.
Napoleon is lately the co-host of international hit TV series Moosemeat & Marmalade. Each episode he brings knowledge of the woods and sourcing healthy ingredients from nature while his colleague, high society chef Dan Hayes, brings knowledge from the depths of the world’s best kitchens and culinary theories.
Together they make magnificent meals with work ethic and philosophical ethics.
He is also the past host of shows like The New Canoe and Down 2 Earth that also stressed aboriginal traditions in a modern world.
On the recording side of his life, Napoleon has made a number of awardwinning albums that focus on his original material, carefully chosen covers, and many tunes written or presented in his native Cree language.
Napoleon comes from the Saulteau First Nation where he was once the chief and is still a respected local figure. His home these days is Victoria but his hometown is Moberly Lake a couple of hours north of Prince George in the Chetwynd vicinity.
He is also endowed with a quick wit and snappy sense of humour. His sentences often end in laughter and usually squeezes some mirth in between words on the way to the end of the sentence.
“It’s one of the lower stress gigs that I get,” he said of the Prince George art sale he will be presiding over this weekend. He will be among friends and the real star of the show is the array of visual art.
“I’ll use it as an opportunity to have a little fun, loosen up the crowd, and get people going, making sure they have a good time. That’s my role.”
He won’t be getting in the way of the bidding, he said. He travels a sizable portion of the year, and he travels in highly artistic circles, so his walls are full. Plus, he has to be careful what art he does take into his hands.
“I don’t like fragile things. I’m hard on things. Things tend to break – I break things,” he said. “I’m a caveman and I can’t keep up very well with modern technology. I still type with two fingers.”
He confessed that his youngest daughter, 11, was to whom he turned to learn how to operate his new smartphone.
Napoleon is making his third visit to the area on a little more than a month. He was also a keynote speaker in Burns Lake at an economic development conference hosted by the Regional District of BulkleyNechako.
“It’s not just any economic development. I don’t want to get mixed up with that crowd. It is a holistic approach to economic development,” he said. It fits with how he lives out his other public presentation sides of life. For instance, he was on the phone with the Citizen from a rural spot near Moberly Lake where he is filming documentary footage for yet another creative project. He was, while in conversation, also engaged in smoking whitefish and (of course!) moose meat.
The moose was recovered from an incident of road kill he came upon quickly after it happened. He could not see the sense in heaping waste upon tragedy.
This is the core of the philosophies he is striving to advance, that of food security and community sustainability. He likes to draw people’s attention to their local food production capabilities and also the cumulative effects of industry on our health and the health of the land on which we all depend for jobs and raising families and basing a supportive, progressive society.
“Other countries have already proven you can balance economic development with taking care of the land,” he said.
“So there is really no excuse. And at the end of the day, there’s really no other way. It’s better for everyone, not just First Nations, but we seem to be the ones on the front lines over it, with a handful of environmental orgs.”
Lately other voices have joined the effort to establish sustainability principles, town to town and all the way to the federal level. They are the voices of restaurateurs, farmers and ranchers, doctors and other medical professionals, municipal governments looking to boost their quality of life, and academics who are helping figure out how to implement the grassroots systems on a broader scale.
The gala Ying’hentzit event carries that concept a step further.
“Viewing, using and making traditional art is a part of the healing journey for our people,” said a statement from the organizers.
A wide array of select acclaimed artists will have works up for silent and live auction, with funds raised going to further traditional aboriginal art teachings.
The event happens Saturday at the Ramada Ballroom.
Viewing of the auction items opens at 5 p.m., dinner is served at 6 p.m., and the live auction commences at 8 p.m.
Tickets are $65 or $500 for a table of eight. Tickets are available online at www. centralinteriortickets.com or at the Central Interior Tickets desk located at Enchaînement Dance Centre on Opie Crescent.