Kanata: Culture Quest
A move from East to West inspires this Mi’gmaq artist to study and embrace Native cultures from across North America
After moving from East to West, Mi’gmaq artist Jonathan Labillois embraced Native cultures from all across North America.
I stood there staring at “Bukwila,” a totem-pole figure situated on the Lansdowne campus of Camosun College in Victoria. I was currently between jobs and in that limbo of what to do next. I stared at the largerthan-life totem for a while, and, being an artist, I began to deconstruct the piece, thinking about the material used and how much time it took to create it, going back to the point of what the image portrayed and what it meant to the artist. I do this with almost every piece of art I see, but for totems and Native art in general, there is always an added element that really gets to me—a sense of spiritualism.
Being a Mi’gmaq now living on the West Coast, I was far removed from my tribe and ancient Indigenous grounds. The Mi’gmaq are native to the Maritimes of Canada and parts of the northeastern state of Maine. Here on Canada’s West Coast, I was a Native in a strange native land, surrounded by art unlike the petroglyphs used by the Mi’gmaq, or the woodland depictions of the Algonquin that are familiar to me. Rather, I was faced with the stylized blackand-red lines of the many Peoples who call the Pacific their ocean.
I was born and grew up on the Mi’gmaq First Nations reserve of Listuguj on the Gaspé coast of Quebec. The reserve was small and I grew up during the era that all people over the age of 35 pine over—a time when there was no Internet, only two television channels and freedom to explore till the sun went down. I found myself drawing on anything I could; paper grocery bags were a hot commodity for me. As I grew, I became known as the one who could draw, “the artist.” I was accepted into the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, for which, now that I look back upon it, I was too immature. Never completing my degree in paint-
ing and printmaking, I found myself in a totally unrelated field of computer science, becoming a computer analyst. Creating art was now a way to clear my thoughts and express some ideas, something completely separate and more personal.
Being a young Mi’gmaq artist out west, it was hard for me to find my way, as I had very few mentors whom I could emulate. But I was fascinated by my culture—referring to Native American Aboriginals as a whole. Painting chiefs and headdresses and spirit eagles was a starting point for me, but is that what Native art is? I questioned myself and struggled with the identity of my art and what meaning or joy it brought to others.
With the advent of social media, I found many artists, even Mi’gmaq ones, who I could now turn to. The styles and interpretations of Native art opened up an inspirational “candy store“of colour and concepts that I could only dream of when I was younger.
For me, art is like an idea that won’t go away, an earworm of the mind. Images that are fully painted and complete show in my mind’s gallery, some presenting themselves so often that I have to exorcise them by physically painting them in
the real world so they would stop haunting me. I don’t view myself as an advocate or a warrior for change, but I do see things that are not right, or that do not sit well with me, and these themes come out in my art. My art often points out problems that exist or have existed, sometimes subtly, other times blatantly.
One particular painting I envisioned was a portrait of my 12-year old son, standing there draped in a Haida blanket. The contrast of a young Mi’gmaq wrapped in another Native culture’s regalia struck close to home. Both of my sons are far removed from their origins and family on the East Coast. It bothered me that my children did not have access to our original culture and oral histories as I did as a youngster. I hung the painting on the living room wall, proud of the depiction and its presentation, if only briefly, as my fiveyear old son became quite upset that he was not displayed on canvas, too. Being the ever-pleasing parent, I painted a portrait of him and offered it for his approval. “That’ll do,” was his response, not caring about the portrayal or likeness, only the fact that he now had a painting like his big brother. It was only fair. n