Footprints 2004:
Phone: (780) 455-2700Fax
(780) 455-7639
Email: edwind@ammsa.com
Phone: (780) 455-2700
Fax
(780) 455-7639Email: edwind@ammsa.com
[Footprints] Bill
Reid:
Caught between two worlds
Cheryl Petten
Artist Bill Reid began his life in Victoria on Jan. 12, 1920.
William Ronald Reid was the first of three children born to Sophie
and Billy Reid. His mother was Haida from Skidegate, his father,
an American whose mother was German and father Scottish.
After her marriage to Billy Reid
in 1919, Sophie Reid had distanced herself from her Haida heritage.
She knew that her children's mixed blood made them less acceptable
to white society than they would have been if they'd been full-blooded
Indians. But although she adopted a white way of life, she still
kept in close contact with her family back in Skidegate, and
continued to wear silver bracelets adorned with traditional Haida
designs, some of which were created for her by her father, Charlie
Gladstone.
The relationship between Sophie and Billy Reid was tumultuous,
with Sophie and the children dividing their time between Victoria
and Hyder, a community on the border between B.C. and Alaska
where Billy Reid owned and operated hotels. When the young Bill
was 13, he made the move from Hyder to Victoria for the last
time, leaving behind a father he would never see again.
Growing up in Victoria, Reid never acknowledged his Native roots,
nor did he acknowledge them during the year he spent at Victoria
College, or the next year when, at the age of 18, he began his
career in radio.
He worked as a radio announcer in B.C., Quebec and Ontario for
a decade before joining the CBC in Toronto in 1948. That same
year, he began studying jewelry making at Ryerson Institute of
Technology. It was during his time at Ryerson that Reid first
told his acquaintances of his Haida lineage, when his studies
rekindled his interest in creating jewelry that incorporated
Native designs.
Reid's interest in Native art and design dated back to his childhood
when his mother would take her children home to Skidegate for
visits. Reid admired the jewelry and carvings created by his
grandfather, as well as those created by others in the community,
including those made by his grandfather's uncle, Charles Edenshaw,
whose work now stands alongside Reid's as the epitome of West
Coast art. During these visits, Reid would spend much time with
his grandfather, watching him create silver bracelets or argillite
carvings, in much the same way as his grandfather had learned
his craft by watching Edenshaw.
At Ryerson he began to incorporate West Coast themes into his
work. At first, he was simply replicating the work created by
his predecessors, but later began to adapt the traditional designs,
creating work that merged Native and Western art into one. This
renewed interest in his Native heritage also spilled over into
his broadcasting career, where he documented attempts to salvage
totem poles that were succumbing to the elements in now deserted
Native communities.
Reid has been described as a bridge between the Native and non-Native
worlds. But he has also been portrayed as someone who lived between
those worlds, never truly accepted in either. He took his inspiration
for his art from the creations of the great Haida carvers who
had come before him. But inspiration also came from books on
Native art created by non-Native ethnographers, and from studying
the works of non-Native artists.
His technical knowledge had the same fractured origins. He learned
carving at the side of Native artists such as his grandfather
and Kwakwaka'wakw artist Mungo Martin, but learned jewelry making
from non-Native instructors and artisans.
As his skills as a jeweler improved, and his interest in Haida
design increased, Reid transformed from a radio personality who
made jewelry on the side into a world-renowned Haida artist.
While much of his success lay in his talent for translating Haida
imagery into something visually beautiful, his career was buoyed
by his willingness to get to know the right people and cultivate
the right connections, something other Native artists of the
time either couldn't or wouldn't do.
Reid brought about a change in the way the work of Native artists
was viewed by the Western world through his ceaseless work to
have Native jewelry and carvings accepted as fine art rather
than viewed as handicraft.
While his most famous works are his large scale carvings-The
Spirit of Haida Gwaii on display outside the Canadian Embassy
in Washington, D.C. and the Raven and the First Men, found at
the University of British Columbia's Museum of Anthropology -Reid
saw himself primarily as a maker of jewelry.
His goal from the outset was to create beautiful, modern jewelry,
and many times he swore to abandon Native art all together so
he could pursue that goal. But each time the path he traveled
returned him to the art form with which he is most closely associated.
At the height of his career, Reid was earning more than any other
Native artist. In the early 1990s, gold replicas of the Raven
and the First Men were fetching $125,000 each. And in 1995, he
earned the largest commission in the history of Canadian art
when the Vancouver International Airport paid him $3 million
for another version of The Spirit of Haida Gwaii, this time created
with a green patina and named The Jade Canoe.
One of the ironies of Reid's life was that, as he became more
successful in his artistic career, he also became less physically
able to continue his work. In the early 1970s, he was diagnosed
with Parkinson's disease, a chronic and progressive neurologic
disorder that can cause hand tremors and stiffness of the limbs.
As the disease progressed, he grew less and less able to create
with his own hands, and grew more and more reliant on his assistants
to transform his visions into solid form.
In the end, the disease made it difficult for him to speak, and
to think clearly. Then, on March 13, 1998, at the age of 78,
Bill Reid passed away.
Two separate memorial services were held to honor Reid after
his death, the first in the Great Hall of UBC's Museum of Anthropology,
just a stone's throw away from the Haida village Reid had helped
recreate on the campus in 1959. More than 1,000 people came to
pay their respects to Reid-mainstream politicians, First Nations
leaders, Elders, fellow carvers, family and friends among them-during
a service that lasted more than six hours.
The second ceremony took place at Skidegate, the birthplace of
his mother, and at T'
After a three-day journey, the Lootas arrived at its final destination,
and on the beach where T'anuu had once stood, some of Reid's
ashes were scattered, and the rest buried. Bill Reid had found
his final resting place, but not before leaving a substantial
and impressive artistic legacy.