Chrome and granite meet creative spirits at Calgary art festival

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At first, Daniel Beatty's singing seemed like a voice crooning in an urban wilderness of glass, chrome and polished marble.

His ballads about green grass, trees, blue skies, love, alcoholism, poverty didn't seem to fit with three floors of up-scale boutiques and grey suits of Bankers' Hall.

But Beatty, and other participants of Calgary's sixth annual International Native Arts Festival, reveled in the seeming disparity. One must look below the granite and chrome surfaces, added Ernie Whitford, former executive director of the festival.

"The artists and their imagery are of the earth, but this building has also come from the earth."

From Aug. 13-21, approximately 50 Native artists, performers and writers from across Canada and the United States displayed their artwork, sang their songs and read their stories under the giant polished granite columns of the east and west atriums of Bankers' Hall in downtown Calgary. Other daily attractions at the festival included dancing, workshops and a tipi raising.

Iroquois artist and Elder Wilmer (Duffy) Wilson and art consultant Liz Clark founded the festival in 1988 to highlight Native culture to the general public and to encourage Aboriginal arts to meet together and learn from each other.

Throughout the nine-day event, Native authors read their works in the Bankers' Hall auditorium and various bookstores.

"The festival is a chance (for Native artists) not only to sell their art but to network with each other," said Sharon Whittaker, president of the festival's board.

"There is a community and family spirit that has built up for the artists who come back year after year," she said.

The festival has more than 60 government and corporate sponsors and operates on a $100,000 budget and a corps of approximately 50 volunteers.