VANCOUVER – The BC Achievement Foundation (BCAF) today announced the six recipients of the Fulmer Award in First Nations Art. The recipients will be celebrated online for their artistic excellence in traditional, contemporary or media art beginning in November.
“It is a delight for all of us at the BC Achievement Foundation to recognize the six 2020 recipients of the Fulmer Award in First Nations Art. Their work both respects deep traditions and shimmers with the new,” said BCAF chair Anne Giardini. “This year’s awardees join eighty artists from the Award’s past fourteen years. Fulmer Award alumni help to ensure British Columbia is a place of innovation and creative success,” she added.
The 2020 recipients, chosen by an independent jury, are:
Cole Speck, Kwakwaka’wakw – Crabtree McLennan Emerging Artist Award
Jaalen Edenshaw, Haida
Lou-ann Neel, Kwakwaka’wakw
Kelly Robinson, Nuxalk/Nuu-chah-nulth
Nathan Wilson, Haisla
Evelyn Vanderhoop, Haida – Award of Distinction
This year’s celebration of the Fulmer Award in First Nations Art includes a series of films showcasing each awardee’s artistic accomplishments. BC Achievement thanks its media partners, CFNR and First Nations Drum for their support of the award program.
Members of the 2020 jury include: Corey Bulpitt, past recipient and Haida artist; Philip Gray, past recipient and Tsimshian artist; and Connie Watts, Associate Director, Aboriginal Programs, Emily Carr University of Art + Design and artist of Nuu-chah-nulth, Gitxsan and Kwakwaka’wakw ancestry. Brenda Crabtree, Director, Aboriginal Programs, Emily Carr University of Art + Design, a member of the Spuzzum Band with both Nlaka’pamux and Sto:lo ancestry, serves as an advisor to the jury.
BC Achievement is an independent foundation established in 2003 to celebrate community service, arts, humanities and enterprise. For information on BC Achievement, visit www.bcachievement.com.
The Fulmer Award in First Nations Art is made possible through the generous support of the Vancouver-based Fulmer Foundation.
Detailed information about the 2020 recipients and a list of past awardees is posted on the foundation’s website at www.bcachievement.com.
Contact:
Cathryn Wilson, Executive Director
BC Achievement Foundation
info@bcachievement.com | 604.261.9777
2020 Fulmer Award in First Nations Art Awardee Backgrounders
Cole Speck, Kwakwaka’wakw
Campbell River
Crabtree McLennan Emerging Artist Award
Born in 1991, Cole Speck was raised on the ‘Namgis reserve on the island of Alert Bay and has been carving since he was a teenager. Cole comes from a strong cultural and artistic heritage, which is evident in his carving. He is the great grandson of late Chief John Speck of the Tlowitsis, who was the father of the late Henry Speck Sr.
Cole’s work has immense reverence for old traditions, while pushing into contemporary realms. As a young carver, Cole apprenticed under accomplished master carvers Beau Dick and Wayne Alfred and since then, he has been consistently making his mark on the Northwest Coast art scene. Cole has assisted in the making of the Pat Alfred Memorial pole with Beau Dick and in the carving of a pole for a Northwest Coast exhibition in Holland with Rande Cook.
In 2017, Cole performed for the opening of documenta 14 in Athens, Greece where he contextualized Beau Dick’s works in the exhibition through a re-telling of the Undersea Kingdom story. In July of 2017, he participated in the exhibition in Kassel, Germany as Beau Dick’s apprentice. Cole’s work has also been exhibited at NADA Art Fair in New York and at Santander Cultural in Porto Alegre, Brazil in 2018.
Jaalen Edenshaw, Haida
Masset
A member of the Kayaahl ‘Lanaas Eagle Clan of the Haida Nation, Jaalen has always been surrounded by Haida art. At a young age he started studying the discipline of Haida form-line design under his father Guujaaw’s guidance and later he carved with James Hart. He has also spent countless hours in museums studying the old masters. He owes his understanding of the art to these experiences.
Jaalen is known for his carving of monumental cedars. His 35 foot “Gyaluu” pole stands in Old Massett, the 43 foot “Two Brothers Pole” carved with his brother Gwaai stands in Jasper AB, and his 45 foot “Gwaai Haanas Legacy Pole”, in Hlk’ah GawGa. He is currently putting the finishing touches on a 33 foot Haida canoe.
Haida stories and language guide his work. He delves into the old Haida stories before he carves out the narrative. He and his brother co-founded K’alts’ida K’ah (Laughing Crow), a collective to tell Haida stories and promote Haida language through art. They wrote and produced, “Sinxii Ganguu”, dramatizing an old story performed in Haida. He collaborated on several Haida stop motion animations, the latest of which won best music video of 2015 at the ImagiNative film festival and co-wrote “SGaawaay K’uuna” (Edge of the Knife), the award-winning Haida feature film of 2018.
Although Jaalen has pieces in collections and museums around the world, he considers his most important works to be the ones that stay on Haida Gwaii. He feels a great debt to his homeland and has worked to highlight the environmental importance of land and sea and the Haida way of being.
Lou-ann Neel, Kwakwaka’wakw
Victoria
Lou-ann Neel descends from a rich history of artists on both sides of her family. She comes from the Mamalilikulla, Ma’amtagila, and Da’naxda’xw on her mother’s side of the family and ‘Namgis, Kwickwasutaineuk, and Kwagiulth on her father’s side of the family.
Lou-ann has been practicing in Kwakwaka’wakw design for over forty years in various forms – jewellery, textiles and hides, paintings and prints, and vector designing in multiple applications including animation, storybook illustration and 3D printing.
In addition to her artistic practice, Lou-ann is a community arts’ advocate – always seeking to build solutions that will enable Indigenous artists to balance their respective rights, responsibilities and obligations with new, contemporary expressions of their work. Lou-ann serves as Curator, Indigenous Collections, and Acting Head of Indigenous Collections and Repatriation Department at the Royal BC Museum working closely with BC First Nations communities to address repatriation matters.
Kelly Robinson, Nuxalk/Nuu-chah-nulth
Bella Coola
Kelly Robinson’s roots and family origins are in Bella Coola with descendants from both the Nuxalk and Nuu-chah-nulth Nations. As a child his curiosity in his culture was piqued and Kelly became determined to learn and refine the art — specifically the unique design forms of the Nuxalk.
Under the guidance of his uncle, noted Master carver, Alvin Mack, Kelly developed his own techniques in creation of two and three-dimensional art forms. In 2010 he graduated from the Northwest Coast Jewellery Arts program at the Native Education College in Vancouver. Immediately following graduation, Kelly began an apprenticeship with Haida artist Jim McGuire to continue his understanding of design and the twenty-first century contemporary art market. Soon after, he completed another apprenticeship with renowned Nuu-chah-nulth artist Gordon Dick.
In 2012 Kelly graduated from the Freda Diesing School of Northwest Coast Art. He continued his studies under a mentorship program with master carver Tim Paul, during which time Kelly enlightened himself with Nuu-chah-nulth stories and perfected his mask making abilities in the Nuu-chah-nulth style.
Kelly uses his art to tell stories of the Nuxalk and Nuu-chah-nulth people, their land and culture. He examines stories of the supernatural, potlatch societies, and the land and sea in his artwork. He is currently working on two lineage totem poles that will represent two of four villages within the Nuxalk Nation. “Through the art, I will begin my educational journey in recapturing the culture we once had. It is a very exciting time to be a First Nations artist in Canada.”
Nathan Wilson, Haisla
Terrace
Nathan Wilson is inspired by his Haisla family history which drives him to continue to keep alive a long line of carving traditions. A graduate of the Freda Diesing School of Northwest Coast Art, Nathan extended his skills as a carver, painter and tool maker. The carvings he has worked on since are inspired by events and understanding the natural world we live in. From encounters with grizzly and black bears, mountain goats and whales, to attending feasts and totem pole raising ceremonies, these are all important in finding a deeper meaning to becoming a First Nations Artist.
Nathan was commissioned by Mount Elizabeth Secondary School to carve an eight-foot totem pole, where students could observe, participate and carve onto the pole under Nathan’s supervision at the beginning stages. He has also joined the communities of Kitamaat Village and District of Kitimat to help raise the “Palaa-Gwa-La” pole in the main entrance of another school. This was the first totem pole to be raised for either community in several decades.
Working alongside his mentors Stan Bevan, Ken McNeil and Dempsey Bob, Nathan is an instructor at his alma mater in Terrace. He continues to create masks, sculptures and relief carved panels for various galleries, as well as private commissions with various collectors.
Evelyn Vanderhoop, Haida
Masset
Award of Distinction
Evelyn Vanderhoop comes from a long line of Haida weavers, including her grandmother Selina Peratrovich and her mother, Delores Churchill. She has also studied weaving with Cheryl Samuel.
An accomplished weaver in the Naaxiin (more commonly called Chilkat) tradition, Evelyn studied the origin of this technique by reading journals of the early explorers and their accounts of the first contact with the Haida as well as learning from the stories of her ancestors. She has studied the old robes in museums around the world and learned their complexities. Evelyn has mastered the art of Naaxiin technique where weaving not only moves across horizontally, but vertically as well, creating curves, slopes and circles with multiple braids enclosing the formline shapes.
Parallel careers as a weaver and watercolour artist have marked Evelyn’s success. She studied watercolour painting in Europe, and one of her paintings was chosen by the United States Postal Service as a reference for a stamp to commemorate Native American dance. Evelyn has also been chosen as an artist in residence at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C.
