Rodney Cirrol Clark at the Great Northern Arts Festival.

RODNEY CIRROL CLARK
An Artist’s Adventure In The North

(click on images to enlarge)
This past summer Vancouver artist and long-time West Ender Rodney Cirrol Clark was offered an opportunity of a lifetime to spend a month immersed in the culture of the Inuk peoples of Inuvik.

The invitation illustration to Rodney’s first show, at the Helen Pitt Gallery.

Artist Sharon Quirke, an artist Rodney had represented as a consultant at the Vancouver gallery Art Works, had put Rodney’s name forward to the board of the Great Northern Arts Festival (GNAF) as a possible gallery manager for the 2019 festival, titled “Clothed In Culture”, which ran from July 12 through 21. She had herself participated in the 2018 festival as one of four invited “southern artists”.

"I was hesitant at first, as preliminary research showed me how little I knew about Canada’s north,” admits Rodney, “but after three days thinking it over I accepted the position, which involved curating the show at Inuvik’s Midnight Sun Complex and managing employees and volunteers.”

“It was a wonderful opportunity, and I am so honoured to have been invited,” says Rodney. “The warmth and creativity of the people, their history, and the land they understand so well, have all profoundly affected my viewpoint on Canada, the world, and my place in it.”

His time in Inuvik introduced Rodney to the reality of climate change, which visibly affects the daily lives of the people of the north. “To see first-hand the disappearance of landscapes is deeply disturbing.”

He also witnessed the daily struggles that continue around issues related to colonialism, the residential school system, and unexpectedly learned that the Inuk were the original inventors of the kayak, sunglasses, and the trampoline. Look it up sometime and be amazed!

Above all, the experience gave him a deep respect and admiration for both the traditional and the contemporary artistic expressions on display during the festival, from paintings, prints, sculptures and wall hangings to beading, clothing and jewelry.

Born in Moose Jaw Saskatchewan, Rodney “came out” in his early teens, “which was unusual, but then again, so am I” he explains. In 1978, while attending the University of Saskatchewan, he took part in a protest march against Anita Bryant, who was promoting her anti-gay “Save The Children” campaign in his home town.

By 1980 Saskatchewan was unable to hold onto this creative and self-admittedly “unusual” young man and he made tracks to Vancouver.

By the early 80s Vancouver had become a hothouse of artistic experimentation and expression, riding a wave that had begun in the late 60s and 70s. Those decades saw the emergence of creators like filmmaker Paul Wong, photographers like Lincoln Clarkes and Oraf Orafsson, and multi-discipline artists like bill bissett and Christos Dikeakos. It was a busy, thriving, hectic scene and venues like the Grunt Gallery, The Helen Pitt, and Western Front were where we went to find their works and experience their performances.

“The West End was a very different place 39 years ago”, Rodney reflects. “Within two months, I found myself surrounded by a group of brilliant, talented misfits, the majority of whom miraculously survived the AIDS crisis and remain my friends to this day.”

Rodney fit right in, or as in as any of the myriad misfits of time could be.

His first exhibition of drawings took place in 1981 at the Helen Pitt, and the ensuing years were a flurry of shows, performance art pieces, drawing, sculpting, and public speaking. By 1984 Rodney had settled in the West End and, with friend Keith Davidson, launched the fashion design house Fallen Angel Clothing.

To display some souvenirs of Rodney’s earlier career here along with images from the Inuk art exhibition seemed at first …. well, odd. But that’s Rodney’s career, life, and work in a nutshell. Odd. And wonderful.

By 2010 Rodney was finding the daily struggle to make a living as an independent artist overwhelming, and turned to the retail art world in search of steady employment. That’s when he and Art Works, an East Vancouver gallery specializing in Canadian artists, found each other, and where he has worked as an art consultant ever since.

Unfortunately for Rodney’s many friends and fans, the move to art sales also brought his own career as an artist to a close. “The energy for this sort of thing all comes from the same place” he explains, “and the last thing I wanted was to have the business of the business in my head while I was doing my own art.”

Fortunately, his recent adventure in the Canadian north, and maybe even helping organize the current exhibition by another West End artist, Robert J. Carter, which can be seen at The Mole Gallery any Friday through November, may have given Rodney’s own talent what it needed to bring him back to the easel.

“I’m thinking about it again” he admits, “and I’m thinking of ways of combining charcoal and acrylic mediums. I don’t do that kind of planning, but it may happen yet!”

We hope so.

In the meantime, you can learn more about Rodney’s month in Inuvik and the artists he worked with at “Clothed In Culture” (poster below) when he presents a slide-show and talk at Art Works (1536 Venables) on Saturday, November 16 at 3 p.m.