Artist gives to community

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One of the Aboriginal community's artists of note is Maxine Noel, a Santee Oglala Sioux originally from the Birdtail Reserve in southwestern Manitoba. There she grew up in an Indian boarding school, one of only two Indian children to do their entire schooling at that institution. Outside the school, she learned a lot from her grandmother who was determined that she study classic piano. However, such was not to be. Oh no, not for Noel.

Through her youth, she was often encouraged to enter art competitions, but, she was never into it in any serious way. She'd paint her emotions, family, their children, male figures, animals and so on.

"For me," she explained, "art was a self-realizing thing to become at peace with myself. I worked through that with all my art." Still, it was not a profession. Not yet.

She worked for 13 years in the Toronto, northern Ontario and Edmonton as a legal secretary. It was while she was in northern Ontario, working with a friendship centre, that artist David General, a sculpture, prompted her to show her art to a Toronto dealer. That was it. By 1980, Noel was on her way and the proud, artist of a one-person show.

Until then, she had not realized that, "people were interested in what I was doing, what it is I had to say."

There's been no looking back.

She tours major cities with her art and Edmonton happens to be one of the cities she enjoys dropping in on every fall. This year was no different. Some years back, she connected with the Bearclaw Gallery owned by Agnes and John Bugera. She's been a regular ever since.

Her subjects have changed over the years, but she always had this wonderful sweeping flow to her work, which always seemed to compliment the female figure, a subject that she is so strongly identified with by the public.

"I like to show the strength of Native women, their spirituality," she said.

People also identify with the profile of featureless people that she paints - instantly recognizable as her work.

At one time she used to paint with her subject's faces forward, but people found it "overwhelming" she said. "They find it too powerful, so I paint in the profile, and their eyes are actually closed." It helps quieten down the strength and "lends a quiet dignity," she adds. She also employs subtle colors, "that come to mind when you try to be at peace with yourself."

As success followed her trail, Noel discovered something important had entered her life. Important people have the wear-with-all to give to the community, to give to the people. And that's precisely what Noel did. She began designing things for organizations and what they were trying to accomplish. It might be logos, posters or what-have-you, to raise funds for the welfare of children, the fight against breast cancer, improved women's health, or safe houses for battered women or children.

Her work also brought her to the attention of John Kim Bell and the National Aboriginal Achievement Foundation whose logo for the organization's awards was designed by Noel, and whose board she has been on since Day one, 15 years ago.

In her world, her association with Bell and the foundation has been one of her "real highs." She said she tells him it may be his baby "but I'm one of the nannies."

Just recently, Noel has experimented with doing much larger pieces on canvas. Her work called Reincarnation, was featured at a recent Bearclaw Gallery exhibit and happens to be something new for Noel. Large murals are not her standard by any means. At first, she admited, the large empty canvas seemed quite "intimidating," but she's slowly adjusting.

Reincarnation, she further explained, is one of the messages she is trying to relay to others.

"I think there's a big spiritual awakening happening all over the world. Things are happening. People are curious. They need something more in their lives, so they're leaning toward spirituality, and they're looking to our people for that."