Artist says no life like it

Page 7

There's a lot more to David Hannan and his art than his Metis identity, but there's no question that identity informs the body of his mixed media work, a collection that brings him significant national recognition at the age of 32.

Hannan was born in Ottawa, a city he describes as an "up and coming" artistic centre these days, but he resides in Toronto, where "you can attend a dance performance, you can go to a puppet show, you can go to an art show, all in the same day."

He graduatee from the Ontario College of Art a dozen years ago, and never left Toronto.

The sterling silver Back to Batoche 50-cent coin unveiled at Batoche this summer as part of the Royal Canadian Mint's 13-piece series commemorating notable Canadian festivals is Hannan's work. He also gets credit for creating the Metis poster for the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs' annual celebration of National Aboriginal Day. Hannan's poster won first place in the Celebrating Metis category of the 2002 National Aboriginal Day poster competition.

So far, Hannan has 14 group exhibits and three solo exhibits to his credit. In Canada, you'll find his work this year at the Thunder Bay Art Gallery as part of the Enlarging the Circle series. He's recently had an exhibition at the Latcham Gallery in trendy and affluent Stouffville. More of his work has been shown at the Textile Museum of Canada (Toronto), the Indian Art Centre in Hull, Que., and at the Winnipeg Art Gallery.

Hannan also teaches children visual art.

Not bad for a former special education class student. Reading and writing posed special challenges for Hannan in school, and still do to some degree. "I know a lot of artists who had problems reading and writing." He guesses it was "a mild form" of dyslexia, but it wasn't diagnosed.

Hannan's Native heritage comes from his mother's side. His grandmother was Mik'mac from Richibucto, N.B., and his maternal grandfather was Algonquin from northeastern Ontario. Hannan is a long-time member of the Metis Nation of Ontario and first got involved with the Metis community in Mattawa.

"Spiritually, that's the lifestyle I live."

Now in Toronto Hannan has carried that involvement into such organizations as the Tecumseh Art Collective, which is doing a show in October at Fort York as part of the Tecumseh Arts Festival. He attends the Riel commemoration at Queen's Park every year if he's in town.

"I'm a visual artist-that's my main thing-so all of my work, in some aspects of it, deals with Metis culture and history."

His Web site features a lot of ravens. That was "last year's thing," Hannan said, laughing. This year, Hannan has a day job as a puppeteer.

"I just finished work at the McMichael [Art Gallery] teaching there, so I'm writing a new puppet show, building it and going to perform it."

He's employed by Waterwood Theatre Projects in Toronto. Hannan and long-time collaborator Dan Wood from that organization are now partnering to write, build, rehearse and perform the new puppet show. This particular show doesn't have an Aboriginal theme.

This artist goes where the muse takes him, he says; every artistic venue doesn't have to have an Aboriginal sign on the front of it.

"I like it sometimes when I don't [work in a Native venue], especially being a Native artist you're always pegged as that, Before you're an artist, you're always the Metis artist. ... It's nice to have recognition in both worlds."

The artist doesn't know where his artistic bent came from, but he heard that his great-grandfather on his mother's side was a vaudeville performer. "That, I guess, is where the acting business comes from."

Hannan's only brother is a former photographer who now works in the computer field.

His parents, he said, never pushed him towards a career outside of art. "I'd have never listened to them if they had," he said quickly.

"In elementary school I had a tough time. I was in a special ed class all the way up. But we moved to Thailand for two-and-a-haf or three years, back in the '80s, and I found a really amazing art teacher there.

This "great" teacher showed him print-making, drawing, sculpture and theatre sets. "We were doing it all there," he said, including putting on three plays a year. That was all part of the regular curriculum in Bangkok circa 1985.

When Hannan returned to Canada he attended Arts Canterbury, an art high school in Ottawa, from Grade 11 until he graduated, "so that was sort of a great kick in the pants to get going."

Hannan said his parents have encouraged him all the way. "And even more so now. They're quite surprised, actually. Surprised that every job that I've had since I graduated the college of art has been in the arts. Surviving and doing all that."

His creative repertoire includes teaching, along with the painting, sculpting "and designing coins."

Summers Hannan works regularly at the McMichael gallery and he works there on a more casual basis the remainder of the year in the program department. Preceding the McMichael gallery's busy season, that is, from March to June, he also works as a core teacher for grades four to eight at the Dare Arts Foundation for Children. In the fall and winter, Hannan paints and works in the schools.

Hannan has reached the place in his career where the commissions largely come to him. He also teaches and he has a day job in a theatre company. But the life of an artist is "tough," he admits. It can be hard to pay the bills, and few who have the talent stick with it.

"It's such a struggle to get grants and do work and find the time to teach in the schools and that sort of thing. So any time that I'm not physically doing art, I'm probably sitting on the computer thinking up ideas, writing up grants and reports."

Hannan recognizes that his name has a certain amount of cachet. Asked what he does when he's not doing art, he returned the question with a touch of wry humour, "What do you do when you're not being famous?"

Well, art, of course. Halloween decorations.

"I love Hallowe'en, so I build Hallowe'en decorations. ... I think it's the prop-building and the theatre set aspect of it all."

He loves to bring what he does into the schools and share it with the younger generations. Hannan wishes the education cutbacks hadn't wiped out nearly all the art education and play-making in the public schools now.

His own future plans are simply "Keeping it up." Hannan recognizes that a lot of artists end up in nine-to-five jobs and he doesn't plan to be one of them.

"It's just keeping the ideas fresh. It's just coming up with some good ideas and trying to pitch them to galleries and getting shows and then following through with it."