Artist pays homage to father's 'spirit' in new work

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Art has always been an obsession with Edmonton artist Kim McLain.

The 1987 winner of the Alberta Indian Arts and Crafts Society's ASUM MENA Native Artists Festival says he has always been fascinated with art since he was a teenager.

"I became obsessed with art when I was 16. I just found it so fascinating....looking at abstract paintings and seeing them in a new way," recalls the 25 year-old artist.

"It's just a drive in me that tells me I have to paint and draw."

That drive recently pushed McLain to enter 18 pieces of his most recent work in this year's ASUM MENA festival.

That kind of productivity signals a shift in his career goals, says McLain, who recently resigned as editor of Windspeaker to spend more time n his art. He had been employed for over

five years with the company.

In one of his more poignant pieces from the festival, McLain pays homage to his dead father, who McLain had not seen for twelve years after his parents divorced when he was ten

years old.

After his father died, McLain travelled to his childhood home of Maadox, Montana, near Bearpaw Mountain, the last place the family lived together as a united family.

"I just felt because he died there was some unfinished business. I felt that visiting that place again was my attempt to close some of that."

"I had no contact with my brothers and father for twelve years. So I went back to the mountains and visited the old place and climbed the old mountain again."

The isolated house his family once lived in was used as a schoolroom for the McLain boys and two there children where his father was the school-teacher. If fact, says McLain, his

family and another were the only two families who lived in Maadox.

One night, as he was leaving his childhood haunt, and eerie moment occurred when a hawk landed on a post and McLain began taking photographs.

"He let me get so close. I did a painting of those photographs of the hawk sitting on the post and in-flight. That little hawk symbolized so much for me," said McLain.

"For me, it symbolized my Dad's spirit. I thought about him a lot there. I got a strong sense of his spirit on the mountain."

During an evening of silent solitude, he named his work, 'Even Your Silence Meant So Much To Me'.

Although the pain of that experience is remembered in his work, McLain says it's the painful experiences in life which bring out the creativity in many artists.

"They're really potent experiences and they're challenging to express."

"Artists are artists. They share their own human experience no matter if you're Indian or white."

McLain says he's been really encouraged by the response he received this year about his work at the festival.

"People were saying to me the work was really strong and I feel really good about that. Essentially, what I've done is open myself up as an artist."

While he hopes someday to make a full-time living as an artist, McLain still does not see himself as part of the mainstream art community.

"I've been an artis for a long time. But I've never made a real effort to sell my art.

"I don't know why. Art is so personal to me. I don't worry about how people responds, so it allows me to do anything I want.

"But I've always said art has it's own life. It will take care of itself without any interference form me."