My Collection: Killer Whales Dancing

In the mid 1980s our family moved to Winnipeg. I was a teenager attending high school and working part time at McDonalds so I worked hard and had a bit of disposable income to show for it. One of the things I loved doing when living in the city was attending the Folklorama festival which, at the time, was stretched over two weeks in August where venues or “pavilions” across the city that featured the culture of specific countries or cultures, for example, Poland, China, and India. You bought a passport which granted you access to all of the pavilions which you could visit to see the crafts, taste the food, and experience a live show often featuring their traditional dancing. These pavilions were run by local people from these cultures so it was quite authentic. It was being able to see all sorts of different parts of the world and the different people that fascinated me…as well as the amazingly diverse food and drink (the Caribbean pavilion did a home-made ginger beer served from a big glass jar that I remember to this day).

The “Métis Pavilion” featured the culture, food and dance of the indigenous people of the area, having mixed First Nations and European ancestry. In 1986 it was quite large with, I remember, a large gymnasium containing a number of artists and other craftspeople demonstrating their art - Clothing, carving, beadwork, and painting. My mother and I were, and still are, fans of indigenous art, specifically, paintings and prints. We are, however, a bit picky, preferring the more abstract simple clear lines of a few artists such as Clemence Wescoupe (I own two of his prints), Eddy Cobiness (I own one of his prints), and David B. Williams. Imagine my surprise to see Mr. Williams hard at work creating a new piece of work in that space. It was incredible to see his concentration as he strived to perfect the clean lines typical of his paintings. My mother and I could see he was working on a piece featuring an unusual animal for such art - Killer whales. You don't see many of these in the mostly land-locked province of Manitoba (there is a bit of the Hudson Bay shoreline in the north-east corner, near Churchill which is better known for polar bears) however he was providing a keen sense of movement to the animals as they danced around the paper.

For the next few days I could not get the picture out of my mind but was slightly reluctant at the price which I believe was somewhere in the $300 range – A lot of money for a McDonald's employee at the time, but, doable. With some encouragement from my mother I returned to the pavilion the day before it was scheduled to close. Williams had finished the piece which was unlabelled and positioned off to the side along with several other paintings. My mind was set on the killer whales, thankfully still unsold, so a few minutes later after passing over the money and a handshake it was mine. Williams had not even signed or labelled the picture yet so spent a few minutes looking at it to figure out which way was up. When this was decided he labelled it “Killer Whales Dancing” and signed it “David B. Wms/86”. I was now the proud owner of an original piece of art by one of my favourite artists, I could not have been more pleased. Ever since then it has adorned my walls in both Canada and now the United Kingdom, having pride of place in my living rooms.

Williams' work tends to always feature three red suns, symbolizing his sons, and a smaller yellow sun representing his daughter. In “Killer Whale Dancing” we can see these are connected by lines providing a frame around the swimming whales while dark splashes of water provide a dynamic nature to the picture

Another original Williams piece I own is not so compelling to me but I had an opportunity to pick it up for a good price at a local gallery that was closing down. “Returning to the Land” (1988) decidedly features Manitoba icons with trees, rocks, native horses, buffalo and a crouching aboriginal person on the the far right. The flowing lines in the middle of the picture actually represent the Assiniboine and Red rivers which meet at the “Forks” in Winnipeg. The green triangles are the locations of the original Métis settlements. As with his other work, the three red circles and the one yellow circle of his children are also present. I just find this work a bit too busy and more like a poster than a piece of art. The artistry is not in doubt, but it is just a bit much for me, but I still hang it on my walls…just not the living room.