Rita, Art & Me
The Sound, Dec 2, 1994
When Rita first talked to me she said: “Hey, there’s that guy that I want to talk to who won’t talk to me. Hi guy – aren’t you cold with that shaved head.“
As a recently retied disco doormat, I appreciated the approach. Between the ears of my nihilistic, clean-shaved head buzzed the punk bands the Pixies and the Mekons: “Destroy your Safe and Happy Lives.”
Yup, rock was my religion then, back in 1988. I put my faith in a socks-and-beer punk folk band ranting about the empire of the senseless. That made sense to me. Andrew Struthers, with his close coif, seemed to be the only other gentlemen experiencing what I was – so of course, I didn’t want to talk to him.
Everything else in Tofino to these eyes was longhair, guitars and feathers. The town really needed me. And there was Rita Driver wanting to talk to me…
At the time I lived in Pat McLorie’s boathouse and was on a strict regime of hash, green tea, rope-skipping and weight-lifting (there was no woodstove or heat) and of course art – or at least I thought it was art- but this was Tofino and painting (painting!) whales and waves ruled. (‘Nice wave man.”…”Thanks.”) I was “city energy,” a part of the big tribe.
In the boathouse I hung a colour laser print I’d made of a six foot female bodybuilder surrounded by little green men. One day Pat McLorie came down to take a look at her. He leaped back and giggled: “I love it,” he said with a smaile as wide as the brim of his cap. He giggled some more: “I wonder if that’s cuz I’m a latent homosexual.”
I was a natural recruit for Rita’s underground family of street urchins, bombs-away dream babies. dumpster divers of love and native friends- I just didn’t know it yet.
But Rita did.
Rita’s home has provided shelter for an endless cast of eyebrow raising “young warriors” who are lost and looking for a rope to hang onto , not hang by. Rita’s approach is brusque and brash-a characteristic that does not endear her to all- and she is willing to read the riot act to get results with people that a social worker could only dream of getting.
Rita’s basement is filled with fur, feathers, wood, masks and mattresses-materials waiting to be recycled into art, accommodation or clothes for someone in need.
Rita recycles hope.
One day I brought Rita into my inner world of the boathouse and soon realized that I had a collaborator. She has a remarkable ability to discover and act upon the needs, creative or otherwise, of any person- without judgement.
I showed Rita what I was working on at the time: magazine subscription cards, which I’d painted one under the other on long sheets of plywood that were slowly warping.
“I’m into words and layout,” I said.
“I can see that” replied Rita, who could see that.
“But I’m not into objects.”
“Oh”
“Bumperstickers,” I said, “ and t-shirts, comic books and the evolution of the running shoe are the only significant contribution to so-called art in the twentieth century.”
We moved onto more important things like eating, and Rita gave helpful suggestions about all the things you could eat in the bush and along the shore.
Rita wore feathers and beads in all the right places and a clue of perfume. She was humming and helpful.
So I worked away in the boathouse with the occasional visit from Rita and her children, Landon, Nathan and Maya.
I don’t think there was much in my lifestyle or attitude that Rita hadn’t seen before – except for some of my attitudes about sex, and it was obvious we were going to have to get to that.
Rita was born into post-war poverty in Scotland in a stonehouse in Glasgow where the smog was thick and witnessing the sun was an event. The ‘highlight” of her Scottish days was going to the laundry where there was green grass, running water and children: “A big social event with throngs of women doing laundry and laughing.”
Rita came by boat (The SS Ascania) to Canada and settled in Southern Ontario. The first “house” she lived in was a garage with a dirt floor. Then the family moved to a condemned house under the “Rainbow Bridge” with a group of squatters.
“We were labeled gypsies,” recalls Rita, who is uncomfortable talking about her past. “Being poor, boredom drove me towards creativity. I was interested in nature, because there was not much else- no tv, books or toys- nothing.”
Rita’s early artwork involved pressing leaves between books for making collages. From Lake Ontario Rita collected seashells and stones. As her family’s financial picture brightened she acquired paint. Her work was more “craft-oriented.”
In high school she began to make things which would sell. She says “I was into the trendy things at that time: papier mache, string art, molded stone and clay.”
After high school Rita was trained at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Hamilton as an operating room technician. She worked there for five years and started to weld. She began making metal flowers, jewellery, brass and copper trees, (“flowers in the city”) which she was able to sell.
Rita left home and its heartbreaking stories behind and headed west. (“I was still chasing the rainbow that didn’t happen under the bridge.”) On the train she first met longtime friend and fellow welder Susanne Hare. Rita and Sussanne settled in Vancouver’s Gastown and opened up Ironmongers and later Metamorphosis, selling welded at sculpture for four or five years in the late ‘60s.
Rita doesn’t consider herself an artist – “just a person making stuff to get by.”
She recalls spending much of her time outdoors, concerned about the environment. This interest evolved into her becoming an office co-ordinator during Greenpeace’s first two years.
She began to travel regularly to Tofino in her efforts to help feed and facilitate American draft dodgers who were hiding on the coast. She camped on Long Beach “before it was a park” and stayed at the old Wickanninish Inn which was an artists’ retreat for such notables as Arthur Lismer (a group of Seven member).
“I was part of the transient population moving everywhere from Nitnat to Friendly Cove,” she recalls. As a source of income Rita finished off “homework” for students at the Vancouver School of Art (now Emily Carr). Rita worked in silver, leatherwork, cut patterns, polished soapstone and she received a “free art education working through the various mediums.”
In the early 70s Rita settled in Tofino and began what has been a long time association with Natives and their culture.
“Coming to the coast and falling in love with it made me aware of the people who had been here for centuries,” says Rita, who recalls that in initial interactions with native people “they were very hostile to me. The [the natives] were quick to tell me how angry they were. I never put up with so much abuse. It was pretty tough. But I felt their anger was justified. I hung in and realized that the abuse was a defence mechanism. To protect what was left of their culture they felt they had to keep people away.”
Rita figures that what eventually endeared her to native people was that she was a friend and a co-worker, giving them rides, babysitting, taking out food: “They were interacting with a white person in a way that they didn’t before. Most of their previous interactions with whites were negative, dealing with the police, hospitals and nuns at the residential school.
“It turned out to be a learning experience for both sides. I figured that alcohol was put there by white people so white people should work at taking it away,”says Rita, recalling her own experiences in the health field. Toward this end she helped establish on-reserve communityhealth programs.
The fine line between admiring a native community and becoming a wanna-be is one that Rita has never crossed. She spent many years encouraging and supporting native efforts to retrench themselves in their own culture. She sometimes found herself in a cross cultural conundrum, teaching some natives their own handicraft customs. And later being resented by some people for her efforts.
These experiences may explain Rita’s unique-albeit outsider – take on the native dilemna of maintaining cultural roots yet moving ahead economically. She uses Japan as an example of a nation that has been able to maintain its cultural heritage “and yet they [the Japanese] have been able to move ahead faster.”
“The natives are getting hold of their own roots and trying to economically pick up step with the rest of the world. It’s atwo step and everyone else is doing a one step.”
Rita see’s art as a necessary component for individuals of every stripe to help develop a sense of place in the world.
“It’s important to allow every individual’s creativity to have its place-the world has to work the same-unfamilar or different ideas have to be explored as well as areas we are familiar with. Creativity gives one a sense of place in the world,” says Rita. “All ppeople have a creative spirit-a part of their psyche that needs to be expressed-and we don’t get that opportunity to share that creative energy often enough.”
With that in mind Rita is co-ordinating the Winter’s People Festival-a sale and display of arts and crafts at the Weigh West oon December 9,10,11. Opening night will feature live music, beginning at 7:30 pm. On Saturday and Sunday the exhibit will be held from 10 am to 6 pm.
Rita refers to Winter’s People as the “Hadassah Bazaar of Art,” a grab bag of diverse styles representing diverse spirits.”
As for my own “style,” I’m still not into producing “precious” objects for consumer consumption. I’m more into spontaneous performance in informal settings, a fine blend of shit disturbing and joy which creates its own participatory reaction. My head is no longer shaved and moved from being a-social to being downright peripheral. Hell Rita’s even taught me how to cedar weave.
Marcel Duchamp (an artist turned chess player and gifted egghead) said “Art is anything I see.” Frank O’Hara, a favourite poet of mine believed that “Life is attention.” If so called art objects can sharpen our ability to pay attention then what the hell –they’re probably useful.
Art can turn people into crashing-crazed self obsessed bores (the ever popular tortured artist effect). As can life. So why separate the two?
While I don’t believe in the divinity of the art masterpiece I do believe in Rita. And I’m glad I’ll never have to wrestle her for food. She is tough.
