Red Lake Woodland Arts Festival: A Tribute to Norval Morrisseau and the Woodland Artists in 16 DAYS!

July 4th-6th, 2008
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Honouring James A. Simon MISHIBINIJIMA (b. 1954)
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"Earth Child", © James A. Simon MISHIBINIJIMA

/Mother Earth is a very young planet that travels through out the universe which Grandmother the Moon stands beside quidence for the life for.../

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- The above painting is from THE DIAMOND SERIES -

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THE DIAMOND SERIES

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Why would an artist place a diamond into paintings and landscapes? If the landscapes reveal the living, sacred earth, what hidden aspect would a diamond convey?When the Buddha realized Enlightenment, how did he know it? Legend tells us that this question was asked of him and he answered by pointing to the earth upon which he sat-the Earth was witness to the momement of realization. The flash of realization, like the reflection of a diamond, is not reached in stages or steps. Realization is sudden, the infinite is perceptable.

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James Simon MISHIBINIJIMA transcends all duality-and decends into the vital center of consciousness-to the very experience of ultimate reality. What is the experience of infinity? What is ultimate reality perceived when a human being experiences union with the infinite? What does the point of contact to ultimate reality look like? What tradition within an ancient culture provides the language to communication such knowledge? Whats does the artist see when he sees the union of the infinite source to the infinite earth, and to himself?

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The light of sudden, ultimate realization is beyond thought and feeling. Alan W. Watts introducted Western consciousness to this experience when he wrote of Oriental Metaphysics in his 1957 publication The Supreme Identity. (Noonday Press, NY, Sixth printing, 1966). Watts defines metaphysic as the " immediate realization of ultimate reality which is the ground and cause of the universe, and thus the principle and meaning of human life... " (p.18)

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The introduction of eastern philosophy is much closer to the spiritual consciousness of the Anishinabe culture, which may be the reason that westerners have been unable to recognize that the native people had a religion or culture at all.

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Watts writes "in this realm religious and theological distinctions are transcended, not annihilated... difficult and dark from excess of light as this realm may be....it is here that man actually realizes his ultimate meaning and destiny. If only relativety few ever reach this point at any one time, they anchor the rest of us to eternal sanity." (p.14).

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Within this realm Mishibinijima places the experience of reality into the perception of reality-by placing a Diamond into a landscape. The perception is the experience-the shamanic experience and shamanic perception are revealed simultaneously, in the realm of timelessness in which they occur. How could he reveal this experience more completely, or more beautifully?

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Knowledge of the infinite is rare but universal. The infinite, like art, speaks a universal language. The Anishinabe culture-very much alive-is oriented to the cosmological. It's unity, harmony, and balance is deliberate: "related to the ultimate meaning and nature of the universe. Man... is seen as a microcosm inseparably bound up with the macrocosm...." as Watts describes traditional cultures. ( p. 28)

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Watts goes on to say " Societies of this kind have already existed... there are the best reasons for saying that such societies are far more stable and significant than our own. By " significant" we mean that they are related to universals. In the highest sense, that is significant which is related to the universal and eternal, which find it's true in the fullness of Infinate Being."

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James Simon MISHIBINIJIMA reveals this consciousness in his paintings and extends the experience of this consciousness in "The Diamond Series". The diamond is placed in the position that a dot inside an ancient Anishinabe pictograph is placed, to signify Gitchi Manitou-the Great Spirit.

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The dot may be described as Watts describes it: " Many of the terms for the infinite employed in the various metaphysical traditions signify nothing so much as pure consciousness-the Self, the Light , Universal Mind...and even the Void...,which in Mahayana Buddhism denotes not so much mere emptiness as an absolute clarity and transparency. (p.57)

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The Diamond , placed in this way, reveals the consciousness to see the Earth as sacred and alive. This orientation to the infinite in Anishinabe spiritual culture is the orientation and consciousness of James Simon MISHIBINIJIMA.

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Mishibinijima and E.C.Lewis Copyright 2008

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ARTIST STATEMENT

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The symbols within Mishibinijima's artwork are ancient; born in 1954, he began to paint in 1969, in his homeland of Manitoulin Island, the worlds largest freshwater island located in northern Lake Huron.

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Manitoulin Island had become a catalyst for the revitalization of the Anishinabe culture in the 1960's revitalization movement. He returned to the pictographs and sacred scrolls because, the artists: "... have a mandate from the Great Spirit to paint, and by their paintings restore the Anishinabec to their ancient ways." (Mary E. Southcott, The Sound of the Drum: The sacred Art of the Anishinabec . Boston Mills Press, Ontario 1984).

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Though his paintings are often imitated, Mishibinijima remains unconcerned; fluent in the Anishinabec language and legend, he is the living communication of these legends in graphic form.

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His prolific art work develops a rich series of themes born of a pure shamanistic perspective and knowledge. Mishibinijima has illustrated a portfolio of symbols derived from the ancient pictographs found on the natural landscape that convey sacred teachings distilled over thousands of years.

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These symbols communicate the legends of creation, man's place in creation, the ethics of human behavoir, the history of nomandic migrations, and the sacred poetry of Anishinabec language in graphic forms.

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Remaining true to the meanings within these forms and knowledge of rich Spiritual iconography of the societies known as the Three Fires Confederacy of Manitoulin, Mishibinijima brings ancient teachings to the modern world and continues the role of the Anishinabec painters.

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"To us, all life is sacred, the gift from the Great Spirit. And the Manitoulin painters particular share this view " ( p.35, The Sound of the Drum, Mary E. Southcott, 1984).

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This can be seen within elements of James A. Simon MISHIBINIJIMA paintings in certain periods of his work, often containing a form line: a heavy black outline which defines and contains a secondary line or patern of anatomical delineation. The spiritual inner dimension beneath the mere appearance of life forms is visually communicated.

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The two dimensional reality of a canvas is not tampered with, creating an illusion of depth and shadow during the renaissance period of European art is an example of the original meaning of the word of art - fake, as in artificial.

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In stark contrast, the Anishinabe word mijiwi-izahijiganan, means " made with hands". A facet of truth is conveyed in graphic form from a perspective of the universe that is lived by a Shaman painter and derived from nature. Every detail is vitally important: illusion is not only unecessary, it is considered a desecration of the intent and sacred responsibility of the artist.

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The universal perspective of nature is within the cardinal directions of the East, South, West, and North: there are Spirits of each direction that are recognized within ceremonies. Attempts to define these elements is rigorously rejected. It is the insight that is visually communicated, the truth of belief which is lived, and the guidance of the elder to knowledge and meaning that is conveyed.

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To understand seeing in the way of Anishinabec art where Animism, Shamanism Mediwiwin and even Christianity is revealed in visual form and beyond definition, we may compare the Sacred Mandala of Tibetan Buddhism and it's Shamanic practice of Tantra or the visual graphics of the Shamanic cultures within Siberia, Norway, Sweden and west Arnhemland, Austrailia within the sacred, as explained by Lao Tsu twenty Five Hundred years ago in China. " The which can be told is not the eternal way ". Inner reality is the asperation of Anishinabe artists and this is undertaken with a sacred and cermonial respect and responsibility.

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The dominant lines in Anishinabe art are the straight line, the curve line and the circle. The circle is perfection, completeness and continuity. Western Art is built upon the circle, triangle, and rectangle, with great attention paid to the composition within the parameters of the frame of the canvas. Anishinabe painters pay as little heed to the limitations of the edges of the frame in which the visual graphic is communicated as their ancestors would have paid to the edges of the cliffs upon which the pictographs were painted. The rocks themselves were living spirits and Mihibinijima has painted these spirits in his Mountain Series.

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The abstraction in European styles such as cubism convey the elements of appearance but abstaction in Anishinabe art conveys a vision. European roots in shamanism may excite the imagination but the inner conflicts revealed in dreams and visions quests have never been lost to Indigenous north American societies.

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James A. Simon MISHIBINIJIMA communicates this connection in every detail of his paintings, and to quote Maey E. Southcott once again: "It is evident that Anishinabe painting reflects and reinforces the beliefs about the meaning of life itself. No greater art has ever exisited without a great philosophy or belief to inspire it. The culture of the Anishinabe provides the ideal source for the Anishinabe Artist. (p.82, The Sound of the Drum)

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Source: M I S H I B I N I J I M A - International Artist and Consultant

/Text & image used with permission of the artist/

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For more information about the Red Lake Woodland Arts Festival go to: www.redlakemuseum.com.

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* The painting in this posting: "Earth Child", 65"x54", © Jamesa A. Simon Mishibinijima /Collection of the artist/