Joni's gallery show
Jorn Barger
Thursday 21 October 1999
Saskatoon gallery brings Joni Mitchell's art home
Paul Gessell The Ottawa Citizen
SASKATOON - Gilles Hebert is starting to understand what life is like
as a pop star, without ever having performed or recorded a song.
He's already receiving fan mail, getting swarmed in the local coffee
shop and is constantly on the phone to a big Los Angeles agent.
The changes in Hebert's life began last spring when he started keeping
company with Joni Mitchell, who was Saskatoon's favourite daughter long
before she became one of the Western world's favourite
singer-songwriters.
The fan letters are really for Mitchell. (People hope he will pass them
on.) The swarming is when he takes Mitchell to The Roasterie on
Saskatoon's trendy Broadway Avenue and everyone from teens to seniors
crowds around to chat with Mitchell. The phone calls to the big L.A.
agent are usually the only way Hebert can get to Mitchell.
"She's incredibly busy," says Hebert.
Hebert's claim to fame is very different. He is the director of
Saskatoon's Mendel Art Gallery, which is, on a per capita basis,
Canada's most visited art gallery. Saskatoon has about 200,000 people.
Last year's gallery attendance was 168,000, which is phenomenal
considering Saskatoon is not exactly swarming with tourists found in
much larger cities.
The Mendel's attendance is expected to rise considerably next year when
Hebert stages what he is already calling a visual art version of
Woodstock: The first-ever art exhibition in Canada of Joni Mitchell,
the plaintive crooner who epitomizes the Woodstock era with her
attitudes, lifestyle and three decades of hits, including a signature
pop tune named after the world's most famous rock festival.
"It's going to be a mob scene," says Hebert. "I've had people phoning
from Seattle to Rochester, New York, saying they're coming here."
Details of the exhibition are still evolving. Hebert plans to go to Los
Angeles in November to begin selecting the paintings. But he estimates
there will be about 60 works on view next summer at the Mendel for
three months and, after that, a country-wide tour possibly lasting two
years. Hebert is hoping Ottawa will be on the itinerary. Some gallery
directors from across the country have already begun phoning, pleading:
"Don't forget us."
During Mitchell's journey into fame, two aspects of her life were often
ignored in the attendant publicity: One is that she considers herself a
visual artist even more than a musician, and, secondly, that despite
living for many years in California, she is still a prairie girl at
heart, frequently travelling to Saskatoon to visit relatives and
friends, including long-time beau, singer-songwriter Don Freed, and to
wander the surrounding countryside, taking photographs that form the
inspiration for her oil paintings of prairie landscapes.
Mitchell has exhibited her oils and drawings in the United States and
Japan but never in Canada, if you don't count the several album covers
fashioned from her own paintings that can be seen in virtually every
record store in the country.
Hebert decided last winter it was time Canada saw more of Mitchell's
art beyond the album covers.
He made that decision even though he had never seen any of Mitchell's
work first-hand, although he had seen catalogues of her paintings from
her foreign shows.
After a few missed opportunities, including one where Hebert carried
his "Sask-Tel cellphone" around Los Angeles for days fruitlessly
awaiting a call, the two connected in Saskatoon last spring.
"We went out for dinner and she is fabulous to talk to," gushes Hebert.
"We met and we talked and we met a couple of times after that. The
ideas began to evolve that, first of all, what would probably be a very
interesting exhibition would be to take a look at her paintings and
drawings and relate them to her writing and music."
Born Nov. 7, 1943 in Fort Macleod, Alta., Mitchell was, only seven
years later, playing the piano and impressing adults with her art.
After leaving high school in Saskatoon, Mitchell enrolled at the
Alberta College of Art in Calgary in 1963 with the goal of becoming a
commercial artist. (Her parents' home in Saskatoon still contains boxes
of Mitchell's early artwork. Hebert considers those boxes buried
treasure he would like to mine for next year's exhibition).
But instead of pursuing a career in art, Mitchell turned to her other
love, music. As well, she had two marriages, various relationships --
one of which resulted in a daughter given up for adoption in 1965 --
and she has won every award going, from Grammys to the Governor
General's Performing Arts Award for lifetime achievement.
As Mitchell began cranking out the albums and hit songs, she was doing
art behind the scenes, initially sketching friends and events to
compile what she calls "a visual diary" of her life. By the 1970s, she
was concentrating on oils.
"Painting has been a passion and a compulsion for me for as long as I
can remember," Mitchell wrote in a catalogue accompanying an exhibition
called Eclection held in 1988 at Tokyo's Parco Gallery.
Most of her work is representational, including many prairie
landscapes. Some of her brushstrokes have a definite Van Gogh
influence. Other works bear the mark of American expressionism.
The style and content of Mitchell's work has followed the ebb and flow
of her life. A move, for example, into a modern seaside house, Mitchell
claims, coincided with an increased tendency towards abstraction in her
painting and increased jazz tones (the musical equivalent of
abstraction) in her music.
"Her canvases are lush in colour; very autobiographical," says Hebert.
"She considers herself a Canadian Prairie regional artist."
But is her art good? Or is it just celebrity art, prized simply for the
creator rather than the content?
"I think it's very strong work," says Hebert. "She certainly has a
wonderful colour sense and I think it's stand-alone work for sure."
Hebert's view is shared by others in the art world.
James Corcoran, of the James Corcoran Gallery in Los Angeles, staged
Mitchell's first show in 1986. "It was a benefit for the Museum of
Contemporary Art and it was one of the most successful shows that the
gallery has had."
Michiko Suzuki, the producer of the Parco exhibition, saw Mitchell
perform in 1979 and was mesmerized. Suddenly, in Suzuki's eyes,
Mitchell was transformed from a "talented singer-songwriter who paints
nicely" into a major artist in all senses of the word.
"I was captivated by her performance more and more and finally, I could
not separate her painting from her song," says Suzuki, who quickly
arranged a meeting with Mitchell and began planning an exhibition,
which only came nine years later.
Hebert wants the Saskatoon show to stress the links between Mitchell's
art and her music. Music will be part of the exhibition, with visitors
strolling about, possibly with portable disc players and headphones,
hearing tunes related to specific paintings.
The travelling exhibition of Mitchell's paintings will be just one
method of exposing her work. It will be accompanied by a book, being
prepared by Hebert, that will be designed "to have a life beyond the
exhibition."
As well, Mitchell has signed a three-book deal with Random House of
Canada.
One book, which was published last year by a Random imprint, covers her
songs. It was called The Complete Poems and Lyrics of Joni Mitchell.
Still to come are a book on her art and an autobiography. Titles and
publication dates are uncertain.
Since learning more about Mitchell and seeing her in action in
Saskatoon, Hebert has decided to add another element to the exhibition:
The abiding connection of the big star to her hometown.
"She's so gracious and totally interested in what goes on here."
While being swarmed in The Roasterie, Mitchell will chat with folks
about what part of town they live in, what high school they attended
and what is happening now in their lives.
"I think we can build another layer into this project in terms of her
connection to the place, this person who is like an icon who
steadfastly maintains this really strong connection to Saskatoon and
the Prairies.
"She's totally taken up with the landscape."
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