Sun Yat-sen Park vs. Sun Yat-sen GardenFor those not in the know, the park (which is free) is situated right next to the garden (which is not.)
The Park. A simple enclosure with a man-made lake and pavilion. If your taste leans towards simple and understated, this is the place for you.
The Garden. A terracotta warrior greets you at the entrance. It would appear there was a terracotta warrior exhibit in front of the park just the day before my visit (drat!) Now he alone stands guard.The garden, the oldest in North America, is a reproduction of a Ming-dynasty garden. It's the epitome of what a garden should look like as part of traditional chinese family estate.
The garden is beautiful, but it felt... wrong to me, too perfect. For me, it just doesn't quite compare to the real thing. It doesn't have the same atmosphere as the gardens that belonged to the same family for generations, that sense of history. I'm weird like that.
The Bill Reid Gallery.Right: Wolf Pendant. 1976. 22k gold, haliotis shell inlay, lost wax technique.
Like so many good things in life, visiting the Bill Reid Gallery came entirely by chance.
Flipping through the Vancouver City Passport, I came across a coupon voucher for the gallery with the wolf pendant image. The name Bill Reid sounded really familiar. Turns out, he was the artist behind the Jade Canoe sculpture featured on our $20 bill.
Excited as I was, my Vancouver itinerary was already full and I was left resigned to the inevitable fact that the gallery will have to wait until my next visit (sometimes in the unforeseeable future.) And then... fate intervened. My visit to the Sun Yat-sen Garden turned out much shorter than planned. Walking back to the hotel, I saw the Wolf Pendant again (Spirit animal encounter?!?!?!)
Okay, so it was a sign for the gallery, which was just a few blocks away. Who am I to say no to the great machinery in the sky?
The gallery was, for lack of better words, simply amazing. So worth the money. I can't say enough good things about the gallery. Truth be told, it's fairly small and its collection incomplete (a lot of Bill Reid's works are scattered amongst various institutions and museums) but it was still very impressive.
Left: Killer Whale, Chief of the Undersea. 1984. Bronze. (There is a smaller version at the gallery but the original resides at the Vancouver Aquarium. I didn't see it when I visited the Aquarium. It may have been in the construction zone or I simply missed it. Gahhhhhh!!!!!)
There were a lot of people coming and going in the gallery, most of whom were participating in a scavenger hunt and just whisked through the gallery, which was a real shame.
Alongside the artwork, there were also CBC clips on/by Bill Reid. His life story is fascinating. He was a announcer for CBC radio before taking a jewellery-making course, which led to his career as an artist.
There are usually a few replicas of the same sculpture in various sizes and mediums. For example,
Left: Raven and the First Men. There is a gold version, an onyx version, and a cedar version (I think the cedar version is housed in the Museum of Anthropology at UBC.)
Most of all, his work with precious metals is just unbelievable. Such non-traditional mediums for aboriginal art and to do it so well. True craftsmanship. I was flabbergasted.
Here's the link to his virtual gallery: The Raven's Call
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI think you are supposed to be a Stark if the wolf is following you... okay so it's supposed to be a direwolf, whatever, close enough.
ReplyDeleteLove Bill Reids work, especially his carving of the creation myth with the raven! The sculpture Bill Reid created that's on the $20 bill is at Vancouver airport.