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Saskatoonʼs REAL Community Newspaper
COUPON EXPIRES JULY 24, 2017
Volume 16, Issue 28, Week of July 17, 2017
Darren Gowan’s artistic path leads from bear to buffalo Cam Hutchinson Saskatoon Express arren Gowan was 19, living a communal lifestyle on the eastern slopes of the Rockies, when he came upon a fully intact carcass of a bear. Beautiful green spring moss was partially covering the skeletal remains. “No animals had bothered any of the bones; they were still all in a row,” he said over a recent lunch at a restaurant on Central Avenue. “I stopped because it seemed sacred; it was like church or something. “I sat down there for a while and had a cigarette. I think I laid down by the bear and maybe had a nap.” Gowan said when he left the bear he had a desire to make “beautiful objects, so the rest of the world could understand how beautiful something from the natural world is.” Using equipment he purchased at a pawn shop, he began what has become a lifelong passion and career. At first he made pendants for people he knew. Then, a person said he would pay $60 if Gowan made him a piece. “When you’re living off bannock and wild meat in the bush, that’s a lot of money,” he said. “This was 25 years ago or something. I thought, ‘Groovy, no problem, I’ll do that for you.’” He was turning stones and antlers into pieces of art. “That was one of the things that really moved me to use these things so people can understand that there are things more beautiful than gold, more beautiful than silver, titanium. I wanted to change that KK071120 Karen
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Darren Gowan saved the stone he used for his buffalo sculpture from a construction site. (Photo by Ryan Grainger) mindset. And that’s all I could come up with; I’m not very creative.” He is, of course, very creative. And very engaging. Gowan is putting the final touches on a piece he did as part of the city’s art placement program. It’s a detailed sculpture of a buffalo that has been installed on the corner of 112th Street and Central Avenue in Sutherland. There has been no official unveiling yet or date set for one. Gowan was born in Winnipeg and “adopted out at the age of two months” to an Irish-English Canadian family. During his early years, his dad’s work took them to Panama, Barbados, Contadora and the Dominican Republic. Gowan’s first language is Spanish. His family moved to Ottawa when he was six or seven. “It was a huge culture shock. For one, I didn’t speak English. I thought every-
Community
body spoke Spanish. I thought that is how humans communicated,” he said. He moved to Saskatoon about 12 years ago, approximately 25 years after he stumbled upon that bear carcass. “My wife at the time was trying to finish her degree so we moved to town so she could attend the U of S. Those were good days, man, when we first moved to Saskatoon. We didn’t have much of anything but we had a new baby and we had each other. My art career seemed like it had a lot of hope and promise at that time. Everything was shiny and new, you know.” The shine dulled when he and his wife separated and then divorced. Racism was also part of his everyday life. “I’m a brown guy who gets treated like a brown guy. In Saskatchewan, it is very ‘us and them’ compared to a lot of places in the world. It’s hard to be brown, man. If you walk with any kind of strange gait,
people will automatically assume you are piss drunk or on drugs or something. ‘No, man, I have a broken ankle; thanks for asking.’ I am the son of an Indian woman in Canada so I experience everything that goes along with that.” He found the massive stone he used for his project just north of the city where the new bridge is being built. He figures the stone was destined to become part of a roadway or the bridge had he not rescued it. He created the sculpture on a friend’s farm. It wasn’t ideal, but it was the best place he had. “I need an industrial shop of some scale and some size. I’m getting too old to do it out in the bush under a tarp like I did on this one.” He said he is happy with the final result and would like to work at that scale, and bigger, in the future. (Continued on page 7)
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