Natuashish is a new place with old problems. Nestled several kilometers inland from the transportation dock the former community of Davis Inlet was relocated in 2002 by the government (at the expense of $150 million dollars) to the shiny new community of Natuashish. Here, less isolation, brand new homes, running water, new schools and community facilities and a ban on alcohol were thought to be enough to transform a town. When Laci and I traveled with the Northern Ranger (a passenger and cargo carrier that runs weekly trips up and down the North Eastern coast of Labrador) it hit us that the isolation that for us was a marker of peace was, for many Innu who lived there, the source of great pain and struggle. 

Some insisted that all was well in Natuashish - one woman showed me the digital pictures of the sparkling new community on her camera. She was proud. Others spoke freely about the rampant drug addiction, suicide, child neglect, abuse of women and political corruption that transplanted itself with the people when they moved from Davis Inlet to Natuashish. When the Northern Ranger docked, children stormed the boat - climbing aboard on the ropes and running throughout the ship's decks. The crew had no chance of keeping them off. It seemed that the ship's twice-weekly arrival was the only excitement the town ever got. They had internet and telephones which likely only widened the gap for residence between their lived experience and the seemingly real existence of others outside Labrador, but for many, the Ship was a symbol of a ticket out. Very few could have afforded one however. In the summer the ship was the only way to get in or out of Natuashish.  

One night, the Northern Ranger passed the evening docked at Natuashish. The most striking thing was the number of shoeless children in dirty clothes who, when the trucks drove away loaded with the ships cargo, remained on the dock and along the shore. No parents. The town ten kilometers away. Dusk. 

A place like this can break your heart and inspire your soul all in the same night. These two photos articulate the poetic yet real paradox of life in the North. They were taken from the ship's deck on the same evening.

People say beauty and pain are only a hairline apart. Hmm.

More about Natuashish: www.cbc.ca/nl/features/natuashish/

Begin with the Beginning

Two weeks ago today our extended family celebrated the arrival of our newest treasure, Maximiliano.

He has all his fingers and toes...

and a mom, dad and older brother who love him to bits.

Max really couldn't be a luckier baby.

He seems to already understand that life needs to be taken with a dose of humour...

and that for family, we sometimes have to go above and beyond.

He's also mastered that gentle look that says, 'I think it's time for you to go now.'

He's going to fit in just fine.

Congratulations Dom and Olga. Kisses from around the world and around the block. 

Angela & Laci

what makes art ?

It's a debate I scarcely dare to reference for I sit among the most liberal minded; art is in the eyes and it is the eyes that bind. If we don't believe that anything can be art, that anyone can be an artists, then we leave the expressions of our souls either confined to basements and boxes or in the hands of a designated elite. How can we say that a nine-year-old's rhymes are not genius or that a toddler's finger painting and a Jackson Pollock don't share the same passion and happenstance? Some argue that if everyone is an artist then no one is an artist in the same way that if everyone is unique, then no one is, but why is it so important that there only be a few of anything unless we are concerned about how much profit we can make or market competition. Art has existed before humans claimed it. It doesn't belong to us - we engage it. As far as I'm concerned, anyone can be, and most likely is (in some way or at some time) an artist. 


So, to my students blogging and creating: don't be shy. Put it out there! It's not art because someone else says so. It's art because you say so.


Angela 

This is Laci and I. Laci is from Hungary and I am from Canada. We met on a path almost two years ago. It wasn't just any path, but the mystical camino to Santiago that people say brings you what you need if you are true to the way. The camino brought us one another. We settled in Budapest, traveled, married, moved to Canada and traveled some more. We returned home in late fall with new eyes and new ideas about travel. A good photo can take you back like a diary entry. It can return you to a time and a feeling that can seem so vivid that the past, for one brief moment, leaps into the present. As a historian I see taking pictures and making art as an act of recording the present for a future trip to the past. We hope you enjoy our work. Welcome to eyes that bind.

Angela