Four Haida painting gifted by the Hiada Artist Mr. Ernie La Rochelle

Over the last two years we, four of my art kids and myself, have been working on four large paintings, by the HaidaArtist  Mr Ernie La Rochelle.  Ernie gifted the school Four sketches that we could enlarge and turn into paintings to be housed in our school.   When I was much younger I had the privilege to work for a few other older artists in the capacity od ‘assistant’ the work was predominately painting, or developing systems to hang work and problem-solving… yet these working with these sketches by Ernie were by FAR the hardest thing I have been asked to do for another artist!  A couple of sketches were incomplete at the time of delivery and others when enlarged did not look right to the artist and needed to be corrected- this is common when enlarging works.   Yet, I was asked to correct them under the direction of Ernie.  I do enjoy a puzzle,  but as a mostly white guy with limited exposure to Haida Art, it was a huge task to get these paintings ‘right’ to a point where the Artist was satisfied.

Brandon Peters was planning a celebration of the work in which Ernie and the participating students would be honoured, but due to the Pandemic, it has been postponed.

 

The First three painting my self and students worked on during the first year- To my wonderful students THANK YOU FOR ALL THE TIME AND EFFORT YOU PUT INTO THESE WORKS!.  The fourth painting, now hung in the Learning Commons over Spring break, was all me… it nearly killed me… Thank you, Damian and Corrine, for supporting me with some ‘time’ to finish these works.  I appreciate it!