writing

the city of v

Exactly one-half city and one-half park, the city of V is carefully carved out of the beach and the forest floor. The grand beauty of the wilderness was once everywhere on this small diamond-shaped island, which is circled by a vast sea. The people of V have protected the island’s most wild corner with permits, so their children and children’s children will see it. As much as the V-iants protect where these two sides meet, the city and the park bleed into each other; the fingers of cement and green foliage entwine like the hands of a naïve, expectant mother over her fecund belly.

On the city-side, in the cement, the city of V is a collection of small neighborhoods. Fine ribbons of verdant green foliage wreath the hard edges of the streets and buildings. Brutalist architecture emerges from the green and stands in raw contrast beside post-modern glass princesses, who reflect their brothers’ staid solidity in equanimity. Proud craftsman bungalows ramble in ramshackle abandon, leaving corridors amongst the towers through which to glimpse the sparkling sea beyond. Families grow and thrive, passing along their protected properties, as the machine of the city devours any lost corners, erecting more glass towers of multiplied microcosms, exponentially increasing the land value. The V-iants, the city dwellers, walk to their daily necessities along the tree-lined streets, or travel around in magnetic trains, suspended in the sky. They are aloof, bedazzled by the beauty of the sparkling sea, dreaming of the city’s green heart as they wander cloistered in the city’s cement edifices.

In the park-side of the city stands an old growth forest of Douglas Fir, Western Red Cedar, Western Hemlock and Sitka Spruce trees. Although the V-iants have fought hard to protect this majestic forest, they have long forgotten the names of their tall, wooden brothers. The trees, however, know everyone in the city. They watch the V-iants move through their days, watch each birth and death, each tragedy and triumph, saving the memories of every V-iant deep inside the bark of their gnarled trunks. If you ask them, the trees will tell you that once, long ago, wild animals roamed the woods: bears, cougars, and deer. The trees watched sadly as the V-iants captured and killed the animals, one by one, destroying the wild green heart of the wilderness for the sake of safety. The trees sometimes still shake in confusion, remembering that they watched the V-iants tear their brothers down and build a city of cages, full of bears, cougars, and deer, for their children and children’s children to see.

A thin ribbon of cement curls like a halo around the circumference of the park, a paved perimeter where the water meets the land. The V-iants traverse around the edge of the wilderness, using this circuit to pump life into their lungs. They run and ride around the park, chasing away their sadness. For however beautiful is the city of V, it is almost always shrouded in rain. The great wild is a rain forest, and the city’s green heart thrives on the rain that falls endlessly from the sky. The V-iants spend thousands of dollars on galoshes, rain jackets, umbrellas, plastic pants, rubber gloves and slick chapeaus to keep out the wet dampness. Underneath the layers, their skin is fragile and soft. It weeps. When the sun sneaks out sometimes, the V-iants race to shake off their cold wrappers, they run to the beaches that ring the park, and slowly bake their fragile skin and play in the salty sea.

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meet nature

This is Forest. She is small green leaves that pull themselves delicately from soft sponginess. She is salal, bunching and bunching, giving leaves and berries to delicate birds. She is layers of melting mulch, for worms and weeds to wind their way. She is Triumphant! She is Fresh! She is Green! Forest grows in sweet abandon, communing in organic completeness. Seeds fall and roots dig, over and under each other. Mosses creep slowly over rock and trees, a soft loam layers. Leaves follow leaves, and foliage falls into slumber, melting into Forest, where creatures crawl in curiosity.

Here is Rock, a solid base. He is grey granite hardness. People misunderstand him, thinking he is immovable, rigid. His sheer face stands in the wind, suffers the rain, and absorbs the sun’s warmth. But Rock, he gives himself in service, as a plateau for lichen to spread, an altar for flowers to lay their perfumed softness bare. He is a plate primed for painting on, a block on which to pile monuments high. Rock is quiet, is constant, is slow-moving substrate. He is a cathedral, a cave. Rock is a character to be carved cleverly.

Water has her winsome ways. She is smooth, swirling, supportive, and secretive. She can be still as sand, or wild as a lion’s heart. Water lives inside everything, filling voids, holding the world in her arms, and washing it clean. Water is both empty and full, calm and wild. Water wants only to wrap you her wisdom. And yet, she can be angry. Water will kill you if you’re not careful. In her exuberance, she forgets you are a mere mortal, your need for breath, for solidity, and in her unpredictable, seductive way, she will sweep you off your feet to be lost forever.

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into the vaults of history

I was just updating my Linked In profile with some past education, specifically my diploma from the publishing program at Langara College. I found the article I wrote for our term project, Pacific Rim Magazine, which was distributed throughout the Westcoast in the Globe and Mail. Thought It would be nice to republish it here.

speaking in stones

Thousands of years old and wrapped in mystery, Neolithic jades speak a silent story of art, history, process and politics.
by Kathleen Moynahan

“One can surmise a variety of things about these pieces, there is all kinds of speculation, but there is really no way of knowing what these pieces really mean.” Dr. James Caswell, professor of Fine Arts at UBC and curator of the current Chinese art exhibition at the Museum of Anthropology, is discussing only one of the many mysterious aspects of Neolithic jade artefacts. Thousands of years old, these jades remain a curiosity. How were they made, what do they mean and who were these highly skilled artists? Today, the existence of jades in private and public collections is often surrounded by controversy regarding authenticity, methods of collection and rights of ownership. Nevertheless, Neolithic jades remain truly beautiful-they speak a silent story of art, history, process and politics.

The reverence for yu (jade) was born over 9,000 years ago in the Neolithic cultures of China. The mineral nephrite, more commonly known as jade, is a plentiful stone that was found, as it is today, as boulders in the beds of the Liao and the Yangzte rivers. Nephrite consists of interlocking fibrous crystals of either tremolite or actinolite, which give the stone its strength. Predominantly dark green in colour with white marbling, nephrite can also have inclusions of iron ore which present themselves as rusty orange veins. With time and exposure to the elements, the exterior of the stone turns a reddish brown that can be carved away to reveal dark green insides.

Entombed in gravesites for centuries, even the purest nephrite was destined to discolouration. The mottled rusty brown surfaces were once a bright yellow green, but years of nestling in the cradle of the earth, subject to heat and moisture, has changed these stones from fresh young sculptures to old grandfatherly icons.

Gyula Mayer, a private jade collector, speaks about Neolithic jade with an appreciation born from an interest in modern art and sculpture. He has been studying and collecting Neolithic heirloom jades for over 30 years and admires the highly advanced technical skills of the ancient artists.

Neolithic jade was not actually carved, but rubbed. Mayer adds that “They used some abrasives to remove excess material from the product, and of course it was very time consuming.” Creating the incised lines and buttery smooth surfaces of some of these works would have taken years. To cut a slab, a rope had to be used to slowly slice a stone in two. Bamboo tubes were also used to drill holes through both sides of the jade, as evidenced by ridges that are often found on the interiors of tubes. In terms of technical construction, Neolithic pieces are a feat of endurance and skill. Even today, with the use of electric grinders and diamond drills, jade is a strong material that takes time and patience to shape.

From recently excavated burial sites, it is apparent that only a few people had the wealth of jade objects. One excavation from the Liangzhu culture revealed a tomb that was literally lined with jade. Who were these ancient people? Did they trade their riches to acquire these pieces? Were they leaders who were given jades out of respect or were they feudal masters who demanded that these pieces be created? These are the questions asked by Dr. Caswell, who is currently on sabbatical to study the most recently excavated tomb from the Liangzhu era.

Valued for its beauty and prized for its strength, jade was used for many types of objects. The three most common pieces found in Neolithic tombs are the bi disc, the cong tube and animal figurines. The cong, or ts’ung tube, is a cylindrical carving with a square cross-section, often showing fine incised carvings. The bi, or pi disc, is a flat disc with a round or square perforation in the middle. Most often it does not have incised carvings.

Some experts write that the bi disc represents the sun, or “the round heaven” (t’ien-yuan), and in turn, the cong is meant to represent “the square earth” (ti-fang). These representations and symbols are the language of the Liangzhu, but unfortunately their meaning is largely lost to us. In one tomb, up to 30 cong tubes were found placed around a body with the larger ends pointing toward the head. Two pieces were placed on the chest and abdomen, and as many as 24 pi discs were found underneath the body. It is obvious from the excavations that these pieces were used to protect and accompany the body in transit to the afterworld.

Translucent and lustrous, jade has been described as the flesh of the earth. Some strains of archaeological discourse have constructed a complex mysticism around these jade objects. Many commentaries emphasize the mystical properties of the stone. For example, scholars write that the demonic masks on the ts’ung tubes could be the iconography of a trinity: heavenly deity, ancestral spirits and sacred animals. Each entity is linked to the life force, the earth, and to each other. Therefore, any of the three entities could transform into the other as they wished. The ancient concept of kan-ying-empathy between things of like kinds-suggests that the Neolithic cultures may have believed that the jade insignias paralleled the qualities of the objects they were carved to mimic. The Chinese word for “ritual” actually translates as “to serve the gods with jade” which implies that, even in Neolithic times, jade pieces were considered a medium of communication between humans and supernatural beings, between heaven and man.

Both Mayer and Caswell raise questions regarding authenticity and the impact that the pieces have had on the cultural history of China. During the cultural revolution, the Chinese government had little interest in the significance of jade. The government believed that veneration of these objects reflected a traditionalist faith that challenged the political thought of the time. Mayer remembers a time when many Neolithic pieces were destroyed because of such beliefs. As a result, many of these cultural treasures were smuggled out of China, and are now in the hands of private collectors around the world. However, the question remains: who should have ownership of these pieces? Comparative analysis must be used to determine the authenticity of particular pieces. Because there are so many artefacts circulating in private and public collections, it will be some time before a definitive method for authentication can be applied to all collections.

Who were these highly skilled artists? Can we imagine the spaces in which long hours were passed shaping the stones? As an artist, I am curious about the methods of production and the social atmosphere in which these works were constructed. How were these techniques learned and shared among the masters? Were they families who passed insignias and symbols from ancestor to descendant and strove to perfect aspects of technique? Did they have workshops, like we do today, where experts come to teach many willing to learn? Did women and men work side by side to create these masterpieces, or was this artistic practice segregated along gender lines?

On the cusp of this debate is the differentiation between artefact and art object. I look at these pieces from a Modernist perspective, with appreciation of formal and technical innovation, quality of aesthetic power and expression of intense feeling through abstract form. The bold shapes and abstract representations of Neolithic art objects prompt appreciation for a perfectly formed circle, a flawlessly smooth surface and colours that reach my psyche on an indescribable level.

My Western eyes have been trained to see art this way, yet I am hesitant. This perspective has traditionally ignored social and historical issues around art and art making, not to mention the problems inherent in trying to understand an ancient culture through the filter of modern experience. But, through this dangerous distance, I wonder if these are feelings that I, as an artist, share with these ancient masters.

Pacific Rim Magazine and the author gratefully acknowledge the assistance received in the preparation of this article. Special thanks to Gyula Mayer for sharing his in-depth knowledge of Neolithic jades and cultures, to the Museum of Anthropology for providing the photographs for this article, and particularly to Mr. Victor Shaw, collector of Chinese antiquities, Dr. James Caswell, professor of Chinese art at UBC, and Jennifer Webb, Director of Communications at the MOA. The jades of Shaw’s collection featured in this article are currently on exhibition at the MOA, and it is possible that the entire jade collection will be sent to the Museum, to be exhibited at a later date.

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