Exhibits: Thankful: moments, memories, and some art

A retrospective by Ray Dirks

Friday, November 18, 2022 — Saturday,  Janurary, 2023

Opening Event: Friday, November 18 at 7:30 PM | Masks recommended

Growing up in Abbotsford, I drew to escape the insecurity that often engulfed me as a result of mom’s many health issues. Her incredible strength, her wish to know and do more, her unbreakable Christian faith, kept her alive. She and Dad supported my dreams, were selfless in their letting go -- career and wanderlust led to my leaving BC and never returning.

I am eternally thankful to my parents -- ordinary, humble folks, neither an artist. Yet both never told me to “get a real job.”

I met Katie in 1973 at Columbia Bible Institute (CBI) in Abbotsford. I am forever thankful to CBI because it brought Katie and I together.

I am thankful to Vancouver Community College. While taking first year university courses, I often had to walk past the Art in Merchandising program building. I switched to Art in Merchandising in 1977. For the first time in my life I was taking “art lessons.”

In my youth two places intrigued me more than any others – one being Peru’s Machu Picchu Inca ruins. In August 1978, with minimal funds, Katie and I headed to Peru, following a meandering multi-month-long path.

Machu Picchu met all of my expectations. However, what intrigued me more, what became the driving force of my career, was observing the lives of the ordinary people we passed along the way -- wondering who they were, how they lived, their struggles, their joys. All of us being created in “the image of God” was ingrained in my soul.

We returned to Vancouver. I began to work in window display at a Woodward’s store.

After three years, I was restless. Katie read a notice in the Mennonite Brethren Herald. It invited applications for a volunteer position as a graphic artist in Kinshasa, Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo). She jokingly asked, “Do you want to move to Africa?”

The intense year in the Art in Merchandising program had added design and illustration skills to my ability to draw. In Kinshasa I illustrated various books – religious, medical, educational. I created two calendars featuring scenes of local life with all the text in local languages. Unbeknownst to me, they went national.

My prime desire was for what I created to make sense to Zairians, to be completed with the approval of those I illustrated and served. I would ask locals what and how I should depict themes, issues, people and places. I would go into neighbourhoods and have mini dramas played out in front of me for reference.

I am forever thankful to the many Zairians who helped direct me towards a deeper understanding and concentrating of my career desires.

In the 1990s my career focused on freelance curating of exhibitions of contemporary African art. My curatorial approach was to acknowledge I was an outsider, then supply a theme to commissioned artists -- recommended by Africans from within the arts community of each artist’s country. I would ask the artists to create whatever they wished however they wished. Following the theme was my only request. I offered a bridge to North America and asked the artists to cross.

Mennonite Heritage Centre Archives director Ken Reddig and I met in early 1998 to discuss possibly creating the MHC Gallery. I began working on gallery programming in August 1998.

In 2002, my work in more than a dozen African countries led to an invitation to be artist-in-residence at the Overseas Ministries Study Center and Research Fellow at Yale University, in New Haven, Connecticut. What was required of me? To paint and to have an exhibit at Yale.

Renowned scholar Dr. Lamin Sanneh, a Yale Divinity School professor born in The Gambia, was asked to review my exhibition.

As an outsider, I have always desired, above all else in my career, to respectfully and truthfully honour people and cultures. To this day, no words written about me are more important than those of Dr. Sanneh. Quoting a brief passage from a lengthy review:

“… Africans are depicted in their individuality, not as stereotypes; in their connectedness in society and in faith, not as tribal cameos; as resolute and committed persons, not as sideshow freaks. We admire without patronizing; we come respectfully to the figures as bearers of life, wisdom, hope, and dignity, rather than going to them condescendingly as exotic colorful relics left over from a remote and savage past. Prejudice has little room in the paintings.” Dr. Lamin Sanneh, Yale University, Prism, December 2002

My interest in other cultures and faiths, my intent to build bridges and not be the driver crossing those bridges, remained at the centre of my career through my 23 years at the MHC Gallery.

Through decades mostly prioritizing others’ art over my own, I did paint as I could, refining my own style grounded in the base established far back in Vancouver. I was thankful for opportunities to paint and in retirement look forward to painting however and whatever I like.

For me, this retrospective is about more than art, it is memories and stories. It is a journey of thankfulness that includes "some art".

- Ray Dirks

For more information: CANVASs November/December Newsletter

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