That Perfect Red - Not Yet
Saturday, August 16, 2014
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| Katie Huisman |
Some who read these
pages might know that I have a long time project of taking pictures of people, mostly friends, who represent many professions here in Vancouver. I photograph them all wearing my
mother’s red Mexican rebozo or shawl. My mother made an exploratory trip to Mexico around 1952 and came back with it to our
then home in Buenos Aires.
Since then I can remember the many occasions my mother wore it. She had
different ways of wearing it. I was one way for Mass, another for a fancy
party or a cocktail and in a completely different way when she wore it to keep
her warm. She died in 1972 and when we moved to Vancouver in 1975 the rebozo has been kept as
a treasure in a Mexican chest made of Olinalá wood in the Mexican state of
Guerrero. The material of the rebozo is rough and nobody I know has been able to tell me if
it is rough wool or cotton or a blend. Of the brilliant red I have always
thought it to be some Mexican native plant dye.
One of the rules for
those who pose with the red shawl is that they must write an essay on anything.
I welcome them doing this shortly after they pose as for many the shawl has
provided quick and wonderful inspiration.
It is also amazing how
my over 40 individual red shawlers have managed to find a perfectly unique way
of wearing it.
But at least ten of my
red shawlers have not written their essays. They include Bill Millerd,
Christopher Gaze, Bruno Freschi, Karen Gerbrecht and Artemis Gordon.
I do not post their
pictures until their essay is submitted. They can write about anything and the
only person who asked me for some sort of established length (I mentioned 500)
wrote more on purpose. And of course anybody who knows George Bowering would
understand!
Now I feel that I can
post this delightful Fuji Instant Colour Film picture (I scanned the peeled
negative which I had to bleach to get rid of the accompanying gunk) of Katie
Huisman. She is a seriously talented Vancouver
art photographer. I think I am allowed (after all I set my rules here) to do
this as I am not posting the actual real film (film transparency) but the
Fujiroid.
I first met Ms.
Huisman at Focal Point where we both taught. She was a quiet, pretty young
woman who always wore a beret. I made it a point to berate
(!!) her every time she showed up at school when I was sitting in the school
lounge. I once remember asking her if she wore it to bed. She never reacted in
a nasty way (it certainly was her prerogative to do so) and just took it with
that “I will not reveal anything” smile of hers.
Our first real communication came when she
asked me if I knew anybody who would provide a garden where she could take her
students to shoot some nude for her class. At the time, my friend, architect
Abraham Rogatnick was dying (we did not then know that he was giving up on
treating his prostate cancer). Rogatnick lived around the corner from Focal
Point. I asked Rogatnick who immediately assented. As sick as he was he peeked
from his window as Huisman and class took their pictures.
It was only a few months ago that I asked
Huisman to pose for me in the shawl. She did but as you can see the essay has
not been forthcoming.
But something happened to me in the last
few days. I remembered a book that had been given to me years ago by my
free-lance writer friend (who has exquisite taste) Kerry McPhedran.
Chances are that the red dye of the rebozo
is not vegetable but it comes from an insect called Dactylopius coccus or the
cochineal that is found mostly in Mexico. Hernán Cortés as soon as he
had subdued the Indians of the State of Veracruz
(he had yet to vanquish the Aztecs in Tenochtitlan)
he sent a delegation of Totonacs and booty to Seville. From there they went to Charles V
(Charles the First of Spain) who was 19 but saw real red when he saw it. The
rest is history and after gold, silver and chocolate, Mexican cochineal dye
became one of the most valuable items of the new world.
It would seem that Kerry McPhedran was only
partially right about my ability to make connections. It has taken me 9 years
to make it.
Katie Huisman no longer wears her beret.
It is the nature of Fuji instant colour peels to not be accurate in their display of colour. That perfect red will have to wait for the accompanying essay.
Red shawl project
Red shawl project
