BIG Small Talk with Co-Conspirator: Claude Latour
BIG small Talk is a chance to meet, introduce, and get to know artists that Harbour Collective encounters along the way. Sasha Kucas speaks with Claude Latour, an artist that Harbour cannot get enough of, for an engaging introduction to his artistic world and some BIG small Talk.
Not one for board games, this bear tickles the ivories to relax. Coaxed out of bed with coffee and chocolate, Latour advocates for the survival of Algonquin culture and the jewel-like planet we call Earth.
This artist blew my mind with his fortitude when discussing the loss of eleven years of artwork. Sit down with a warm beverage and enjoy his fascinating reflections on almost four decades of art, Artificial Intelligence, and much more.
Tell me about your introduction to Harbour Collective.
The invitation and tap on the shoulder originallycame from Jason Baerg, one of the members of Harbour Collective, whom I met years ago through the First Nations artistic community. I participated in a summer project called COASTLINE in 2022. COASTLINE introduced me to Artificial Intelligence (AI) and text-to-image programs.
Can you share the story of your artistic journey?
We are all born artists, stimulated subconsciously within the first nine months of growing inside a womb. We may not be able to see massive amounts of colour, but I think we react to the emotions of the carriers. Blood memory passes through the bloodline, and music passes through the sound of water. My first teacher was my mother, inside the beautiful world of water. My influence since starting to walk on planet Earth would be my grandmother, an Algonquin Anishinabeg Kwe. She was a respected Elder and as was her mother, a respected midwife, a knowledge keeper of the plant world, along with the gift of healing and dream interpretation. As a child, teenager, and young adult, I witnessed her way of ceremony, her way of prayer, and also her world of expression as an artist. My grandmother was a master tanner and beadsmith. She painted landscape scenes, played the piano, the violin, and the harmonica, and had a great sense of humour. She was a traditionalist living in an urban setting here in Ottawa and my primary influence on me as an artist. In my mid-twenties, I started experiencing powerful dreams and visions and started doing my art. So, with that influence from my Algonquin side, I began to reproduce what I saw in my dream worlds. I became a traditional drummer. Through that experience and exposure to supernatural experiences in ceremonies, even though I could not talk about it, they metastasized or gave birth to themselves through my art. I first started capturing images in marble, like when you look at the clouds. I am in tune with that world of energy. In some ways, I can reproduce that through my artwork. I find a lot of influence in my natural surroundings. However, over the years, I have experimented with many mediums and continue to do so.
How has your style evolved over the years?
I would say I arrived into myself. I have been doing art for 38 years, so for almost four decades. When I first started my art, it was very innocent. I was doing a form of pecker art, which is a form of copycat art imitating the style of the great Ojibway artist Norval Morriseau. I repeated this Woodlands style like hundreds of other First Nations artists. The hardest thing as an artist is to find your voice or niche representing your soul and spirit. I think my art over the decades has changed, and I have more experience creating original works, seeing images, and being able to bring them free. Whether playing piano improvisations or creating art in the automatiste style, I believe I am a conduit for spirits that have yet to make it to the next world. Sometimes, they find a conductor or conduit to express themselves. I create drawings that are a part of me and simultaneously influenced by the energy I connect to. I started in the early 90s working in digital media and did a lot of work. In 2005, I lost 11 years of digital art when my computer crashed without having a proper back-up and a few years later, lost works in a house fire on the rez stored at my cousin’s home. I am still very much involved in mixed media works where I take my photographs to abstract from and work in Photoshop to cut, paste, and collage work. I have also made videos shown in former chapters of my artistic career.
What are you working on right now?
The loss of both physical and digital artworks prompted the Yellow House Series, which I started in 2014 on the West Coast on Galiano Island. To replace the lost work, I figured I would do it by hand instead. The Yellow House Series consists of black and white inkblot drawings. Each book is about 180-200 pages each. I create my work and improvisations by adding India ink, pallet knife use, salt, sunlight detergent soap, and rubbing alcohol. I abstract images from these creations and turn them into mixed media pieces. I photograph my original art and carve out what I see on my computer. With two sketchbooks out of thirteen left to complete, I look to the final page sometime this year.
Over the last two years, through Harbour Collective projects, I have been researching the world and our relationship to Artificial Intelligence and testing the parameters of AI in art. Now that it is more in the mainstream system, I contemplate my relationship with AI when producing art and continue to push boundaries. When introduced to text-to-image and realising the power of AI, I stepped back. But now I decided to welcome it as not a contemporary but to teach it as an equal. As an Algonquin First Nations person and ambassador, opening up the dialogue with AI and letting it know who we are through my art is valuable. I am now prepared to give my permission, donate and allow AI to create a dataset with my work and let it get to know my spirit through its calculations. Much like having welcomed and shared with the Europeans when they arrive on our shores… for better or for worse.
I also have some public art projects with the Ottawa Public Art Program mentoring three Indigenous artists to guide in the creation in the process of creating public art benches.
What medium do you love to work with and why?
I like all mediums of work. My mediums switch depending on the time of year or the year. I am very comfortable in the mixed media world of creating digital art and this year will complete the fourth installment of the Makwa Series At Patrick Gordon Framing in Ottawa. Simultaneously, when my time is quiet, I find it relaxing to draw by hand with the India ink drawings. Over the next year, I will test and get to know AI better.
If you could invent a new colour, what would it be like, and what would you call it?
It would be a hazel-turquoise colour, and I would call it Katseb, named after my two children, Kateri and Sebastian.
If your art had the power to send a message to outer space, what would it say?
I would say that many batteries keep the vibration of planet Earth in balance. We are losing those most unique energy cells thus becoming more monoculture in nature. You can find a Starbucks in every city in the world instead of finding an original coffee shop. So, I think my message to space would say that the Algonquin people and First Nations territory where I am from have a unique culture, and part of that energy fulfils the balance of the four directions that make the Earth what it is. That captured and found capsule by another form of life or another planet would discover a most diversified culture that once thrived here on Mother Earth.
What inspires or motivates you?
I would say the survival of our culture. My grandmother is my inspiration. Indirectly, my inspirations come from the part of me related to the Algonquin people and the culture that still exists. I can still go to where my ancestors had been for thousands of years. We all have our gifts within the 360 degrees of the medicine wheel. Why I make art, play piano without reading notes, or see things to create is a mystery. It is a gift and one I take as a responsibility. After 38 years of representing my culture, family, and clan, in some ways, is a heavy responsibility. I am a diplomat on local, national, and international levels. I represent who we are as a people, much like a time capsule would.
In some ways, my inspiration comes from the deep-rooted and privileged stories from every day life and ceremonies. I am also privileged by the exposure my post education in Fine Arts gave me, and from colleagues I have had the privilege of working within our cultural domain.
From what you have created, what is your most meaningful piece?
I cannot single out one piece. The documentary I produced featuring Laurence Paul Yuxweluptun called Shooting an Indian Act: Kitigan Zibi 2003 is my favourite video. Shown in Europe, Canada, and the States, it speaks louder now as more people are aware of the Indian Act and it’s historical past in facilitating the so-called creation of Canada. In 2019, I presented an art installation in honour of my Grandson Pikan entitled Mònz also honouring the animal world. When the Europeans landed within Algonquin territories we in our own Territory became immigrants within our lands, forced onto reserves and out of our traditional hunting grounds. Lands stolen from us Government and corporations turning our natural world into a commodity. It happened to the animal world, too. Mònz (Moose) is my favourite sculptural piece in the shape of an antler as a public bench situated on a World heritage Site because it speaks about displacement both in the human and animal worlds. I created some paintings when I was young, Facing the Wind, in particular, that speak to me. With no favourite piece, although an important question- it is like asking who is your favourite child.
What would you do if you won 30 million dollars?
I would try to organize the Algonquin nation and the people of the Ottawa River Valley to stop the nuclear waste site being built on an earthquake fault line by Canadian Nuclear Laboratories less than a kilometre away from Ottawa River. Again, without proper and honourable consultation with the Algonquin Nation, it is the most serious threat to our future generations and our drinking water supply supported by the Government and corporations such as SNC Lavelin.. I would definitely put my money toward that, and of course, I would take care of my inner circle.
If you ever have the privilege of meeting Latour, invite him out for an icy cold beer, a good wine with a medium rare steak/moose tenderloin if you can find it, or, if in Ottawa, a seafood dinner at Flippers. Ask him about strange coincidences and thoughts around Artificial Intelligence for a thoroughly enjoyable evening-guaranteed.
Claude Latour 1961, is a band member of the Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg First Nation, Maniwaki, Quebec. He has a Diploma of Fine Arts Degree from the CEGEP De L’Outaouais’s Heritage College, Hull, PQ (1996) and a Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree from the University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON (2001).
As an educator, Claude has worked and taught with the Public and Catholic School Boards in Ottawa, the Ottawa Art Gallery OffGrid Program , the Spring Break Programs at the National Gallery of Canada in photography and silkscreening, as well as Algonquin College in the Media Design Program ( Creative Thinking).
In 2003 he curated an art exhibit on Victoria Island situated between Quebec and Ontario on the Kitchi Zibi (Grand/Big River, Algonkin Territory, known today as the Ottawa River) featuring 11 artists from his community of the Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg celebrating not the creation of the reserve itself, but more importantly, 150 years of memory and survival. Presently, Claude is working on a project entitled, The Yellow House Series made up of Indian ink drawings having started in 2013 and due for completion in late 2023. He currently resides both on the west coast and in his home town in Ottawa, Ontario.
Claude Latour is an Algonquin band member of the Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg First Nation, Maniwaki, Quebec. He has a Diploma of Fine Arts Degree from the CEGEP De L’Outaouais’s Heritage College, Hull, PQ (1996) and a Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree from the University of Ottawa, ON (2001).
The influence of Latour’s Algonquin ancestry is evident in his artwork, which includes sculptures, paintings, videos, and with latest works featuring the fourth and final presentation of his Makwa Series which will be presented in September of 2024 at Patrick Gordon Framing in Ottawa. The works will be made up of original photo based digital images representing his Algonquin influences and teachings.
Past and present projects with Harbour Collective continue to explore the depths of Artificial Intelligence technologies and their applications in realizing the beginnings of an important relationship in sharing personal art works with permission, so that data bases are given truth between soul and machine so as not to be disproportionate with biased imagery within the creation of text to image art works.
Claude’s works have been exhibited in Europe and across Canada and he is proud to have his works collected by V-tape Distribution, Indigenous Arts Center INAC, City of Ottawa Collection, Kitigan Zibi Band Office, Canada Council Art Bank, and patrons.
His former work experience includes four years of service as a Corporal in the Canadian Armed Forces Army, a Traditional Drummer with the Red Road Singers, a Private Researcher-Bill C-31-Indian Status, Art Zone Fine Arts Technician, and Algonquin College Instructor-Media and Design.
