Sarain Stump: An Artistic Comet

The unusual story of a visionary man whose arc burned bright and brief is still unfolding in Saskatchewan.

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STORIES

More than 40 years after Sarain Stump’s premature death, a compelling exhibition in Saskatchewan is shedding light on the story of the Italian-raised Plains Cree artist.

In its latest iteration in Saskatoon, Mixing Stars and Sand: The Art and Legacy of Sarain Stump features some 150 works ranging from ink and pencil drawings to acrylic paintings on animal hides. Stump, described as a self-taught polymath, explored Indigenous icons, from bears and horses to bison, teepees and heroic warriors, as well as more abstract forms.

The show, on view at the Kenderdine Art Gallery at the University of Saskatchewan until Dec. 15, is a condensed version of a larger exhibition earlier this year at Regina’s MacKenzie Art Gallery. It was organized by Anthony Kiendl, the MacKenzie’s director, and Gerald McMaster, a leading Plains Cree and Blackfoot artist and curator who teaches at OCAD University in Toronto.

Stump’s works vary in size. Many images, which range from Indigenous figures to an abstract Picassoesque cluster of hands, are drawn in outline on paper sheets that measure approximately six inches by six inches. There are also gouache and tempera renderings. Some works have veiled narratives: a bound figure kneels beside a tree, for instance, or a mother and child gaze at an early spring flower.

Other images are more symbolic and harder to describe. Various shapes, swirls and barbs evoke subconscious realms or manifestations of spiritual or emotional states. Eight pieces on irregularly shaped animal hides use vivid greens, yellows, reds and blues. They integrate carved masks and painted symbols, including a curly-tailed serpent and a wailing, seemingly anguished, face.

Stump’s story is complex with many unanswered questions. He was raised in Italy, where his mother died soon after he was born in 1945. His father was a soldier abroad. Sarain wrote in a family letter: “I am a little more than a half Indian: Shoshone and Salish.” He said his mother had Indigenous ancestry, and his father’s family originally came from Coeur d’Alene in Idaho. Some online sources maintain Stump was born in Wyoming, but in the letter, shared with McMaster when he did research in Italy, Stump says he was born in Venice.

In any event, in 1966, when he was 21, Stump migrated from Italy to Canada, seeking community. He took ranching jobs in Alberta, studied Meso-American Indigenous cultures, began drawing, married an Indigenous woman, Linda Jaine, and, in 1972, taught at the Saskatchewan Indian Cultural College in Saskatoon.

McMaster, as a young man, worked with Stump for a year teaching children around Saskatchewan to appreciate their Indigenous art heritage, and was inspired by Stump’s prophetic claim that "one of the major forces for our people’s rebirth” would be art.

“It was during this year that I was inspired by Sarain to pursue my own career in art, for which I’m eternally thankful,” says McMaster.

“If it were not for my accidental meeting and working with him, I probably would not be in the field of Indigenous art today. During those early days, very little was known of Indigenous art, so his prescient knowledge of the subject was a gift to many of us who learned from him.”

Stump, with his handsome, angular face, was an actor and also wrote poetry and played music. He was in the Canadian film Alien Thunder, playing the role of Napoleon Royal alongside Donald Sutherland. Clips from the film are included in the show.

Stump’s influence spread to international circles and is still felt, despite his tragic death at 29 while swimming off the coast of Mexico in 1974.

Despite the complexity of his origins, which will be explored in a forthcoming publication, McMaster says most people have accepted him as Indigenous. “He was adopted into the Plains Cree nation and that solidified his claim,” says McMaster.

As this show demonstrates, Stump contributed a great deal in his short life and is appropriately included in the Indigenous canon.

“Much has happened since the early 1970s when Stump was very active,” says McMaster. “He was very much a part of all that was positive for Indigenous peoples in the arts. Perhaps he was a reconciliatory figure who reminded us to stand tall and be proud of our ancestry. With his presence he inspired his peers.” ■

Mixing Stars and Sand: The Art and Legacy of Sarain Stump is on view at the Kenderdine Art Gallery at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon from Oct. 15 to Dec. 15, 2018.

Kenderdine Art Gallery

51 Campus Dr, 2nd level, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan S7N 5A8

306-966-4571

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