Paul Bickford
Northern News Services

Fort Smith (Sep 01/03) - Last Nov. 7, Fort Smith artist Don Gillis, 61, lost his workshop in a fire. He's back in the public eye with shows at the South Slave Friendship Festival and a trade show in Hay River Sept. 6 and 7.

News/North: What sort of impact did the fire have on your work?

Don Gillis: It basically cut me off at the knees. I'd just got into the carving and woodworking thing in 2000 officially, and here it was 2002 and everything was gradually escalating. I was doing my first big show in Yellowknife, a Christmas kind of show. The push was on for that, and then the fire. It just zapped everything before it, 25 years of tools and the items that I'd been saving. I was always a collector of woods and odd pieces of driftwood or fine woods or whatever. Those were coming out in the work that I was doing.

N/N: Did you have to start over right from scratch?

DG: I was lucky. I had some things in the house. I had rooms in the house put aside. The other things I do, like engraving and the set-up, all the paperwork, all the plans and patterns and copy things, I had that fortunately inside. So I didn't lose all of that. I didn't lose all my ideas and all my notes, all the different things I'd been developing most of my life. Things I was working towards, but never did it. Fortunately, I had all of that. So it wasn't a total loss.

N/N: What was your reaction when you realized so much had been lost?

DG: It is hard to put into words. But the next day when smoke was still in the ashes of the shop, a young man here came over and gave me a Dremel, which is a rotary carving tool. That was my starting tool, basically. You don't do anything without a Dremel. Plus people in Smith came by with money. I was set up a fund no questions asked and people just came. That gave me the confidence to say that it's gone, but it's not gone. From that point, it started back. People who I didn't know in Smith - and I've been here 25 to 30 years - phoned and said, "Come over I've got some stuff I'm not using any more." Suddenly, I had more Dremels. Within a week, I had more things that people had given me just like that.

N/N: How many shows did you miss because of the fire?

DG: This year, if it hadn't been for the fire, I had 12 shows lined up. I would have been in High Level, Grande Prairie, Peace River and down into B.C.... The South Slave Friendship Festival was my first public outing, other than tending to commission pieces.

N/N: Why did you use the theme of the Phoenix for your Northern Life Museum show?

DG: My daughter, after the fire, noted the theme of the Phoenix, starting over again. The Phoenix burns, but rises. So I said that's a theme ... So now that's what I got to focus on. But without the tools and without the materials, how was I going to do it? Thanks to the good people and the goodness of the government - RWED grants and things are minimal - I'm breathing and producing.

N/N: So your workshop is not rebuilt yet?

DG: I've got 75 to 80 per cent of the materials and the ground ready. But now this is my busiest time with shows. I haven't got the shop, but I'm working.

My stone shop is outside under a canopy. As long as the weather holds, I've got to get enough stuff to get to my shows. My target date now is to have my shop up by October or the end of September.

N/N: So you're still not fully recovered from the fire?

DG: I am 75 per cent of the way, but I have no shop.... I transformed the house into a workshop. My back rooms are a mini workshop.

N/N: Did you use the fire as an artistic renewal?

DG: As a result of the fire, I didn't have all my wood. The thing I was getting into was intarsia, which is wood mosaics of animals and all of that.... But I always wanted flexibility, given the North and the limited population. Intarsia is one thing. Scroll saw is another thing, then carving and engraveables ... My interest in jade got me interested in rocks and stones, and I started getting all the books on it. I did a few things. Since the fire, I didn't have the shop and didn't have all the saws and things that I need for my wood stuff, and I didn't have the selection of woods that I had built up. It took me 10 years. Wherever I went, there was always a log or a piece of wood that I found.... Why did I get into stone? I could do that outside and I didn't have a shop. I had the tools for that. They were easier to get than the other things. The emphasis shifted.

N/N: Will you go back to working with wood?

DG: Oh definitely. Unless I get so many orders that people want this or they want that. Then I would have to redirect my energies in one area ... I will not be leaving intarsia, because I haven't even started.... There's a whole new level coming out.

N/N: Did some good changes come out of the fire?

DG: Definitely. Given all of the conditions - not having a shop and not having the wood - I turned to stone.