Native Art

Seriously though. SERIOUSLY THOUGH.

I feel like I am one of those people who can really appreciate art. I love museums and galleries and I thoroughly enjoyed my modernism and postmodernism classes in college. I had trouble accepting modern art because really, I COULD DO ANY OF THAT. But its all about coming up with the idea. And some of it doesn’t have to mean anything. Sometimes art just is. What I am really having trouble accepting nowadays is Native American Art.

In the states, everyone refers to them as either Native Americans or Indians (because we’re lazy and don’t care about being politically correct). In Canada, people are overly PC and refer to them as First Nations or First Peoples. Okay, we get it, they were here first. But just because they call them by a better name, doesn’t necessarily mean that they treat them better than we do.

Canadians do, however, celebrate Native American art work to a creepy extent. At first glance, it looks like some kind of children’s drawing. Then, after you stare at it for a minute, it looks kind of okay. But if you stare at it for any longer, it starts to look slightly demonic. But that’s just my opinion. And my opinion happens to be right.

This art is everywhere. On buildings and schools, for sale in shops solely dedicated to native art. Its also on the Vancouver Canuck’s jersey. Shame on them. And don’t even get me started on the totem poles. Too many to count.

They really backed themselves into a corner–all of their art is the same style (it greatly resembles Mayan, Inca, and Aztec art). And while this is a different style, it gets so boring. Mostly because there are a limited amount of objects that are portrayed. Its always masks, orca whales, some sort of bird, bears, fish, or flying fish. Seriously, google native art and you will see tons of examples. It just gets to be the same old thing over and over again. Oh look, there’s that whale that seems to be growling at me…again.

School Pride?

Typical US college stadium

It’s difficult to have school pride when your school looks gross. University of Victoria is rated #2 in comprehensive schools in the country. That is pretty impressive. Although there are only 20 universities in Canada…soooooooooo yeah.

Paul is a UVic alum and he has kindly driven me through the campus which is tucked away from the city and has lots of greenery. Chic. One of the characteristics that was specific to the school was that there were a crazy amount of bunnies around campus. I guess the bunnies became a problem and people wanted to exterminate them. Instead, officials decided to make the humane choice and relocate them to Texas or something. Normal. They were the only draw to the school in my eyes.

Its crazy that Canada only has about 20 schools in their entire country when the US has about 20 per state. As a side note, I just want to mention that one of the Canadian schools is called Nipissing. Yep.One would think that because they have less schools here, Canada would have more students per school making their universities have an increased amount of income. I’m pretty sure this is not the case. If it is, they are definitely not showing it.

University of Victoria's "stadium"

Lets just say that my high school’s football field is better quality than UVic’s sorry excuse for a stadium. Seriously what is this? Why is this allowed for college level activities? Poor future Canadian scholars. They have nothing to make their studying worth while. They have to continue looking out toward their crappy field and realize this is as good as it gets.

Also they have several totem poles on campus.

*sigh*