As part of Western University’s alumni project, Spotlight, I had the wonderful opportunity to speak with Shani Mootoo, a Western alum and well-decorated Canadian artist. Shani is a visual artist whose paintings have been shown internationally, an accomplished author whose works have been longlisted and shortlisted for the Scotia Bank Giller Prize numerous times, and also works in videography and photography.
While you can read the Spotlight profile here, what follows is the full, uncondensed interview. Thank you again to Shani for speaking with me!
Carly Pews: When did you become interested in photography?
Shani Mootoo: For as far back as I can remember, I have been interested in photography. When I was a child, my family used to subscribe to National Geographic, and I was always amazed by the photographs and the photography. Once I got comfortable with a camera and began practicing in earnest as an artist, my interest in a more personal kind of photography developed.
What program did you take at Western?
I did a BFA program, majoring in studio.
Why did you choose Western? Was it specifically to do with the program, or did you have any other reasons for choosing Western over other schools (familial legacy, etc.)
Because my much-admired art teacher in Trinidad had gone to Sir George Williams University (Concordia now), I imagined that was where I would go. My parents were, at the time, not happy that I wanted to study fine arts. They wanted me to do law. I quietly applied to Sir George and was accepted. But about nine years earlier, in 1969, Black Caribbean students at Sir George conducted a sit-in in the computer center, in response to discriminatory pedagogical practices. On the last day of their siege, computers were set afire and the affair was, back then, dubbed a riot. Almost a decade later, my conservative Indo-Trinidadian parents worried that I would face stigmas they felt would surely have endured against Caribbean students of colour. They would not allow me to go there, and as they were paying for this education, I had no choice. The children of the majority of my parents’ friends, who were mostly big-business owners, went to one of the most highly regarded schools in Canada, known then as The University of Western Ontario. If I insisted on doing a degree in fine arts, they insisted, it was to Western I should go. I did the necessary research regarding the university and the art department and, pleasantly surprised by the program, I agreed to apply. It didn’t take long for me to come to appreciate my good fortune in attending Western. There was in the art department a climate—among professors and the student body -– of encouragement of experimentation and a willingness to allow us students to discover our medium and methods. I had instructors to whom I am immensely indebted and whom to this day I thank for their interest in me and their personal guidance: Duncan DeKergommeaux and Paterson Ewen in particular. Western, and the city of London were, it turned out, the better and perfect place for me, having left my family home for the first time, to ‘grow up’.
As an Arts and Humanities student, I’m asked fairly frequently how I plan to make a career out of creativity. Did you encounter the same sort of stigma as a student? How did you respond?
Absolutely. There wasn’t really ever a cheering section in the early days. It was imagined that, at least, I would marry well. I disappointed on that level, too. How did I respond? There is no reasoning with nay-sayers in this regard, especially when your peers are indeed marrying ‘well’ and beginning to work in fields where they were headed to make their own fortunes. My response, at first, was not to them but to myself—a lot of thinking and self-encouragement. Could I live happily making art as a hobby, in spare time? After having ‘fought’ to be an artist from the time I was about 10 years old, the answer was abundantly clear to me, and so my only response could be to bide my time, be methodical, work hard and well, and “show them!” There is now, made up of those same early nay-sayers, quite the enthusiastic—and I have to say much appreciated -– cheering section.
Were you involved in any extracurriculars in your time at Western? If so, what were they?
I played table tennis and was on one of the lesser university teams.
Are there any academic projects that you did in your time at Western that you are still fond of?
Several. But one in particular I think of often, even now. I attended Western on a Student visa. It was the first time I had left home, Trinidad, that is, without my family. Back home on holidays, I went into the jungle in the Northern Range, cleared a patch of ground and lay there. I had a friend outline my body, and when I stood up, I removed a thin layer of the soil within the outline. I put some of that soil in a bottle, all the while photographing the process. I returned to the university with the photographs and the bottle of soil as a record of the performance. The work spoke of longing, of home, of the sense of displacement, of migration. I did the same at a beach on the Atlantic coast of Trinidad, lying at the water’s edge. The incoming-outgoing surf naturally eroded the sand under my body. I brought back some of that, too. It was a conceptual exchange that allowed me to imagine that I had consciously left my imprint on parts of the island that I most loved (and still miss to this day), and brought back parts of those places to this new land, Canada, with me. It is noteworthy, I think, that after decades of living in Canada since then, I continue to explore, particularly in my writing, this still uncut navel string of connection between ‘back home’ and my present home here in Canada. The exploration has evolved, I think; it is less one-sided, and is more of an exchange now.
I read in an article for Western News that you were initially published as an author “by accident”. Could you tell me more about that? Post-graduation, did you think of yourself solely as a visual artist or did you already know you would want to pursue a career in writing as well? What was it like to find yourself in a transition from visual artist to author?
The answer to this is complex. I had always been interested in writing, particularly in writing poetry, but after graduating in 1980 from Western, I had not imagined I’d ever be published as a writer. My focus was on ‘becoming’ an artist. I always had the sense that the degree itself was not what made me an artist, but that how I worked after, and if and how and where I exhibited, and how also my artwork was received by my artist peers, was what would qualify me to call myself ‘an artist’. When in the 90’s I was invited to publish written work it was as if a dream I had not dared to dream had been realized. As an artist I was always interested in different media, different tools of expression, so being given the opportunity to write was interesting and exciting. In truth, after my first two books, I had not intended to carry on writing, because by this time I had come to think of my main practice to be visual art. But the unexpected success of my first novel Cereus Blooms at Night tore me away from the visual art work. The journey was interesting and it took a while before I really began to miss painting and visual art. The transition to writing was easy. It was the transition back to visual art, and exhibiting after having not done so for a couple decades, that has been more difficult.
I wanted to ask you about your photograph David’s World I — I am not a visual artist, but I was immediately struck by how much character you were able to show in one photograph. Even without seeing “David” in the photograph, and before reading the description, I was already intrigued into who he is and why he has all of these things in his house. I suppose that my question is: do you feel as though your writing is enhanced by this ability to show character without any words at all? How does your visual artistry interact with your writing?
Another good question! The prior life as a visual artist has definitely influenced my writing, in that I ‘see’ the elements of my story long before I set them down in words. I asked you to do this interview by email because, even in speaking, words don’t come easily to me. I have a very strong sense of what it is I want to say, but that sense comes out of ‘seeing’, of ‘feeling’ my thoughts. What I see and feel is so strong and specific that the kinds of words that might translate these aren’t readily on the tip of my tongue. Trying to express an abstract idea is even more difficult. Yet, abstraction, too, comes very quickly and somewhat easily to me as a visual picture. The task then is to translate all of this into spoken language or writing on a page. One of the things that fascinates me about verbal language is how very close one can get, using the correct words and arrangement of words, to what one means to say. Finding these ‘correct’ words and groupings is generally not easy, though, for a writer, and particularly not for me—precisely because I am more visual. Of course, it is the very ambiguity, or complexity, multiplicity of meaning in the visual that I also appreciate and enjoy exploiting in art. I see in the visual the opportunity for dialogue with the viewer who will bring their own interpretation to the natural openness inherent in a visual artwork. It is the open-endedness that is possible in the visual that I love. Although a reader of prose or poetry will also bring their own experience to their understanding, as a writer, I have, in a sense, locked in my intentions by the words I have employed and their construction within a sentence, a paragraph, and the entire context of the story I’m telling. The reader is limited in how much interpretation they are allowed. But you’re absolutely right: my first longtime practice as a visual artist has me seeing and then taking the time—a great amount of time—to translate using the amazing toolkit of verbal language, to express exactly what it is I have seen/felt/heard/tasted in my mind—senses, at the same time, much more immediately, for me, captured in the visual.
You’ve published both short story collections and novels. Personally, my writing style and approach to projects changes significantly depending how long it is — are you the same way? How do you approach short stories as compared to novels? Do you prefer one over the other?
Yes, you’re right that the style and approach will, and even must—change significantly depending on the genre. I have not written a short story in a long time, but I write poetry alongside prose all the time. I will also say that while I hugely appreciate the skills necessary for good short story writing, and what is possible in a short story that isn’t in a novel (a kind of immediate, snap poignancy), and that I love reading short stories, I prefer the in-depth exploration of cause and effect that I can get into when writing a novel. There is, too, almost always, a subtext in my writing, that has little to do with the story that I am telling. This subtext is often a personal and private exploration at the side of the story, and at the same time, a specific kind of exploration that is allowed by the specific story I am telling. For instance, in Polar Vortex, I set out to write the landscape of Southern Ontario, something I had not before done. In Moving Sideways Like A Crab, I wanted to try and ‘write’ snow and winter—elements of Canadian life that I, having lived in Canada most of my life, had not attempted before. These had nothing to do with the story lines themselves, and I am pleased that they added strong psychological elements or layerings to the stories. Such exploration is not really possible in a short story.
Your debut novel, Cereus Blooms, was shortlisted for the Giller back in 1993. More recently, your novel Polar Vortex was shortlisted for the 2020 Giller. Are there any feelings of “full circle” coming into play?
Yes. That’s astute of you.
In an interview you gave for Western News, there’s a really wonderful quote, “I love it when I am surprised by the push and pull, the directions I’m taken, and the unexpected outcome of my own story. Whenever I begin with a known idea, I am quickly bored. When I let go and let the story unfold in its own logic, I am without fail, delightfully surprised. At some point I see what the story is, and then I take control and make it more of what it had always wanted to be.” I connected really strongly with this — as a writer, I prefer to let things happen as they will and take control of it later. Is this technique something you learned at Western, or is it more of a natural instinct?
In my case, I wouldn’t call it a natural instinct. I have always been wary of didacticism and preaching, of shoving an agenda, and conversely, I am excited by exploration and discovery. The approach you reference in your question has come, for me, out of years of practice and of trial and error. It is wonderful that you have already figured this out.
I’m at the point in my undergrad where I’m trying to figure out what my creative future is going to look like. Do you have any advice for me and/or other young creatives?
Living as an artist or as a creative writer in these troubled times is even more difficult than it was when I was just starting out. And yet, it is in troubled times, more than in any other, that the world desperately needs artists, our unique vision—ability to ‘see’–and our creativity. When I was at Western, there were a number of very good artists, but for some reason—perhaps because it was indeed difficult to sustain a life, or a family—on the meager livelihood offered to an artist. I suffered financially horribly, but I always had this stubborn goal in mind: to be an artist. In fact I was capable of nothing else and refused to equip myself to do anything else. It was not easy. I took on part time jobs, door to door sales, phone soliciting, etc, so that I could carry on with my art practice. What kept me going was the little bites first, from galleries, a sale here and there, a review, and as these grew in number and quality, I was encouraged to believe I was on the right track. I think you have to have first, that very strong, unshakeable determination, that this is what you are, this is what you want to do. You have to have a plan of work, that includes grant writing, approaching curators, galleries, publishers, journals, competitions, etc., and go with that for a while, even into a time of desperation. You give yourself a certain amount of time. And then you decide. Is this something you can pursue full time? Is it better that you have a well-paying job and yet carry on work an artist/writer part-time even as you still pursue your plan? Or would you be saner if you were—horror of horrors, but realistic—to abandon this dream of professional art life? If how you have conducted this interview is any indication, my sense is you’re on the right track, and I am wishing you all the very best in your creative future. I will be looking out for your name!
You can find Shani on Twitter @shanimootoo, and her written work here.