Honouring his heritage

Tom Wilson explores his identity through art, music and writing

For most of his life, Tom Wilson thought he was a “puffy, sweaty Irish guy” from Hamilton. He built a career as a rock musician with bands such as Junkhouse, Blackie and the Rodeo Kings and Lee Harvey Osmond, garnering three Juno Awards along the way. Yet there was an undercurrent of uncertainty. He wondered whether his parents, George and Bunny Wilson, were in fact his parents. In 1997, he began painting as a way to beat his alcohol addiction. The paintings he created from images in his mind had a distinctly Indigenous look to them. It was not until 2012 at the age of 53 that he discovered— quite by accident from a conversation with an acquaintance—that he had been adopted, and the woman he knew as his cousin from Kaknawake was actually his mother. His biological father was also a Mohawk from Kaknawake, and Mr. Wilson realized that the images that had been coming to him and the paintings he’d been making were the result of what he calls “blood memory”. Since that time he has embraced his newfound identity, writing the book Beautiful Scars and creating a musical storytelling called Mohawk Symphony.

On Saturday evening, Mr. Wilson brought Mohawk Symphony to the Regent Theatre. The evening opened with a greeting from Callie Hill, CEO of Tsi Tyónnheht Onkwawén:na, the Language and Cultural Centre in Tyendinaga. She noted that the organization is celebrating its 25th anniversary, and she was pleased to announce that there were 10 graduates this year who were fluent in the Mohawk language. Grandmother Kathy led the Haudenosaunee greeting with a shortened Thanksgiving Address, saying “peace requires gratitude.” The evening’s special musical guest was Jennifer Brant, who played a set of music accompanied by her husband Kieran Edwards. Following a short intermission, Tom Wilson and an eight-piece chamber orchestra led by Darcy Hepner took the stage. Mr. Wilson began by reading an excerpt from his book, Beautiful Scars, about his brothers. He spoke about how he watched the Oka Crisis unfold, seeing the Mohawk men on the front lines, some of whom he would later find out were his brothers, and he wondered to himself, “Am I one of them?” Mr. Wilson’s voice is a resonant baritone, roughened by the passing years, and brimming with passion. It was an evening of story, song and music, assisted some of the time by his son Thompson, who Mr. Wilson described as “possibly the best singer and songwriter I’ve ever met in my life.” He spoke about the Canadian government’s treatment of Indigenous peoples and its lasting repercussions, but the seriousness was leavened by Mr. Wilson’s stories of his gigs as a teenage musician, at one time playing for over six hours on the roof of a Burger King restaurant on its opening day, or playing at the Hamilton Psychiatric Hospital, the patients of which would years later greet him on the street at the height of his professional career. He ended the evening with a message that reconciliation begins when people can acknowledge the past and then start a conversation about it. “Start believing in the love in your hearts,” he said.

The following morning, Mr. Wilson was at Hatch Gallery in Bloomfield to launch and exhibit of his new work. He opened with a set of music in a duet with Thompson and then he spoke about how he began painting. At first he would simply give away his paintings at charity events. In 1999 he was invited to show his paintings at Spin Gallery in Toronto, and was asked to put a price tag on them. His suggestion of $500 was quickly rebuffed by the gallery owner, who then proceeded to mark them at $3,000 and up. “I came back a month later and they’d all sold. So I kept on painting!” said Mr. Wilson. “The process is as important to me as hanging them up on a wall. Painting the details is my salvation in some ways. Being nose to the canvas doing these details really helps my mental health.” He uses a vibrant colour palette of natural hues, inspired by his visits to powwows where he found the colours “mind-blowing”.

Mr. Wilson creates a natural balance between his art, writing and music. “It’s organic, for sure. It’s not thought out. You can’t force the creative process. I say, if you don’t feel like doing it, don’t. Which doesn’t mean you don’t do it in your life. Wait until you have to do it. I have to paint. I have to play music. I have to write words. You can say they are all friendly neighbours and the fences between their yards are down,” he said. Mr. Wilson added that he is able to find the time in his busy life—he’s had four art shows in the past year—because when it comes down to doing the work, that is the part of life he is most organized with. “I’m good at rising to the task,” he said, quickly adding that some things do slide—such as his next book, which is now two years overdue.

A repeating motif in his paintings is the image of an eye. That came of necessity when he first started painting, because he said it was the only thing he could draw. But there is another reason. “The music I write, the books I write, the paintings I make are not supposed to leave giant question marks. They’ve got to invite you in. When we meet somebody, when we fall in love, we look into somebody’s eyes. It’s the connection we can make. If I’m creating art, I’m going to give you an eye to make contact with so that you can be engaged with the rest of the painting, no matter what it is. My journey with my work is to keep shifting the shapes and colours to that face, to let it morph in the same way that I am shifting and changing,” he said. Mr. Wilson is still travelling along the road to discover the breadth of his Indigenous heritage. “My goal now is feeling the blood that runs through me. The blood that runs through us, runs our lives. I didn’t find out that I was Mohawk, I was always Mohawk. I just acknowledged it. The cosmos delivered that to me only 12 years ago. Now, my job is to honour that, to honour the Mohawk culture, to bring it to light every time I speak or perform or create art.” Mr. Wilson’s exhibit at Hatch Gallery continues until August 23. For more information, please visit hatchgallerypec.com.