Moodonna & Child

Moodonna & Child, a print (serigraph) by artist Manwoman discovered in the window of a thrift store in Calgary Alberta. It’s was a completely random and most magical find by Chris & Connie. Saw it, knew what it was, bought it, got it and now we’re twelve bucks poorer. Here we “bring it home” to the very place from which is was created, that nondescript building in behind with the baby-blue roll up door found down some back alley in Cranbrook British Columbia.

Over there in a room of cinder blocks in what was Kemball’s Jewellers, was the workshop where this piece and so much other artwork was created and shown to the world. Doesn’t look like much, but back there and back in time some rather special things emerged from this plain and utilitarian structure.

Your author got to go inside in the 1980s. Picture it, a game of Dungeons and Dragons, the players: Ivan, Manwoman’s kid, and Al and Trevor and some gangly guy named Chris, and others, battling demons in the underworld here. Oddly shaped dice, no clue how the game works, vodka spiked Slurpees and surrounding us many prints and sculptures, some done, some works in progress. And I recall a custom snake-shaped guitar…and maybe some animation cells for a short film project.*

Manwoman’s gone now, having passed a number of years back. He was a fixture in Cranbrook back then, always dressed in yellow, with his big yellow van and big yellow everything. Hmmm, yellow’s become our trademark colour too, but it’s totally coincidental.

And there was his many Swastika tattoos for which he became a sometimes controversial figure…well among those that were ignorant to the symbol’s true meaning and backstory. It was for eons associated with spirituality and positivity that was latter hijacked by the Nazis and made bad. Manwoman made it his life’s work to repatriate it if you will and take it back. Reclaim it! Still most people today see it in a bad light. They ruined it, those bloody Nazis ruined it, but damn Manwoman tried.

No ceremony here, just a photo or two and a moment of silence. And some chuckles…hard liquor makes it so much easier to understand the game. Roll for…what? Which shaped dice to we use? And where are we again? I’m lost. Then some demon offs you before you know what next to do.

Interestingly, the building in behind is home to another jewellery place. Kemball’s was the family name by the way, which Manwoman ceased to use once he found his awakening I suppose.

Moodonna & Child presently hangs on the wall at BIGDoer HQ. Now if only we could find a “Sisters of Mercy Dumptruck”. That one always struck a cord – recall copies of it being made when I visited the workshop. Nuns, singing, in a dumptruck! How quirky and strange, so it’s perfect.

Interesting the very image of two cows seen in this print show up prominently in Manwoman’s old web store. And the dancing top hat wearing skull guy – now I remember him!

*No amount of searching brings up a Manwoman made animation flick, but still I swear he and Ivan (Cat) were doing something for the National Film Board of Canada(?) or some such entity. Spray on Joy is the name that comes to mind, but perhaps it was the vodka?

That same weekend…
Wandering Cranbrook – it gets interesting come evening.
Gambled and Lost – a small “prospect” mine.
The Little Cemetery Moyie BC – peace among the trees.

If you wish more information on what you’ve seen here, by all means contact us!

Date: July, 2018.
Location: Cranbrook, BC
Article references: Our fractured memories.

Moodonna & Child, brought home.