Storyteller uses everything he’s got as creative outlet
“These paintings are my meditation,” says Tom Wilson of a body of work he has been creating since he started painting in 1997.
He has been painting “like this” for almost 30 years, and he only discovered his Mohawk heritage nine years ago.
“There’s some kind of blood memory that has been running through me that has been telling me all the answers but I haven’t listened. We should really listen to our instincts and listen to our blood,” said Wilson.
He said creating art is therapeutic and helps to settle his active mind. He has also said “creating these shapes and the colours have enriched my life, kept me sober and helped me stay sane for almost three decades.”
When we spoke to Wilson on the phone he was painting in his home studio in Hamilton, detailing a six- by four-foot oil painting, the sound of an oil paint pen could be heard softly tapping against the canvas throughout the conversation.
Wilson has many creative outlets but he is best known as a musician who rose to fame in the 1990s with his band Junkhouse, and later with Blackie and The Rodeo Kings – which was supposed to be a one-off tribute to Willie P Bennett but resulted in 10 albums and several tours since 2002 – and his solo work as Lee Harvey Osmond.
The Tom Wilson Tehohàhake Trio will be performing in Creemore Oct. 4 during Purple Hills Arts and Heritage Society’s Creemore Festival of the Arts.
Tehohàhake is his Mohawk name meaning Two Roads. He said it was delivered to him by his biological sister after Wilson learned the truth about his family history, which his adoptive mother swore she would take to the grave.
Wilson tells the story in his 2017 memoir Beautiful Scars: Steeltown Secrets, Mohawk Skywalkers and the Road Home – the story of how his great aunt raised him as her son in close proximity to his mother who he thought was a cousin.
“As an 18-year-old Mohawk girl she wasn’t given much of a chance to keep either one of the children that she had,” said Wilson. “It was a different time but it was still Canada and that seems to be the way Canada liked to operate.”
“I joke that writing the first book saved me hundreds of dollars in therapy and I’m not far off, it’s kind of true,” said Wilson who, with Shaun Smyth, has also written a musical by the same name that premiered in the spring and will be staged across the country. It has been shortlisted for The Playwrights Guild of Canada’s Tom Hendry award for emerging playwrights, which will be announced next month.
“Like the play, I’m writing this book to give my mother a voice,” said Wilson. “One of the saddest things I can image in this world I got to live through and that was having someone with a voice that never got heard.”
Wilson said he uses words and images to bring the Mohawk culture into the light and make people more aware of the land that they’re living on.
“That’s my job. That’s my role,” said Wilson, “my role as a peacemaker, a peacekeeper. I don’t believe that pointing fingers at one another is an answer to anything. I think that we have to stop living in a world where we have knee-jerk reactions to each other. We’re too used to being held unaccountable in the safety of our Twitter lounges and social media but when you make art, you are throwing yourself as far out there as you possibly can.”
He said art is long-lasting and you can’t take it back.
“It’s unforgiving and relentless,” he said. “It’s a power that I am honoured to be engaged in every day of my life.”
Wilson’s memoir explores his journey toward parenthood and he now performs with his son Thompson. His favourite thing he’s ever done is a collaboration with his son called For Exhibit, a compilation of scores they created which he describes as a freefall both for the creators and for the listeners.
While touring with the trio in October and November, Wilson will perform new material and readings from his memoir – which is twinged with a surprising amount of humour – and its upcoming sequel.
He describes the shows as an all encompassing experience.
“The performances are kind of like bar fights, you’ve got to use everything you’ve got in front of you to be able to survive it.”
Wilson says artists are always seeking new outlets and ways to express themselves, and he is happy to be stepping out from the labels of the music industry.
“If we all nurtured ourselves by unleashing our creative energy we’d probably be a much happier human race.”
The all ages show is on Friday, Oct. 4 at St. John’s United Church, 192 Mill St., Creemore. Doors open at 7:30 p.m. and the show starts at 8 p.m. Tickets cost $60 and are available via phahs.ca.
