What is the best way to describe what you do? Artist? Illustrator? Graphic Designer?
I'm all of those, plus an animator and budding 3D artist.
I'm all of those, plus an animator and budding 3D artist.
When did you begin drawing and how did you learn?
I started drawing when I was a kid and kept drawing through high school. Much to my parents' concern I went into animation, then illustration. I got hired in a graphic design position out of school and promptly stopped drawing for myself, then when I started at my current job I started drawing again during my commute.
Favia Dubyk (@felinefavia): Favia is an incredible all-around athlete and she's always fun to draw. Sometimes she climbs in these huge furry earmuffs and those combined with her natural hair are a joy, especially with my brush pen.
Tell us about your climbing! Give us the run-down – how long have you been climbing and what are your favorite types of climbing?
I've been climbing on and off for about 10 years, starting with top roping in a gym and going onto outdoor sport and bouldering. I had a single, terrifying trad day during which I slipped, blew out my last piece, whipped and got caught on a tiny nut that I had not trusted. Luckily I was fine. Since my partner, Laura, and I had a kid 4 years ago, I’m only occasionally gym climbing. Laura has climbed a ton more, and she's the one still going on trips to Red Rocks and Chattanooga and stuff.
You live in Toronto, Canada. How long have you lived there? What are some of your favorite local crags? What’s the climbing like there?
I've lived in Toronto for about 16 years. Toronto has a huge climbing gym scene, with 10 great gyms just within the Greater Toronto Area. There are decent limestone crags and bouldering areas along the Niagara Escarpment, which is about 2 hours away depending on traffic. There are better climbing areas further into Ontario, like Lion’s Head and Bon Echo, but the season is short compared to a lot of places further south. Many sport climbers end up taking longer drives to Kentucky for bigger climbing trips.
I've lived in Toronto for about 16 years. Toronto has a huge climbing gym scene, with 10 great gyms just within the Greater Toronto Area. There are decent limestone crags and bouldering areas along the Niagara Escarpment, which is about 2 hours away depending on traffic. There are better climbing areas further into Ontario, like Lion’s Head and Bon Echo, but the season is short compared to a lot of places further south. Many sport climbers end up taking longer drives to Kentucky for bigger climbing trips.
This edition of Common Climber is focusing on the experiences of climbers of color. The United States is currently facing head-on its history of racism and social injustice for People of Color (POC.) Canada also has a history of being established by white Europeans. Can you tell us what’s happening in Canada with respect to racism and social injustice?
Canada was also built on colonization and slavery, but that part of our history isn’t traditionally taught and is rarely discussed.
Whereas White Canadians like to think racism doesn’t exist here, a common sentiment among POC is that we have all the racism the U.S. has, but it's further below the surface, i.e. “racism with a smile.” Among other issues (e.g. Black face), Our Prime Minister has broken some pretty big promises to our Indigenous communities, even though he likes to make a show of supporting them.
Race is rarely discussed in Canadian politics, but with Jagmeet Singh’s NDP (New Democratic Party) there’s an effort to start, which is unfortunately meeting with resistance. Our police (and Royal Canadian Mounted Police - RCMP) have similar histories of racism and brutality against BIPOC (black, indigenous, people of color).
Even in the last month, despite the uprisings, there have been 4 cases of Black, Indigenous and race-related killing by the police during wellness and mental health calls. There was recently a severe assault on an Indigenous leader on whom it was discovered no charge could be reasonably laid (and of course the cops who did the beating haven't received disciplinary action or assault charges).
From my viewpoint, it's much the same here as it is in the U.S. Urban areas like Toronto and Montreal are very diverse, but rural areas, like most climbing areas, may still feel a lot scarier for many POC. It seems like these days overt, anti-Black racism is on the rise, with nooses found outside our local hospital and hate messages being dropped in mailboxes. I think there's a really dangerous notion on both sides of the border that Canada is post-racism; we have a lot to reckon with.
Mélise Marie (Instagram @meliseymo): Mélise is someone I've drawn 6-7 times in the past 3 years, the first Black climber I drew, and has always been incredibly outspoken and passionate about racism and LGBTQ+ issues. She's a neuroscientist, climber and activist and I admire her a lot despite having never met her.
You are Chinese Canadian. What is your personal perspective of and experience with racism?
I experienced some racism growing up, which included some bullying and random people shouting "Go back to China" or "Stinky Chinaman" as they drove by. I got teased so hard for bringing Chinese food for school lunch ("Ew he's eating worms") that I made my parents pack me sandwiches I didn't want to eat. When I got older I wished I was white so I'd be more attractive, more dateable. For most of my adult life it's been relatively okay and I've felt mostly safe, until the racialization of COVID-19 made anti-Asian racism spike.
I want to highlight, though, that I consider anti-Black and anti-Indigenous racism to be a far more urgent issue. Racism is all bad, but for me that manifests in discrimination, willful ignorance, and name calling. For Black and Indigenous people, it means access to (and freedom to focus on) education and employment. It means clean water. It means being allowed to live on land that was theirs before it was stolen by “settlers”. It means living in constant fear. And, it means life and death.
Those problems are much more urgent. Also, people who look like me were granted the model minority myth (after Yellow Peril) specifically to further oppress Black and Indigenous people. They ran with it, and have for generations, and as a direct result, my life from birth was made easier at a cost to BIPOC lives. I believe that by lifting up BIPOC folks and dismantling white supremacy, all POC (and all people, ultimately) will benefit, and therefore it's in all of our interests to do the work right now.
Midori Buechli (Instagram @midoriontherocks): Look at this effort! Midori's a local Ontarian that I haven't met, but we have friends in common.
One of the obvious, blatant racist things occurring right now with respect to people of Chinese and Asian heritage is the President of the United States calling COVID-19 things like the “Kung Flu.” It makes me cringe to even repeat such words, but part of being anti-racist is actively calling-out racist terms and behavior as being unacceptable. Trump’s continued use of racist terms like this is putting Asian-Americans at very real, physical risk. Not to mention the mental and emotional toll it takes. How is this COVID-related racism from the U.S. spilling over into Canada?
Again, we mostly have the same stuff here. Whenever Trump says “kung flu” anti-Asian sentiments spike here as well.
Around the first time he said it, I was at a grocery store lineup (outside) and a man came screaming into the back of the line shouting about how the "chinks" ruined everything and we should just bomb them. Then he started going on about how he was going start carrying his gun and killing them to get even.
It was raining so I was able to pull my hood up and turn away so he couldn't see me, but I could clearly see all the white people in line with me who looked at me, then at him, then back to me. None of them said anything. Since then I've not experienced anything so overt, but now there's a renewed fear when I'm in less diverse spaces (like the outdoor spaces we love) and surrounded by white people in pickup trucks. I always have that fear in certain spaces, but it's heightened now.
With that said, I know, even in those moments, that this sort of fear is bigger for Black and Indigenous folks, and it's omnipresent in urban settings and outdoor settings. I remember the first time I went to the Red River Gorge, my boss (a Black man from Barbados) told me there'd be no way he'd ever go there and to be careful. I laughed that off and felt totally fine there until we went to the next county over to get some beer, and we pulled in at a dusty general store with a huge row of Harleys out front. I got genuinely anxious and insisted that the white folks in our group go in really close to me. I'd like to recommend episode (17) of Kathy Karlo's podcast For the Love of Climbing, which covers this kind of fear from the perspective of a Black man.
Kathy Karlo (Instagram @inheadlights): Kathy is a friend with whom I've had the pleasure of climbing and hanging out. For the little time we've actually spent together, she's one of my very favourite people. Kathy is the Executive Director of the "No Man's Land Film Festival," runs an incredible podcast called "For the Love of Climbing," writes, climbs, and eats all the doughnuts. I think she's the first climber I drew, and she's also been an inspiration that I really cannot say enough good things about.
Tell us about the drawings you selected to share with us. Is there a story behind them?
In general I try to represent womxn, and more specifically WOC. I have been leaning in that direction for a few years now. I thought it was awesome to see diversity in what I thought was a super white male sport, and I wanted to boost that visibility first for myself to retrain my own perceptions, and then for whomever would see my artwork.
I now actively seek climbers who break from the white male trend, which include paraclimbers like Mo Beck (Instagram @moinmountains) and a diversity of races. As I've been posting I've gotten a lot of really positive feedback and that has fed back into my drive to keep doing it. One of the most validating dialogues was with a now-friend, who then bought a drawing of Daila Ojeda I was selling for Street to Trail (a non-profit organization I do volunteer design work for) and said "I love this one because she looks like me." That made a huge impact on me; representation in media and art has long been an issue I've been passionate about.
Who are some of the people you chose to highlight and what made you select a certain image to work with?
Initially, I mostly wandered to Instagram for awesome climbing photos that I thought would be fun to draw. Eventually I started to get a small following that I would follow in kind, and that helped me find more reference, especially through organizations like Brown Girls Climb and Melanin Basecamp. These days, I've been following and listening to really outspoken climbers like Mélise Edwards and L. Renee Blount who've been shouting out a lot of amazing peers that I now follow.
My ideal is to find an awesome photo of an awesome climber that also has awesome stuff to say.
Initially, I mostly wandered to Instagram for awesome climbing photos that I thought would be fun to draw. Eventually I started to get a small following that I would follow in kind, and that helped me find more reference, especially through organizations like Brown Girls Climb and Melanin Basecamp. These days, I've been following and listening to really outspoken climbers like Mélise Edwards and L. Renee Blount who've been shouting out a lot of amazing peers that I now follow.
My ideal is to find an awesome photo of an awesome climber that also has awesome stuff to say.
Molly Thompson Smith (Instagram @mollyts123): This was my first digital climber drawing/painting, and also the first climber I posted after the start of the Black Lives Matters uprising. I stuck with a similar process to what I'd been doing with traditional media, going with rough pencils, then ink, then shade/colour.
What makes a good climbing illustration and how long does it take to create one?
As many artists do, I constantly wander from confidence and self-satisfaction to imposter syndrome and crippling self-doubt, so I am about 50% reluctant to say I'm producing "good climbing illustrations", but here's what I go for...
I work from reference 90% of the time, so it starts from a really interesting climbing photo. I try to find ones that have a bit of the face and an interesting pose and angle (so, not a buttshot of someone climbing a ladder). For a while I had a streak of bat hangs and clips in offwidths, which are fun to draw. I have a few favourite photographers like Irene Yee (Instagram @ladylockoff) that are always taking innovative, expressive photos. When you're trying to draw underrepresented climbers, there can be a dearth of great reference photos so finding a photographer that's spending time with a diverse crowd is like striking gold.
My favourite drawings are often ones where I feel I was able to capture the forms and shapes, and also the feelings of climbing. Try-hard faces, top-out fear, moments of focus, laughter and frustration are all so human and such a part of climbing for me.
Most of my drawings in the past 5 years have been done on my commute, drawn on transit in a sketchbook. Those tend to take 2-3 trips, plus extra for elaborate hair, tattoos, or trad racks (which are all super fun to draw). Each trip is about 75 minutes, but I only draw when I can find a seat, so I'll say about 2 hours.
Very recently I started drawing digitally in Procreate from home. I'm figuring a lot of stuff out and trying to find a look I like, so those take a fair bit longer, maybe 4 hours.
"L" Renee Blount (@urbanclimbr): Another outspoken, inspiring and passionate voice. As of this writing, she is part of my most recent piece and one that I'm really happy with. I took a different approach, skipping line altogether and just building the painting on its own. This one's kind of unusual in that Lanisha's Instagram photos tend to feature a big, infectious grin or laugh, but I loved the intensity of focus here.
Is there anything else you’d like to share with our readers that we haven’t touched upon?
I think in the outdoors world, we want to see more diversity of all sorts. To get that diversity, we need to be more than passively tolerant.
There's a tradition among a lot of white people of enjoying free access to the outdoors, starting in childhood. They grow up seeing that the outdoors is free to all. But this isn’t the case for folks who grow up without financial means, who feel alienated and "othered" when outdoors, whose parents didn't pass on cottages or generations of outdoor experiences to them, and who live in constant fear of a racist interaction out in the woods and surrounded by white people.
I don't know what the solution is (look, I just draw pictures!), but I think seeking out these voices is a start. If you're reading this and not already following everyone I've mentioned, please do so and watch and listen to them. Seek out the voices and experiences you aren't familiar with, and pay particular attention to those who make you uncomfortable, challenge your worldview, and challenge your identity as a "not-racist."
This work is depressing, exhausting, and never ending. If you're doing it right, you will not feel good about it. Posting is good, but a big part of the work isn't for the Gram, it isn't glamorous, and it's very, very hard. But it’s crucial, important and worthwhile. Thanks again for reaching out, and for reading.
Contact & Follow Shawn Lee
|
WEBSITE: http://shawnleedesign.com/ INSTAGRAM: @shoanes YOU TUBE: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZ5UzpKLz1VG5SPKtYNoTEg |
|