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profile by Gloria Loree A n A r t i s t O f A l l Trades kind of relationship he had with his son and searches for some kind of solace and reassurance that he did the best he could under the circumstances. Anvil Press describes The Sound of Whales as coming out of MacLean's frustration from hi: dealings with the various bureaucracies regarding his son Danny, who has central aphasia. After talking to MacLean and reading the play, however, one is struck by how the play is really about a father's pain. Harry is frustrated, yes, but the real poignancy in this play comes from the anguish a father feels in not being able to save his son, in not being able to make the world understand his son. When Harry is dealing with doctors and teachers we see the pain any parent must ultimately experience in trying to spare his or her child from the abuses of the world. At one point a social worker asks Harry if he ever gets angry, or he beats his son. Harry replies, I should love to beat someone. At school five bullies made a ring around him, taunting him. Say spit, they said. When he did they mimicked him. They laughed, then they beat him. It's best that I accept it. He'll have to leam, the principal said. Accept it. Accept what for Christ's sake. They have no fucking idea, they have no fucking idea what they're saying....I should love to beat someone, to grab them and say. Listen to this story, it's the story of someone who is larger than this world. My boy is under water. Can you help him? The social worker's response is to warn Harry that if there is any trouble, the authorities will seize his son. Many of us have wanted to rail against the world when people weren't able to see the truth. Engaged in this kind of struggle, a parent can lash out in anger. S o m e people call themselves artists, others commercial graphic designers. Some artists are playwrights and others are poets. Deep Cove resident David MacLean could give himself any one of these titles. He just calls himself an artist. An award-winning graphic designer. MacLean is all of the above. Last year he directed the Shaw Theatre production of The Passions of Emily Can--which also makes him a part-time director. This November he has a solo exhibit at the Seymour Art Gallery. About Face. and Anvil Press is also launching his first published play. 77ie Sound of Whales, at the gallery opening for About Face. ,,, % ¡2 <^ 6 MacLean has worked in graphic design for 20 years, has a BFA in theatre and an MFA in creative writing. The fact that he is launching his play and a solo art show on the same night doesn't seem too extraordinary to him. He likes to focus and work hard on one project and then move into another, heedless of medium or theme. In fact, if it's his artwork. MacLean won't know what he is working on until he is well into the project. "It all makes sense after the fact," says MacLean, who is against intellectualizing before the work is begun. "I really resist the idea that there is a politically correct way to finish something I've started. If you are true to what you started, it works out and ends up being benign, and ultimately helpful." About Face is a series of masks painted on canvas, clayboard and paper, in ink and acrylics. MacLean says he uses the metaphor of the mask to express looking for something. And. he says to the obvious question. "If I knew what I was looking for. I wouldn't do the paintings." The main character in The Sound of Whales, Harry, is based on MacLean himself, but is presented as a 70-year-old man in a nursing home, who is also looking for something. Harry is looking for answers to the MacLean says in reality he was very aware of this and quickly came to realize that if he lost control, he would lose the battle for his son. "The motive was to gel a result. To be right and not get a result was wrong. I had to be perceived as being reasonable when advocating for Danny. I had to be reasonable." The risks of fighting too hard are clear in The Sound of Whales. Harry recalls one of his son's teachers. Miss Fibs, calling him to report that his son was hitting other children: Harry: Of course he has. Miss Fibs: I'm sorry you take that attitude. Harry: You've kept him at the same level. He's bored. You said you'd put him ahead. Miss Fibs: Our test show...we're up on the latest literature on the subject and we've kept him back, well, because he hasn't gone Ritalin, by Dovid MacLean. This piece is part of the solo exhibit About Face, at the Seymour Art Gallery November 6--24.