Alternate Lifestyles

Giving special dispensation to aboriginal people because of their historical heritage and culture while overlooking their failure to adapt themselves to an ordered and civil lifestyle does those who have immersed themselves in drugs and alcohol and homelessness little good.  The influences on their lives through their original experiences and cultural exposure that have led them to ruin their lives represent a tragedy, but if the will is there to turn themselves to become responsible for themselves it can be done.

It is a tragedy that someone like Annie Pootoogook whom an artistic muse has favoured with great talent in being able to produce colourful original paintings that describe her memories of her life in the far North has despite her great talent immersed herself in a homeless lifestyle.  She lives with her demons, unpleasant memories of her early life and her own obvious dysfunctionality.  She gave birth to two children many years ago, and those children have been raised by relatives.

While Annie Pootoogook travelled from her home on Baffin Island to Ottawa, to live in the city where she can seek out the support of well established Inuit-welfare agencies she has not been dependent upon them.  Her artwork has been recognized and is valued by collectors of aboriginal art.  She was honoured with a $50,000 Sobey Art Award, her drawings selling for thousands of dollars through galleries.

That money is gone, used to feed her drug, alcohol and tobacco passions.  She has latterly sold her artwork in downtown Ottawa, living off the street, earning $25 to $200 for each work of art.  Obviously valued by an artistic-appreciation society.  The money she earns used fairly solely for tobacco.  She claims her background on Baffin Island to have been replete with beatings, sexual abuse, alcohol and drugs.

She has a partner, a 49-year-old man who fathered a baby that Annie Pootoogook has just given birth to, a little girl, born prematurely and set to remain in hospital - currently in an incubator - for a month.  She is 43 years of age herself, and looks much, much more aged than her chronological reality.

Celebrated Inuit artist Annie Pootoogook draws a picture while sitting on the sidewalk near the downtown Rideau Centre with her common law partner Bill Watt. The couple made headlines recently when it was revealed Annie is pregnant and living on the streets while her artwork sells for thousands more than she charges passersby.  Photograph by: Wayne Cuddington , Ottawa Citizen

After a newspaper story reported on her current life, Annie Pootoogook and her partner, Bill Watt, were offered accommodation by a number of individuals moved by her story.  Mr. Watt felt they should not accept any of those offers because people were always trying to 'control' their lives.  So while his common-law wife was pregnant, earning a few dollars for her cigarettes, they lived on the streets, sleeping at night under culverts, and eating at charitable institutions.

"I know it sounds sad, but we slept good.  In retrospect, it was nothing because I was with the love of my life."  Bill Watt

 Acclaimed Inuit artist Annie Pootoogook with her partner William Watt.  Photograph by: Jean Levac , Ottawa Citizen/Postmedia News

 

The pair feels that the Children's Aid Society will be interested in convincing them to surrender their baby.  That they will be considered to be unfit parents.  Mr. Watt seems to have a revolving relationship with Ottawa's jail system.  He is occasionally invited to occupy a cell as a result of being charged and found guilty of minor crimes, like theft.

He has preferred to live outdoors during the summer rather than sleeping at shelters.  A one-bedroom apartment was found for them recently, and they have lived there for a week.  Mr. Watt pays the rent from the Ontario Disability Support Program cheque he receives monthly.  And they will continue to eat at shelters and receive food through area food banks.