{"id":12217,"date":"2015-12-09T09:00:13","date_gmt":"2015-12-09T17:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spijue.wpengine.com\/news\/the-future-of-northwest-coast-art\/"},"modified":"2015-12-09T09:00:13","modified_gmt":"2015-12-09T17:00:13","slug":"the-future-of-northwest-coast-art","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/life\/the-future-of-northwest-coast-art\/","title":{"rendered":"The future of Northwest Coast art"},"content":{"rendered":"
At a panel on the future of Northwest Coast indigenous art, young Alaska Native artists talked about issues facing the art and the artists who make it, as well as how they\u2019d like to see that art develop.<\/p>\n
Panelists were Rico Worl of Juneau, Nick Galanin of Sitka, Alison Bremner of Yakutat and David R. Boxley of Metlakatla. Xhunei Lance Twitchell, an artist and assistant professor of Alaska Native Languages at the University of Alaska Southeast, moderated.<\/p>\n
Though panelists discussed a range of issues, one theme the artists repeatedly came back to was the interconnectedness of Alaska Native art, culture and language.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe say that our art isn\u2019t just art; it\u2019s a visual link to our culture,\u201d Bremner said. \u201cI agree with that. And\u2026 our language is the sound of our culture.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOne thing I always tell visitors to my shop is it\u2019s an art form that developed over thousands of years,\u201d said Worl, co-owner of Trickster Gallery. \u201cWe\u2019ve put a lot into it. We\u2019ve really built it up into something spectacular.\u201d<\/p>\n
Panelists spoke of the crucial importance of studying the work of traditional master artists — and of a current tendency to use that term too loosely.<\/p>\n
\u201cThose are the best teachers,\u201d Boxley said of the older pieces in museums. \u201cThey\u2019re the guys that invented the system, the ones that made it work.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOur ancestors set the bar so high,\u201d Bremner said. \u201cI think we have a ways to go before we do have a widespread mastery.\u201d<\/p>\n
Boxley, 34, said he is sometimes called a master artist, and expressed misgivings about the label.<\/p>\n
\u201cEveryone\u2019s a lifetime student,\u201d Boxley said. \u201cThere are very few people who should receive that title of master.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trauma from colonization is now a part of the art, the panelists said \u2014 sometimes because artists explore it directly; sometimes because the links between masters and students were broken when European Americans and Russians bought or stole the art, and when Western diseases decimated indigenous communities.<\/p>\n
While there are increasing numbers of Alaska Native artists, Boxley referenced his father, David A. Boxley\u2019s, talk earlier in the lecture series, in which his father said not all that\u2019s Native-made is good.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought \u2018Wow, he\u2019s brave (to say that),\u2019\u201d Boxley said. \u201cIt\u2019s the truth, and it\u2019s true of any art form.\u201d<\/p>\n
Formline, Boxley said, is \u201ca very misunderstood system of art, even by our own people. Formline is as complicated as any other thing you can think of \u2014 it\u2019s not just a bunch of shapes thrown together. It works best when the guidelines are followed, because it is a system. You can only learn that by starting from the ground up.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOur art wasn\u2019t art in the Western sense,\u201d Boxley said. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t just pretty to hang on a wall.\u201d<\/p>\n
Much Northwest Coast art today is that way, he said, including some of his pieces \u2014 something he struggles with and reconciles by using the time it frees up to do his part revitalizing Tsimshian culture in Metlakatla.<\/p>\n
Other issues, the artists added, are appropriation, access to pieces created pre-colonization, the European-American systems they find themselves having to navigate, white privilege, and equal appreciation for Alaska Native female and male artists.<\/p>\n
Opportunity, Galanin said, is \u201calways an issue.\u201d So is funding, for all art; and so is having indigenous art represented in the rest of the art world.<\/p>\n
Galanin, though he noted positive development, said higher education has room to improve.<\/p>\n
\u201cGenerally speaking, you have to hang up your identity to go through these institutions to get an idea of success,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s one we can always come back to,\u201d Worl said of appropriation, in which people who are not of a (usually minority) culture use elements of it to benefit financially. \u201cI think a lot of people in the world appreciate authentic things\u2026 but I think a lot of people just kind of let it slide, as well.\u201d<\/p>\n
Women should also receive more widespread recognition and support, they said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAlison and my sister (Crystal Worl) are both working on representing women in Northwest coastal art\u2026 I think you see less women in galleries, and that\u2019s something that should be remedied,\u201d Worl said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI hope weaving and basketry starts to get its due like carving does,\u201d Boxley said. \u201cI think it\u2019s harder for women, because the process is longer to gather those materials\u2026 but it\u2019s just as beautiful and worthy of (a gallery) as anything a man makes. Or man weaving, or a woman carving.\u201d<\/p>\n
As a female carver (carving is traditionally a male pursuit) Bremner encouraged women, especially female artists, to find partners who will help shoulder domestic duties.<\/p>\n
Just as who can create certain kinds of art is different in the modern world, so are the tools people use to create that art.<\/p>\n
Regardless of the medium or the tools people use, or the level to which it is innovative or new (Boxley created a formline Superman \u201cS\u201d; Worl creates formline skateboards) what\u2019s important is that the work is quality, the panelists said.<\/p>\n
At the end of the panel, elder and carver Paul Marks spoke on art and at.oow,<\/em> sacred objects. \u201cOur art, our at.oow<\/em>\u2026 what we do with our hands is more valuable than money,\u201d Marks said. \u201cYour best art pieces come when you take time to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s part of us,\u201d Xhunei commented. \u201cWhen the at.oow<\/em> comes out, you see your ancestors right there in front of you.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re competing with the modern world while living in the modern world, building an identity as contemporary Native people while at the same time recovering from that trauma,\u201d Boxley said. \u201cIt\u2019s a very peculiar time to be doing what we\u2019re doing\u2026 it\u2019s a challenge I think we\u2019re all up for.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u2022 Contact Capital City Weekly staff writer Mary Catharine Martin at maryc.martin@capweek.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" At a panel on the future of Northwest Coast indigenous art, young Alaska Native artists talked about issues facing the art and the artists who make it, as well as how they\u2019d like to see that art develop. Panelists were Rico Worl of Juneau, Nick Galanin of Sitka, Alison Bremner of Yakutat and David R. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":12218,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":7,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[74],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-12217","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-life","tag-arts-and-culture"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12217","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12217"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12217\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12218"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12217"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12217"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12217"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=12217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}