How should a person visually tell the story of Salmon Boy, the traditional Tlingit tale of the child who flung away a moldy piece of salmon offered to him by his mother, offending the Salmon People \u2014 who, in response, swept him into their world?<\/p>\n
\u201cIn watercolor\u201d was the answer of Juneau artist Michaela Goade, whose Tlingit name is Sheit.een. She is from the Raven moiety and Kiks.\u00e1di Clan of Sitka, and she was selected to illustrate three of the Sealaska Heritage Institute\u2019s Baby Raven Reads books, designed to promote language development in Alaska Native children. Goade\u2019s illustrations are featured in \u201cLet\u2019s Go! A Harvest Story,\u201d \u201cHow Devil\u2019s Club Came to Be,\u201d and \u201cShanyaak\u2019utlaax: Salmon Boy.\u201d Because of Goade\u2019s art, \u201cSalmon Boy\u201d just won the 2018 American Indian Youth Literature Best Picture Book Award from the American Indian Library Association (AILA). The text was edited by Johnny Marks, Hans Chester, David Katzeek, and Nora and Richard Dauenhauer.<\/p>\n
In her artistic statement in the book, Goade wrote: \u201cWhen I first read the text for this Kiks.\u00e1di story, I happened to be in Sitka visiting my parents. I felt a powerful combination of gratitude and magic as I strolled through Totem Park, traditional Kiks.\u00e1di land, and asked for inspiration as I began to create the visual journey of Salmon Boy.\u201d<\/p>\n
At the time, she had been admiring the watercolors of other artists, and so she decided to try her hand at it too. It\u2019s funny, she said, that she used watercolor for the book since it wasn\u2019t a medium she had experimented with much previously.<\/p>\n
\u201cWatercolor had always been a little bit daunting to me,\u201d Goade said.<\/p>\n
Daunting, perhaps, but the results of her efforts speak for themselves. The images in her book demonstrate an eye for detail and color; she has brought Southeast Alaska to life on the page. Her outdoors scenes are particularly mesmerizing. With her brush, she grew a forest of evergreens lining hills across the water; she also created intricate line art in the ocean for a splash of character unique to her work. She used a combination of watercolor, gouache (a kind of opaque watercolor), and digital editing techniques with the goal of creating \u201ca dream-like and somewhat stylized world that reflects the magic of Tlingit storytelling, while staying true to a classic Kiks.\u00e1di tale.\u201d<\/p>\n
Goade likes to spend time outside when she can. Keeping her smart phone handy to snap photos of scenery for reference photos has been a help. When she was working on \u201cLet\u2019s Go! A Harvest Story\u201d she started around springtime and took note of what plants were growing where and when. She doesn\u2019t have to be outside, though, to draw inspiration from Southeast. Sometimes she likes to just look outside her studio window. This place is an easy one to be inspired in, she said.<\/p>\n
Her artistic skills come from years of practice.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was involved in art in some form or another for a very long time,\u201d she said. \u201cI don\u2019t remember a lot from elementary school but I do remember all of our art classes and art projects.\u201d<\/p>\n
She took classes through high school. By the time college rolled around, she knew she wanted to pursue a creative major \u2014 whether a basic art degree, theater or scenic design, she wasn\u2019t certain. When she took graphic design classes, she knew she had found the \u201chappy medium of creativity and analytical thinking,\u201d and so she completed a bachelor\u2019s in graphic design and marketing from Fort Lewis College while taking classes like painting, drawing, and printmaking on the side. After graduation, she spent two years in Anchorage as an art director for Yuit Communications, honing her skills from college. She frequently did freelance work on the side, and because she missed Southeast Alaska, she decided to make the jump to being a full-time freelance artist in Juneau.<\/p>\n
She balances between her personal art, graphic and art commissions from clients, and illustrating. The Baby Raven Reads books were her first, though not her last; she is working on upcoming Baby Raven Reads books too. She\u2019s done design work for many Alaska businesses, like Alaskan Brewing Company, Alaskan Marine Conservation Council, Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute, and Salt & Soil Marketplace. She\u2019s developing her online store to sell prints of her personal work as well, keeping her quite busy.<\/p>\n
Working as a full-time artist has taught her how to value her work and to be an advocate for herself because \u201cno one is going to do it for you.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI think something that really helps me when I get really stressed out with all of those issue regarding pricing and contracts is that artists tend to be the first to undervalue their work, and to be their worst critic, and to be the first one to go \u2018Oh no, you don\u2019t need to pay me that much for that. That\u2019s art, that\u2019s creativity.\u2019 It can be hard to put a monetary value on it, so I think one of the most helpful things for me has been to try hard to give yourself credit where credit is due and not undervalue your work,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Find out more about Goade on Instagram, Facebook and michaelagoade.com.<\/p>\n
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\u2022 Clara Miller is the staff writer for the Capital City Weekly.<\/b><\/p>\n
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