Years ago when I started to learn about the nuances of Coast Salish art from my elders many who have passed, Thunderbird was important to them and our history. The common view people adhere to is of a large bird with curled horn like ears that is from the Kwakwaka’wakw people. I used to draw them in that way and was corrected by my auntie Judy Wright. She told me the Thunderbird was a small bird no bigger than a hawk with a white body. It would stand atop drift logs or trees without tops near the beach and call out the lightning and thunder.
I was moved to be able to work on coating this standing up due to installation circumstances with my cousin Anthony Duenas who painted the mural that represents our slahal (bone games) depiction.
I was moved very much by the words at our opening of the casino by our leaders who all noted the work of our ancestry. I was asked about why the thunderbird is standing on a pole that is “uncarved” by an observer. I had to point out that the focus of the sculpture was always to be a single figure and that the adze marks of the column are the representation of all the people who got us here. I thought about what that means when I hear that sound of the adze hitting the cedar in a large space just like the drums in it’s final place standing up. I felt thunder in my bones and the warmth of my relatives standing beside me as we sang and shared words in our language that was once silenced. It is here and it may be different but all things change but like the cedar tree they have roots and remind us of how we are all connected.
The day we brought the pole out to the site in the morning it was stormy and lightning was all around. I thought of the elders who shared with me when I was a young boy not to be afraid. Gloria Bean taught me that in the storm the ancestors of the sky world are touching the land and lighting fire where it needs to be. The rain is feeding the trees and our medicine plants that need it.
Installing this piece is a major milestone in my life for many reasons and I, like the words shared at the opening agree that we are standing on the shoulders of giants. I negates the western idea of ‘low man on the totem pole”. In this case there is just cedar a column that is somewhat ambiguous but nonetheless a perch for a small bird to watch over the people.