I never dreamt I would see our culture and language come back in the ways it has. All the same I recall carving the first story pole where two songs came along to tie the meaning of innovation. After my grandfather taught me to make paper planes I was fascinated with the idea of what it would be to be a bird. It comes back to me now for the idea of new perspective. The story poles and totem history in a practical sense was made to be seen from one view point looking up.
Today these sculptures are fewer and with this time of my work I am blessed with the work to do a commission for Seattle Children's Hospital. I’m also feeling rewarded for small insights the built up over the years of my youth with two stories in particular.
I am grieving the loss of an Auntie figure who taught me about the butterflies and how they were more than fluttering wings, fleeting but treasures of how life itself is fleeting. That stayed with me for all my life and came back to me thinking back on how I would sit on her lap on a ballpark bench sketching on a lined notepad.
When I was called upon to carve a story pole for my people when I was 19 I had no idea what to think of the pressure and I’d only made a few carvings but Jack Moses said it was my duty and I didn’t really have a choice. So on that I took it on with my family name on the line. In that time I got to meet Buffy Sainte Marie who shared this song with me (not of the two songs I’m noting but equally powerful).
I was overwhelmed with the task at hand but my Auntie Judy and those who backed up an idea of someone who could bring stories backed by a powerful history gave me believe in myself. Carving in and of itself is tedious and I thought of my mother beading and how long that process was. Also thinking of weaving and the process of gathering bark, treating it. Art is tedious but it tells a story in the end, it is a journey.
I recall one night when I was on the fence. I remember giving some Dine’ visitors tobacco and they saw a pack of Paul Mauls that one of my friends left on the break table, well, they assumed it was mine and they brought me a carton of them and lucky strikes so I was told I had to smoke them in respect so I started smoking then out of ‘obligation’? however it worked out I lived on coffee and cigarettes and music.
One night I was contemplating giving up as the sun was going down and the stereo in the shop started playing a recording from my great great grandfather switching modes from cd and tape deck. I saw a red tail hawk perched up looking down at me as I sat down to smoke and just watched it looking at me wondering if it would fly away but it watched me and I smoked another and I lost the staring match.
I was carving in a old barn then and two butterflies flew in and I heard howling in the distance.
I put on a song to dig in from my friend Bruce (the Batman) for a boost on top of what was already given to me. I can’t say why but it made me think of my Auntie Chickie the butterflies that stayed on the coffee table as I was carving. It was another staring match of sorts and I looked back now and then as if I was being witnessed if I was working or not feeling judgment.
I’m writing this today because I miss Chickie for being an iron butterfly. There are words in our language that don’t translate into the english language but music communicates it. I needed those things to show up as they did to make me who I am and even the dark times are just as important as the times when I dreamt about making a paper butterfly for my auntie then as a 9 year old as much as I needed the butterflies to show up when I was 19 carving that first story pole.
Push through to see your own light and you’ll get there.
My auntie, my mother and grandmother taught me to believe in love and perseverance.
I believe in that and it drives me to make that into art that is more than one dimension, it’s a connection like weaving together or pulling the beads together with sinew.
