Like a well known story made into a movie where you know how it ends but you have to watch, such is life. We will all pass along some day eventually but I’m certain that everyone has certain figures in their life that feel immortal. I know for myself that was Bill Holm. By the time I started on my path as an artist Bill had already become legendary for his devotion to understanding and participating in Native culture in the Pacific Northwest. That had been somewhat controversial in the eyes of some however his passing has helped me pinpoint my discomfort around appropriation and it’s definition in my view.

There are some who felt the he was appropriating culture when looking back on that long life he lead it was a very different landscape. It’s no secret that Native culture has been all over the map in the public eye. On one hand it’s heralded by boy scout culture and then absolutely despised by some who feel it is downright immoral. The more I look at Bills background on paper and what I know from personal accounts with him he was able to serve as a bridge in his time here. As with any heroic or pivotal figure there are formative years and from what I understand he was drawn to Native culture and the diversity of it as it is not one thing.

I worked with him for the first time after spending years working under the guidance of one of his main students Steve Brown. The Bill Holm Center was formed and I was taken back to be invited to be part of it. At that time I was asked to curate works with Bill, Robin Wright and Susan Point. I met Bill formally for the first time although I’d attended several events before but never really had a deep conversation with him. I found myself sitting across the table with him at a small teriyaki restaurant in Seattle. We were waiting for Robin to find a parking spot where we were dropped off and I could feel the silence creep in painfully as I thought what to say so I just admitted I was nervous to meet him and be working on curation with him. He smiled and just said “well, I’m just a man like you. Someday you might be in my shoes and someone could be nervous talking to you but you’ll still just be a man”. It put things into perspective which I’m sure he’d gotten used to by that point.

I should note that over the years I’d never actually carved with him but I had learned a great deal second hand from Steve and my late great Uncle Jerry techniques in tool making and process that are part of my life to this day. I was honored to be commissioned to do two painted murals for Camp Norwester at his persistence to have me do. His aim was to have Coast Salish representation from a Coast Salish artist and I was happy to spend time with him and his wife Marty on that island with my son.

Norwester Wolves in progress (still from time-lapse)

After working on the mural I was asked to come up and help with a canoe that was to replace one Bill had carved in the 80’s that was damaged beyond repair from a storm on the island. Given that the island was far off it was quite the experience. I should note that there, there is no amenity to the like of electricity beyond a generator so work was done purely by the light of day. There was a great reward from that experience I wouldn’t trade for the world carving alongside my mentor with my son and his as Bill would stop by and sit to visit periodically and socialize.

Looking back on many things he shared with me I’m mostly moved by his openness and honesty of feeling he didn’t know it all. On one trip I took a walk with him and shared my frustration about losing out on grants because I didn’t fit in the categories of traditional vs contemporary. He shared how despite his successful career he’d been questioned by scholars for his efforts that didn’t fit their narrative which brings me to the first time I heard about him in a negative light early on. There were a handful of people I met early on who talked down written word about Native art with the belief that one can’t learn culture or art from a book. I later realized that most of that came from a perception that his success stemmed from a book that simply brought attention to and value to Northwest Coast Native art as a window into a universe unto itself. Never did I feel his writings were a way to tell people how to ‘be Indian’ as some had claimed.

I would love this image remixed by someone integrating Alf with Bill at the center.

I’m including this Stan Lee image I love because it is analogous and conveys the depth of this loss in our Northwest Coast art practice and culture. Bill didn’t invent Native art just as Stan Lee didn’t invent storytelling or comic books. It was the power of persistence and dedication that eventually scratched the surface for people to appreciate and value for what would have otherwise been shrugged off as unsophisticated. To further the analogy Lee was not alone in establishing a base line and with Holm to say the least Bill Reid (Haida) was a driving force as well as Mungo Martin (Kwakwaka’wakw).

Bill seldom seemed challenged by much of anything and kept his determination and independence. Sitting with him I often admired his cane he had carved himself and asked about it once and he said, he knew he' was going to need it and that was truly in spirit of the art tradition of what Tsa-qwa-supp called utilitarian. Form and function meeting with art beautifully matched.

Back to why I’ve included this photo. I imagine the vast knowledge he retained visually about the nuances of the art styles he admired and supported. He was vigilant about education in pressing how diverse Native culture was and remained into a future where it wasn’t static or confined. His work was opening the eyes to some who would not see it otherwise and waking up heroes the like of Joe David, Tsa-qwa-supp, Robert Davidson, Calvin Hunt and so many others.

In this snapshot of time I have felt like I was able to be a hero of a bigger picture.

Bill pressed me to write about my perspective which I never felt was all that informed having not come from a formal education yet it dawned on me how I was trained in a sense by a non-systemic form of learning by practice amongst Indigenous means that had never been truly broken despite laws that outlawed it for a time. One of my beloved elders noted Bill as a thread that was necessary to keep the line in tact where it would weave back strong and that the creator needed them for this purpose. As I grew confidence in writing and public speaking I pressed Bill back for a quote regarding the impact that his Analysis of Form had on misleading people to feel Northwest Coast Native art was a formula and to some the only way to practice art that was valid and true.

After many visits where I would share my presentations on my laptop at his house, looking back I know how much pressure that would be but he gave me a quote he said he was comfortable with regarding the issue.

“Had I known Analysis of Form would have been used as a ‘how to do Indian Art’ book, I would have been much clearer about it’s intent and culture groups that it covered” - Bill Holm 2006

I did a few talks where he was in the front row when put that up on the screen to quote him and I’d ask if I got it right. He’d nod and sometimes say ‘pretty much’ which got good laughs.

What I can say and not say enough is how humble he was and how inspiring and infectious his curiosity was and never wavered. He never struck me as someone to hold back knowledge for any sense of power or superiority and if nothing else it was quite the opposite. He could be stubborn about methods of work for sure but if you walked him through the methodology of it he wouldn’t come back to it. Which gave me a powerful revelation about a mentor who is truly about the art and moving it forward.

When I was truly terrified to speak Bill was a wave pushing me forward and lifting me up. He never worked against me as an ego but all giving and transparent. Our culture here is moved and shaped by the water. There are nuances by which one can only understand by way of doing or experiencing as oral histories go and the act of creating such has been since time immemorial. I never felt Bill was in his journey with a goal to have a Native name which he has many, or fame and fortune which the art world is not why the majority of us find ourselves wading in the water.

In 2010 I made a print I called “Ember” for his 85th birthday. The notion was to signify someone who carries the light forward. When I showed him he noted that it looked not only Northern but very Tlingit. I know he wasn’t being mean in any way but once more encouraging me to find my own way of expression rather than cater to influences for sake of validation. So when years later I made North and South he was happier about the composition and it’s meaning. It’s a design that would be used for the Burke Museum and later a piece that would be made in a mixed media work that would be part of the permanent collection.

What leaves the story on my side somewhat open ended is what I could design that captures the idea of what he’s made possible and it may be a carving, it may be a painting or something animated. Whatever that might be I’m saddened by his absence for now but I will surely never let it leave me because when someone truly impacts your life it stays with you forever.

Bill wrote articulate observations of an art that took generations to build that was nearly overwritten but like a swell builds momentum so much energy transcended that into the hands of a generation rising. Someone once noted a concept that particular forms were the most ‘evolved’ and it referenced a stylistic group. I re-read the book “Indian Art of the Northwest Coast: A Dialogue on Craftsmanship and Aesthetics” that was based on conversations between Bill Holm and Bill Reid the past two days where artist seldom look beyond the pictures which I am guilty of. When talking about a Coast Salish Spindle whorl Holm defended Coast Salish art by pointing out it’s function from the culture it comes from where one cannot judge another culture by direct comparison. Proximity alone does not equate similarity. However, he noted always to me the importance of positive and negative and the relationship of similarities of the old traditions and not to dig into the weeds here that will be for another post of which I’m motivated to venture.

I normally tie up my posts with a song link but given the uniqueness of this situation there are too many and ones that do not have ties to public sharing or links. Even so I can say I know they are many and ones that come to mind stem from not Coast Salish alone but Kwakwala language, Nuu-chah-nulth, and Haida origins. This is only my view in remembrance.

What I can say is whether his energy was a spark that carried fire, a pebble that created a wave or sound that travelled through the air it’s an energy that touched the lives of many. In my small world it was a wave that carried me forward and I am forever grateful.