Curve! Women Carvers on the Northwest Coast
Audain Art Museum, Whistler, BC - To May 5
Learning to carve is not a simple, quick or easy process, and the work requires a particular type of dedication to the craft, says Tla-o-qui-aht artist Marika Echachis Swan (ƛ̓upinup). When she heard a show was being planned that focused specifically on women carvers, Swan says she was curious about how women might approach the medium differently and felt drawn to support it. “I’ve grown up around carvers, for the most part all men, and I’m very lucky that they’re very encouraging of me and welcoming of me and I never felt like I couldn’t carve because I was a woman,” she says. “But I noticed how male dominated the field is.”
Curated by Dana Claxton and Curtis Collins, Curve! Women Carvers on the Northwest Coast features carvings from 14 artists that span 80 years. The works are primarily in wood and argillite and include masks, bowls, panels, paddles and tools. The exhibition highlights work from emerging and mid-career artists like Swan as well as accomplished senior artists like Susan Point, Dale Marie Campbell (Tahlthtama) and Marianne Nicolson. It also features historical pieces from iconic Northwest Coast artists Freda Diesing (Skil Kew Wat), Ellen Neel (Ka’kasolas) and Doreen Jensen (Ha’hl Yee).
Both of Swan’s pieces in the show, Beary Bowl and Portal to the Other Realms, are “explorations of work that is functional and meant to be used,” she says. Portal is a fish club made from hard yew wood, a sacred material in her homeland on the edge of Vancouver Island, in Nuu-chah-nulth territory.
Wit’suwit’en carver Stephanie Anderson, who has nine pieces in the show, says she first fell in love with the medium of wood as a child, hanging out in the woodworking shop with her father. Her art really took flight when she found her way to the Freda Diesing School of Northwest Coast Art in Terrace. “That’s basically where I learned all the fundamentals of what I do today,” she says. “It really gave me what felt like the right place to funnel all of my energy into.”
Anderson’s piece The Dreamer, made from alder, horsehair and pigment, explores a spiritual concept around speaking with ancestors while sleeping. “The mask actually depicts being asleep, but also having that wakefulness and being open to receiving that. That’s the dreamer,” she says.
