|
STORY
OF THE “UNITY” TOTEM POLE LOCATED IN PELICAN, ALASKA Alaska
has a program supporting “Artists in the schools”. For several years a native carver came
to Pelican to teach the carving of masks and small
objects. The town was seeing hard
times due to the decline in the local fishing business. A totem pole carving project was
conceived to bring the town together and raise community spirits. The native, master carver, Stan Marsden,
arranged to have a 30 inch butt diameter by 24 foot long Alaskan red cedar
log to be cut on Prince of Wales Island and shipped to Pelican on a
barge. Stan designed the pole,
and did a lot of the carving while teaching the town residents how to carve a
totem pole. The pole was carved
in the fish processing plant in the fall and winter while the plant was not
processing fish. I
became involved in carving the pole when my wife and I returned from a month
long vacation in the fall. After
helping with the project for about 10 days and learning the process,
Stan’s carving time via the Alaska program in the schools was over and
he left town with the pole only partially completed. As he left town, he told me to finish
up the pole and get it ready to install in the spring. I carved on the pole for another 3
months in the evenings and on weekends, and prepared the pole for
installation by hollowing out the back side to match a creosote treated
piling which would be used to support the installed totem pole. (The flattened back side of the pole
and the hollowing out process allows the pole to dry out without cracking.) In the spring of the next year, a 7ft
hole was dug for the creosote piling and a concrete pad was poured around the
piling. Native people from all
over were invited to the pole raising and a community meal featuring locally
caught fish and game was served.
Native dancing and drumming and ceremonies accompanied the pole
raising. After the pole was
completed, there were a number of large red cedar slabs left over. I saved these pieces, and carved them
in the Northwest coast native tradition over the next several years. The
carvings in this show are from those pieces of the “Unity Pole”. Tom Whitmarsh UNITY TOTEM POLE The
pole features Alaskan native motifs and a couple of special items that are
significant to Pelican. The top
of the pole is an eagle with a halibut.
Below the eagle is a pelican (The only pelican featured on an Alaskan
totem pole – The Pelican name for the town comes from the name of the
fish packing boat that was used by the founder of the town in 1938. Pelicans are not native to Alaska.) Below the pelican is a killer whale
facing down. The human face showing
in the whale’s blow hole is called a Radakanin
– the name of the town founder.
Below the whale is an Alaskan brown bear holding a salmon. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- WOMAN WHO MARRIED A BEAR This
sculpture depicts the north coast native legend about a native lady, and how
the natives came to understand bears and how to live with them. A native lady was out picking berries and stepped in a pile of bear “doo-doo”. She was cussing out the bear when the bear, who was picking berries on the other side of the bush heard her and was offended. The bear kidnapped the woman and took her back to his lodge. He married her, and in due course, she had two cubs. After a while the woman’s brother went looking for her. He found her at the bear’s lodge, killed the bear, and brought her back to his camp. The knowledge the woman learned in the bear’s camp of the bear’s ways was passed on to the native peoples, and allowed them to live in harmony with bears. The lady is depicted at the bottom of the sculpture; the two cubs are above her and the brother is on top of the bear’s head. The town of Pelican, on the outer coast of southeastern Alaska is in prime Alaska brown bear territory. The bears came into town, and a number of bear encounters occurred while we lived there. The bears, for the most part, were not too aggressive, but they were not afraid of anything. If you had a dog out walking and it decided to chase a bear, the bear was likely to chase the dog right back to you. The bears were of most danger to the deer hunters, because they would follow the scent of a kill. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- RAVEN STEALS THE LIGHT This
sculpture tells the story of Raven and how he caused the world to have light.
Raven is a trickster and transformer, and his tricks tend to benefit mankind. In the beginning, the world was dark. Raven got tired of stumbling around in the dark and decided to do something about it. He discovered that the Sky Chief kept the light in a bentwood box in his lodge. He went to the Sky Chief and asked him to release the light so everyone could see, but the Chief refused. Raven went back into the forest and spied on the chief’s lodge to see if he could think of a way to release the light. Raven discovered that the Sky Chief’s daughter went each morning to dip a cup in the stream for a drink of water. Raven thought up a plan where-by he transformed himself into a pine needle which floated down the stream into the daughter’s cup. The daughter drank the water and swallowed the pine needle. In do-course the daughter had a son who was Raven transformed into a human infant. The boy was mischievous little critter and was always wanting to play with the bent wood box that held the light. The Sky Chief loved his supposed grandson and finally let him play with the box. Raven opened the box, releasing the light, transformed himself back into Raven, and tried to fly away with the light. The Sky chief blocked the lodge door, so Raven tried to fly out of the smoke hole. The light was heavy, and the Sky Chief was chasing him, so Raven tore off pieces of the light to reduce his load. These pieces became the moon and the stars. Raven made it out of the smoke hole thus providing the world with light. In the beginning, Raven was all white, but his passage through the smoke hole turned him black – so ravens are black to this day. This sculpture shows the instant where Raven is transforming from the little boy to Raven as he flies away with the light. The sky chief is in the forehead of the light and his daughter is in the chin. The human infant is shown in the body of Raven. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- LINGCOD SWALLOWS THE MOON This
sculpture depicts the native explanation for a lunar eclipse. On the occasion of a lunar eclipse, the natives would gather on the beach and build a large, smoky fire, and then dance around the fire and chant. The idea was that the smoke would cause the lingcod to cough and give up the moon. Since the moon always came back, it seemed to work. The lingcod is a near shore predatory fish that can be up to 5ft long and weigh up to 35lbs. The fish has a very large head. The natives used abalone in decorating their sculptures. Most of the local abalone has been wiped out due to predation from sea otters. The abalone in this sculpture was given to me for this sculpture by an Alaska native who traveled to New Zealand, and brought back some abalone shells that he purchased there. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- KING SALMON This
sculpture depicts a king salmon as it is driven by the spirit of the salmon
to return to the streams each year. The whole north coast native culture was based on two natural resources that made life relatively easy: The western red cedar tree and the fish resource – particularly the salmon. They made boats, lodges, clothing, boxes, fish traps, and house furnishings from cedar. The north coast natives had a rich artistic culture, but no written language. The woodcarvings, wall paintings, and dances helped them to remember their traditions and stories. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- KILLER WHALE, EAGLE AND OWL This
sculpture depicts Killer Whale and Owl which are part of the Eagle family of
totems. The Eagle and the Raven are the two most important totems, and all natives are members of a sub group of either Eagle or Raven. The linage goes down through the female members of the tribe. Eagle members have to marry Ravens and vice-versa. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I call this sculpture my “Tlingit Flamingo”, as I mounted it outside our door as a lawn ornament. The natives had stories about Cannibal Bird that may have had the same purpose as the white man’s boogieman – keep the children under control and out of danger. I patterned it after the blue heron which was abundant locally around Pelican. When the bird takes off from the tide flats after dusk, it makes a startling and scary call which could have been the basis of the legend. The totem for Frog is in the body of the bird; which seemed appropriate as herons eat frogs.
The artist grew up on a farm near Cuyler, New York. He started out studying math and sciences, went to an engineering college, (BS metallurgy) and wound up working for Boeing in Seattle testing materials for airplanes. His only formal art training was a couple of night school classes at the University of Washington. While living in Seattle, the artist spent some spare time carving a couple of wood sculptures from pieces of fire wood. After about 5 years, the airplane business had a major down turn, causing a layoff. The artist went back to college eventually getting a degree in geology and some practical engineering licenses in refrigeration and steam boiler operation. The practical engineering background led to 37 years of employment in the Alaska as an operating engineer for isolated fish processing plants in the Shumigan Islands (South of the Alaska Peninsula) and in Southeast Alaska. The operating engineers also ran the electrical and water utilities in these small towns. Living in Alaska was a privilege and a joy, and the scenery was just beautiful, but there was little entertainment except what the residents created for themselves. For the first 10-15 years there was no television or radio reception and there were no roads, so that we did not own a car for all of the time we lived in Alaska. The artist started painting the local area as a hobby using art instruction books for help. As the paintings got better, some were shown in the town’s annual art and craft fair. Local interest, sales, and commissions encouraged more effort and some of the better paintings were made into prints. Some of the prints were sold through a local café and gift shop, and from a gallery in Sitka. While living in Southeast Alaska, the artist was exposed to the northwest coast native wood carving traditions. A native carver working through the school system provided inspiration and a source of red cedar. The artist helped with the carving of 3 totem poles, and later produced 7 wall type wood sculptures and a carved sign for the local museum using materials left over from the totem carving. The artist and wife retired from Alaska in 2009, bought a house in DeRuyter, New York and have spent the last two years rebuilding the house. The artist has shown his Alaska paintings and wood sculptures to several local groups in DeRuyter, and has had time to paint a few local subjects including portraits of George and Genevieve Staley which will be displayed in the renovated city building/ library in DeRuyter. The New Woodstock Free Library is open Monday through Friday 1 to 5 p.m., Monday and Wednesday evenings 7 to 9
p.m., and Saturdays from 10 until 1. The library is also open whenever the
blue library symbol flag is flying out front. Children’s hour is every
Tuesday at 11 a.m. The library phone number is (315)
662-3134 |
||||||||
