Pacific Northwest Coast Aboriginal Art: What Am I Seeing?

by Karin Clark

- Illustrates ten well-known objects and nineteen crest designs from the Pacific Northwest Coast along with meanings and stories. - Identifies seven main design elements along with variations. - 112 colour illustrations and photos, 6.5" x 8.5"; soft cover, 64 pages This guide book, designed to give you a glimpse of Pacific Northwest Coast Aboriginal art, will give you a deeper understanding and whet your appetite for learning more about today's vibrant, complex aboriginal cultures. Three sections show you where to look to identify many of the things you will see--from three-dimensional objects like bentwood boxes, ceremonial houses, masks and canoes, to crest designs, to the main design elements in Pacific Northwest Coast aboriginal art. This book is also available in French, German and Spanish.

64 pages, Perfect Paperback

First published September 17, 2007

Reviews

[Stephen · Rating 3 out of 5]

There is nothing wrong with enjoying art with near-total ignorance about the work. It is not necessary to know that Mahler's First Symphony "quotes" liberally from Brahms Second Symphony in order to enjoy the Mahler. It is not necessary to understand the meaning of the chiaroscuro technique to appreciate Leonardo da Vinci's “The Adoration of the Magi.” It is not necessary to have heard the early 1900s Baptist Gospel hymns, in order to be moved by Alvin Ailey’s ballet "Revelations." In much the same way, one can stand before a work of Pacific Northwest Coast Aboriginal art -- a ring, a button blanket, a totem pole, a mask, the wall of a longhouse, a hat, or a two-dimensional painting -- and admire and enjoy this art form without any sense of First Nations' culture. I would argue that music acquires meaning with learning. The trumpet work of Dizzy Gillespie is just better if one knows of the influence of Roy Eldridge on it. Likewise seeing the movie "Alien" (1979) is enhanced by first seeing "It! The Terror From Space" (1958). Likewise looking at a print from Salvador Dalí's "Don Quixote" series is amplified by first reading Miguel de Cervantes’s "Don Quixote De La Mancha." In much the same way, there is much more which can be gained from Pacific Northwest Coast Aboriginal art than appears to the unschooled, untrained and unsensitized eye. Karin Clark, herself as artist in this tradition, has written a short, simple, straightforward book which invites those who wish to delve into the richness of this artform to learn more about it: the methods (carving, dyes, painting), the people, spirits and animals depicted, and the legends, stories, and myths which underpin every artifact. She carefully explains the conventions which allow one distinguish the raven from the eagle, the shark from the salmon, the sisiutl from the lightning snake, and the bukwus from the dzunukwa. Don't know what a bukwus nor a dzunukwa might be? You'll need to read the book.