DiscoverTotems

Video tour of 3 Totem Poles carved by Tony Paul

Almost every Saturday during the summer months, you can find Tony Paul at the Sechelt Farmers Market that's set up in front of the Raven's Cry Theatre in Sechelt, British Columbia.  That is if he's not otherwise occupied carving a totem pole or a mask for some olympic-sized occasion.

Tony has been carving in Sechelt since the early 70's - and his work can be see on display around Sechelt as many of the public totems poles in and around Sechelt were carved by Tony including a couple of the ones in front of the the Sechelt Mall across the street from the Farmer's Market and the poles down on the beach that can be seen from the public wharf. If you miss him at the Market, you can view  some of his work  in his online gallery and reach him at  spirit_of_tita@hotmail.com

Time Warp: Contemporary Textiles of the Northwest Coast
July 16, 2010 - January 16, 2011

Time Warp is the first major exhibition to feature the contemporary practice of textile and fibre art on the Northwest Coast. Historically, textiles were marginalized because they were, and still are, considered to be "women's work" and purely decorative. Time Warp challenges this gender bias, and explores the growing profile of textiles as a major Northwest Coast art form.

The exhibition includes Coast Salish weavings, Raven's Tail and Naaxiin style (Chilkat) robes, tunics and capes, as well as cedar bark and spruce root clothing and accessories.

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Time Warp is co-curated by:

Evelyn Vanderhoop - artist and guest curator

Dr. Martine Reid - consulting curator, Bill Reid Gallery of Northwest Coast Art

by Brian Bull from WPR on http://www.npr.org

School team nicknames like the Chieftains and Braves may soon be a thing of the past in Wisconsin, where a new law allows the state to ban race-based mascots and logos. If a complaint is upheld, school districts face fines of up to $1,000 a day.

The day Wisconsin's new sports-mascot law took effect, Oneida tribal member Carol Gunderson and her husband, Harvey, drove three hours to the state capital, Madison, to file their complaint in person. The reason, Carol Gunderson says, is "because it's the first law in the whole United States that addresses this issue. We didn't want it to get lost in the mail." The Gundersons are targeting the Osseo-Fairchild School District's team name, the Chieftains.

Only in Duncan, BC, aka the "City of Totems",  are you able to see two of  Canada's greatest cultural icons in the same place. Duncan is also home to the World's Largest Hockey Stick and Puck. Seen here in the background of this wonderful totem pole just outside of the Duncan Community Center.

So in honor of the Vancouver Canucks valiant struggle to remain in the play-offs tonight, I thought I would post this totem pole site that combines two of Canada'sgreat cultural icons - the totem pole and the hockey stick located in a mall parking lot in Duncan, BC.

It's big, and it's here." That's how one boy summed up Duncan, B.C.'s  acquisition of the World's Largest Hockey Stick and Puck. The 28,000-kilogram behemoth once towered over Vancouver's Expo 86, but now it presides over Duncan's community centre accompanied by a wonderful totem pole which unfortuanately does not have any details available regarding it's carver or the story.

Carver: Unknown

Coordinates: 48.78214,-123.702188

Submitted by: MMPatterson

Click Here for a Map

Red Sky Performance - Raven Stole the Sun

Red Sky is a dynamic company producing contemporary Aboriginal performances in dance, theatre and music for adult and family audiences. Raven Stole The Sun, by Drew Hayden Taylor, is a contemporary story for family audiences based on a mischievious and magical creature of impulse and curiosity who brings light to the people of the world.

Date/Time: April 21, 1pm & 7:30pm 7:30 PM

Location:Max Cameron Theatre, Powell River Cost: $22 / $20 students

Tickets: PRAM or at the door

Phone:604.483.3900

Web Link:http://www.maxcamerontheatre.ca

Call for First Nations, Inuit & Metis Artists to submit traditional and contemporary artwork for the 3rd Annual National Aboriginal Day Exhibition at the Sunshine Coast Art Centre in Sechelt, BC

Contact: Dionne Paul, Sechelt Nation Cultural Arts Instructor for more information

dionnepaul {at} secheltnation.net
(p) 604.885.6016 (fax) 604.885.6071

http://secheltnation.ca

View Grand Totem Loop in a larger map

Check out the Designer/Artist's Gallery Site at  http://www.edzerzagallery.com

Uniforms were designed in collaboration with Asics the Dutch team sponsor and Vancouver-based First Nation's Artist Alano Edzerza found his calling as an artist before he was a teenager, and received his first award for sculpture at the age of 13. Alano started learning about Northwest Coast art through his family, often going with his mother Lynda to her job at the Royal BC Museum. Over the few years that followed, Alano has emerged as one of the area’s leading contemporary artists / entrepreneurs.

In 2008, Alano spotted an opportunity to open his own gallery in Vancouver, and that August, Alano celebrated the grand opening of Edzerza Gallery with a show titled “Black Ice”. This event featured grayscale works of art by Alano and other talented Northwest Coast artists. Over the past two years, Alano has been working with art consultants, engineers and designers to accomplish some large-scale installations throughout Vancouver and Edmonton.

He has created custom-designed large scale works in steel and glass for places like Sonora Fishing Lodge on Vancouver Island as well as creating many unique pieces for clients’ homes. Last year, Alano created 10 monumental glass panels for a Vancouver Coastal Health office and more recently provided Vancouver’s GM Place with an eight foot glass Orca mural as a part of their preparation for the Olympics and beyond. This year, Alano was selected to participate in the international traveling exhibition “Challenging Traditions”. Currently, Alano has two works of art in the exhibition at the McMichael Canadian Art Collection in Ontario. The exhibition will be traveling to Switzerland in 2010 before returning to UBC’s Museum of Anthropology in 2011.
In 2009, Alano was honored with the prestigious BC Aboriginal Business Award for Male Entrepreneur as well as winning First and Second Place prizes for his glass sculpture at the Heard Museum Guild Indian Fair and Market in Phoenix, Arizona.

Check out the Designer/Artist's Gallery Site at  http://www.edzerzagallery.com

The Bronze medal winning Russian ice dancers who performed their routine dressed as faux Australian aboriginals are said to have infuriated B.C. natives. They came in third after Canadians Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir and a U.S. pair, despite most TV commentators' critiques of the Russians' "cartoonish" costumes and the "ludicrous" imitation of tribal drums.

For their Vancouver 2010 Olympic Ice Dancing performances, Oksana Domnina and Maxim Shabalin toned down the brown body paint and adjusted their fake foliage, but according to an article published today in the Province , B.C. First Nations consider the revised costumes disrespectful.  During their routine here, the pair toned down the fake brown body colour and streaks of paint, and the faux foliage stuffed into their loincloths seemed to feature West Coast ferns rather than Australian gum.

Even though the pair had been criticized at the recent European championships where they debuted the costumes, they still brought the outfits to the Olympics where similiar reactions occured.  Below is a YouTube video clip of the 'untoned-down' version of the costumes.

The paird did  meet prior to their Olympic performance last Friday with Four Host First Nations CEO Tewanee Joseph to discuss their routine and issued a joint statement with the Russian Skating Federation emphasizing mutual "honour and respect." This seeminmgly was the impetus for the slight changes to their costumes - which still seemed bizarrely out of place at the Olympics and left many shaking their heads. 

The Russians were given valuable Salish woven blankets, which they draped over themselves while waiting for the judges' verdict Sunday, apparently a last ditch effort to get them to cover themselves with something slightly more appropriate.