It starts with an IDEA. In this case, the "idea" was began when Sealaska Heritage Institute (SHI) requested that I develop 2 panel designs for the front of the Walter Soboleff Center still under construction. These were to be based on the 4 Core Cultural Values that were emphasized in
Sealaska Celebration 2010 as part of the "Our Land" theme. The 4 values were Balance, Past/Present/Future Generations, Our Strength, Our Land. The panel designs were used in the
architects rendition here.
It was very exciting to design for a project of this scale. Initially, I was designing for 2 14' x 39.5' carved cedar. However, as discussions unfolded, SHI decided that cedar had too short a life span, and they would put out a request for proposals to artists to design based on a metal fabricator's constraints: designs that could be cut from 5 x 12 sheets with no formline overlapping the edges of each sheet. Challenging, but this is what I came up with:
When I got a letter from SHI stating that only 2 people had submitted designs and both were rejected, I really wanted to do more with the ideas, so I redesigned the lower right quarter, which stands for "Our Land"
The images below show the progression toward the final painting. Each step of the way, it's a matter of whether to add more; more design, more color, how to keep things balanced, how to keep the formline uniform... I LOVE IT
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| The Basic Concept |
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| Resizing |
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| Beginning Black Primary Formline |
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| Adding Red Secondary Formline |
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| More Red Formline |
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| Red Secondary Finished |
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| Adding Tertiary Blue-green |
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| Tertiary Blue-green done |
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| Spacers |
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Edges will finally have red spacers also wrap around
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Even while working on this piece, I was coming up with more new pieces. Ideas spawn ideas!
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