Lelooska: The Life of a Northwest Coast Artist

7. Producing Art

7 / Producing Art I n the 1970s and through the 1980s, Don excelled in his artistic work, his confidence buoyed by his relationship with Jimmy Sewid. Just how important that connection was and how central a cultural understanding was to him as an artist comes through in his recounting of how he went about carving. For Don, possessing the technical skills to carve and knowing the practical and secular uses and histories of each ladle, rattle, mask, or pole was not enough. He sought knowledge of how the art functioned within the culture from which it originated, how the material and spiritual uses of the items were connected. He also understood that this was not just a simple dichotomy of “traditional” and “new,” but a continuum of change within tradition. Don’s experiences with Jimmy Sewid, his making of masks for the Kwakiutl ceremonies and his participation in them, and the enhancement of the programs at Ariel, Washington, made him a part of Kwakiutl efforts to recast public understanding of their past as well as the present. Yet Don’s efforts expanded beyond just the programs, and he began to think very carefully about the growing demands for repatriation of artifacts. This fit well not only with the Kwakiutl but also with a host of tribes that pursued the return of artifacts housed in museums worldwide. Although repatriation did not carry the same economic weight as land claims and other treaty concerns, Don’s participation in that issue, indirect though it may 172 have been, indicates how nonreservation Indians can still be connected to tribal politics. This came to be so much a part of Don that, although he continued to identify as “Indian” in that broad, pan-Indian sense and never lost a sense of “being Cherokee,” he moved more and more toward “being Kwakiutl.” CARVING The payoff is really in the doing. There is something magical and mysterious about the ways in which Don brought his carvings to life. Powerful blows from his elbow adze sent chips flying and revealed the rough form hidden in the blocks of cedar or alder. Precise and meticulous cuts with a dazzling array of razor-sharp handmade knives—some straight, some crooked—gave the pieces their individual aspect and expression. Hours of sanding, followed by a coat or two of linseed oil mixed with turpentine, and then paints, completed the piece. I never tired of watching this process, and I had seen it many, many times since my debut as what the Lelooska family jokingly referred to as a “professional sander” for Smitty, Don’s youngest brother. I felt self-conscious, then, asking about the technical aspects of carving. I asked anyway, thinking of some future audience who might be interested, despite the fact that I had no clear end product in mind for the interviews other than a transcript of them. I should have guessed what Don would do with such an occasion. As he responded to my query, the technical very quickly moved into the cultural and political. I really enjoy wood. I love getting a big piece of cedar, just chopping away, and making the chips fly. You can really work yourself into a sweat. Totem poles and things like that are just a heck of a lot of fun. Good exercise. Get out all your aggressions. You need good, clear, fine-grained cedar, the best. You can use less highquality wood, but the best is such a pleasure. It just makes the carving a joy. I’ve often wished I could find somebody who can make me a shaving lotion that smells like wet cedar. You first cut into it—that kind of spicysweet smell is plicatic acid. It can be poisonous as hell.1 Working on big things like a totem pole and canoes, especially, you got your head down Producing Art • 173 inside; you’ll see flies come in and light on the wood because it is moist. That fly’ll go “goota, goota, goota, goota, goot” and he’ll stop. First thing you know, blook. Deader than a doornail! You wonder, “Is this really where I should be?” Then I say to myself, “They say always that carvers live to great ages.” You have to see the design for a piece in the wood, and a drawing helps you to clarify this. You have to do that. Without a vision, pencil lines aren’t enough. You can do your details with pencil lines, but...