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Point brings A Timeless Circle to Whistler

Well-known Coast Salish artist to fuse traditional and contemporary influences in bronze installation for Whistler Olympic Plaza
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Whistler will soon have a crown jewel to top off its public art offerings, courtesy of a well-known Coast Salish artist.

Susan Point is no stranger to large-scale public art installations: her work is featured prominently at the Vancouver International Airport, Vancouver Convention Centre and the Christ Church Cathedral, and she has exhibited at the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, U.B.C. Museum of Anthropology, Vancouver Art Gallery and the Canadian Museum of Civilization, as well as throughout the United States, Europe and Japan.

"I'm always busy!" she laughed during an interview Monday.

Point's artistic career started in 1981, when she began making engraved jewelry.

"At that time, I was working for a tribal council, a Native organization, and so it basically started out as a hobby," she recalled. "At that point, nobody was doing Coast Salish art - I'm taking 30 years ago. And so when I started doing jewelry, I didn't even realize I had my own unique art form."

While many of Point's contemporaries were producing designs that represented northern First Nations groups, she chose to take a very different path, focusing her designs on her own people, the Coast Salish. Unlike Northern First Nations artwork, Coast Salish style is "very realistic" and often includes crescents, specific shapes and sizes, as well as many wedges and "v-cuts." But learning about the traditional style of her people wasn't an easy task.

"At first I went to the library and there was absolutely nothing - nothing - on Coast Salish art. They had the odd story on the legends and myths of Coast Salish, but when it came to art and design, there was nothing."

After consulting with her uncle, Professor Michael Kew, an anthropologist who specialized in Coast Salish art and culture at the University of British Columbia, Point began to further investigate traditional Coast Salish art forms. She was immediately intrigued by the spindle whorl, an elaborately carved wooden disk traditionally used in the spinning of wool. Then, using silkscreen prints, she began to dabble in traditional two-dimensional designs, producing her first print, "Salmon." This original design featured four salmon in a circular format, reminiscent of the spindle whorls she had been studying, effectively fusing traditional Coast Salish style with contemporary design. From Salmon, she continued to copy and interpret traditional designs from house-posts and the like, until she eventually ran out of things to imitate. So, she began to make her own unique designs, integrating her own colour palettes into the prints.

"Traditionally, the works of the Coast Salish people, they weren't painted," Point explained. "So it gave me the freedom to use whichever colour I wanted."

In 1986, she decided to venture into three-dimensional forms, tackling her first commissioned project in Seattle, creating tree grates to line Third Avenue.

"The first large-scale piece I did was for the UBC House of Learning, and that was a housepost," she recalled.

"It was kind of scary going from jewellery to carving, but that was always something I wanted to try, was to work with wood!"

Today, Point has completed a number of high-profile installations, including many pieces for the 2010 Olympic Games. Her carving "Cedar Connection," featuring a large owl, is located at the YVR end of the Canada Line, and her carved yellow cedar master patterns were used to create moulds for cast concrete buttresses at the Richmond Oval. Point also spent most days during the Olympics carving live at the corner of Howe and Georgia in downtown Vancouver with her children.

"You couldn't carve down there! There were so many people going through, and they were asking all these questions, so there was no time to actually do anything!" she recalled. "It was nice, though. The amount of people that came through each day - there were lineups! It was unbelievable, rain or shine, there were tons of people that went through."

Point said it was "very exciting" to be part of an event the size and scope of the Olympic Games, to know that people from all over the world were not only seeing her artwork, but experiencing Coast Salish artwork, perhaps for the first time.

The Vancouver 2010 venues' Aboriginal Art Program, which saw roughly 30 pieces of artwork commissioned from First Nations artists across the country, was another effective way of raising awareness surrounding the scope of artwork from our First Nations' people.

"It gave up-and-coming artists an opportunity to make pieces and show what they could do, and I think it was good in that sense, to make the public aware that, 'Wow, we're on Coast Salish territory and this is the kind of art they do,' because most people, regardless of where they're from... they think it's all black and red! So I think it was really good, in that sense, to make the public more aware of the kind of art we have."

And the Olympic action hasn't ended for Point just yet - she has recently been selected as the artist for the $190,000 public art project at Whistler Olympic Plaza, a 2010 Winter Games legacy funded through the Resort Transfer Tax initiative.

Because of her positive Olympic experience, Point was encouraged to respond to the Whistler call for entry, which garnered a total of 39 submissions. Entitled A Timeless Circle , her proposed submission was shortlisted and ultimately selected as the winning entry. It features a bronze sculpture with 86 carved faces, representing the different nations that were present in Whistler during the 2010 Winter Games.

"The sculpture form is the essence of the artwork, and it's meant to appeal on an emotional level. As one draws near, they can explore the content of the imagery and explore the unique, different complexities," she said.

"The circular format of the artwork incorporates a range of human faces, and each one is unique, celebrating the diversity of cultural and ethnic backgrounds of the hundreds of athletes, visitors, volunteers and hosts that travelled from around the world to be a part of the 2010 Winter Games."

Those carvings represent people from past, present and future.

"So, being a part of the Games and seeing all of these different cultures coming together, I think that was something that was really intriguing, and inspired me to come up with this whole concept of using the faces."

Five, double sided solid segments will be cast and mounted, creating a circular form inspired by the Coast Salish spindle whorl. When the piece is put together, from a distance it will look like a snowflake with overlapping layers. And obviously, the Coast Salish element will be present in the contemporary, original installation, as Point attempts to balance the past and present within her concept.

"It's still, in a sense, showing the culture and history of B.C., but it also reflects the personal reflections of our Games, as well."

All of the carving will be done at Point's studio in Vancouver. A Timeless Circle will be installed between the Olympic rings and the playground in 2011.