Master carver explores art of war during Anchorage talks

 

By MIKE DUNHAM

mdunham@adn.comJune 1, 2014

As an artist, collaborator and conservator, Tlingit master carver Tommy Joseph has been involved with many of the most important totem projects in Alaska over the past 20 years.

The short list includes the Indian River History Pole carved with Wayne Price, the Kiks.adi Memorial Pole and the much-photographed “Holding Hands” Centennial Pole, all in Sitka National Historical Park.

But the soft-spoken artist will address the brutal arts of war at the Anchorage Museum on Thursday, specifically the battle armor and weapons of the Tlingit Indians. It’s a subject he’s devoted special attention to over the last few years.

Master carver Tommy Joseph works on a helmet at the Alaska Native Heritage Center, Friday May 30, 2014. Known for his totems, he has recently done research on Tlingit armour.Master Carver Tommy Joseph from Sitka is in town doing workshops at the southeast site at the Alaska Native Heritage Center. He'll give a talk at the Anchorage Museum on June 5. He's famous for his totems, but has done a lot of research on Tlingit armor, which will be the subject of his talk. He's working on a helmet right now. ANNE RAUP — Anchorage Daily News
Master carver Tommy Joseph works on a helmet at the Alaska Native Heritage Center, Friday May 30, 2014. Known for his totems, he has recently done research on Tlingit armour.Master Carver Tommy Joseph from Sitka is in town doing workshops at the southeast site at the Alaska Native Heritage Center. He’ll give a talk at the Anchorage Museum on June 5. He’s famous for his totems, but has done a lot of research on Tlingit armor, which will be the subject of his talk. He’s working on a helmet right now. ANNE RAUP — Anchorage Daily News

Joseph’s totems can be found in England, New Zealand, at the Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh and in front of the Department of Veterans Affairs homeless shelter at Benson Boulevard and C Street in Anchorage.

One of the recent generation of artists finding new ways to explore totemic forms, he often incorporates unexpected or modern elements in his work. On a pole for the Family Justice Center in Sitka, there are young people wearing contemporary clothing. A rainbow is featured on the “Good Life” pole created for Sitka’s Pacific High School. A camera shutter can be discerned on the pole honoring the late Japanese photographer Michio Hoshino. Multicolored hands decorate his Census Pole, created to encourage participation in the 2010 U.S. census and which traveled across the state.

It may seem like a leap to go from items now considered ornamental — bowls, blankets, totem poles — to devices meant for killing. But before contact, Native Alaskans expected all tools to be both functional and decorated. War equipment was considered especially important and was especially well-decorated.

Joseph said he started to “seriously research” Tlingit battle gear in 2004, the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Sitka between the Russians, led by Alexander Baranof, and the Kiks.adi clan, led by Chief Katlian.

“There wasn’t a whole lot available online or in books,” Joseph said. “So I decided to do the research myself.”

He began with the collections at the Sheldon Jackson Museum in Sitka, where the raven-shaped battle helmet worn by Katlian in the fight against the Russians is kept, and the Alaska State Museum in Juneau. He got a grant to explore the holdings at the Burke Museum in Seattle. Then a Smithsonian fellowship that let him look over items held in several East Coast museums.

An award from USA Artists let him travel to Europe, where he visited the British Museum, several Russian museums and “I’m not sure how many museums in Paris.” He photographed the pieces, examined them and “picked ’em apart in my mind.”

With an individual artist grant from the Rasmuson Foundation, he re-created the weapons and armor he’d studied and mounted a solo show at the Alaska State Museum in Juneau last year. “Rainforest Warriors” featured six mannequins in full battle gear along with assorted artifacts and paintings.

The traditional war equipment in Southeast Alaska bears a striking resemblance to that worn by the ancient Greeks as described in Homer’s “Iliad.” Fighting was close and hand-to-hand, with copper knives the primary tool. The blades jutted forward and backward, Joseph said, and were held in the middle. In place of a second blade, some of the knives had a blunt pummel, often carved in the form of an animal head.

Other weapons included copper-tipped spears, war clubs with heavy bone heads and nasty-looking, laboriously carved jade spikes up to 16 inches long.

“They were like a miner’s pick,” he said, “for whacking skulls.”

Wood and leather served for armor. The most prominent piece — the one most commonly displayed in museums — was the helmet, often decorated with a human or animal face. It came down to the eyebrows. A bentwood neck collar was attached to the rear of the helmet and held in place with a mouthpiece clinched in the teeth.

The body was protected with the heaviest of hides — moose, bear or sea lion, sometimes in multiple layers. Joseph has seen examples with hides as much as a half-inch thick. “It was like our modern day Kevlar,” he said. Vertical wooden slats were strapped to the leather, typically in top and bottom halves, some reaching halfway down the warrior’s legs, which could also be guarded with slat leggings.

Musket balls could bounce off such armor, Joseph said.

Joseph said some of what he discovered in his research came as a surprise.

“We were told that war helmets were always, always made from a spruce burl,” he said. The rock-hard knot is difficult to split even with a maul. “But I found some that were made from straight grain — and some were maple,” a non-Alaska wood that would have been acquired via trade with tribes in present-day British Columbia or Washington.

“One that really surprised me was made of red cedar,” he said. “That’s a soft wood.”

The maker of a cedar helmet covered it with animal hide, however, to reinforce it, much as modern plastic-foam bike helmets are sometimes covered with a light nylon skin.

Joseph was born in Ketchikan in 1964 and has lived in Sitka for most of his life. He said he became interested in traditional art when a carver presented a workshop on making halibut hooks for his third-grade class.

Last week it was Joseph who was teaching apprentices how to make such hooks at the Alaska Native Heritage Center. He was also working on a new war helmet at the center’s Southeast site.

After his talk about battle gear this week, he’ll stay in Anchorage to do conservation work on one of his poles that recently came into the museum’s possession.

He doesn’t often come to Anchorage. Only coincidental gaps in timing with various other projects permitted him to make an extended visit this year. Among other things, his Sitka studio, Raindance Gallery, is slated for expansion, in part to accommodate the popular workshops he conducts there.

And yes, if you need a Tlingit war helmet, you can buy one at the gallery. Though his in-depth study of Tlingit weapons is only about a decade old, they’ve been an object of artistic interest for some time.

The Kiks.adi pole, for instance, carved in 1999, has a frog at its base, the clan symbol of the Tlingit leader Katlian. The frog appears to be holding a raven in its lap.

A closer look shows that it’s a replica of Katlian’s helmet.

Reach Mike Dunham at mdunham@adn.com or 257-4332.

Tlingit Master Carver creates totem pole for Carnegie Museum of Natural History

Darrell Sapp/Post-GazetteTommy Joseph, a member of the Tlingit people of southeast Alaska, uses a reverse bent knife to carve a 16-foot totem pole that will be permanently installed at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History.
Darrell Sapp/Post-Gazette
Tommy Joseph, a member of the Tlingit people of southeast Alaska, uses a reverse bent knife to carve a 16-foot totem pole that will be permanently installed at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History.

December 10, 2013

By Mary Thomas / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

The story of a raven, two fishermen and a salmon was emerging from the trunk of a Washington red cedar last week under the skilled hands of master carver Tommy Joseph. Today, he will complete the carving and on Saturday a public “Celebration of the Raising of the Totem Pole” will be held as it’s installed permanently in the Carnegie Museum of Natural History.

Mr. Joseph, a member of the Tlingit people of southeast Alaska, was born in Ketchikan and lives in Sitka. He began carving the totem pole, which was commissioned by the museum, on Nov. 26 in the R. P. Simmons Gallery, where he will be until 5 p.m. today.

Darrell Sapp/Post-GazetteTommy Joseph, a member of the Tlingit people of southeast Alaska, talks about his totem pole sculpture.
Darrell Sapp/Post-Gazette
Tommy Joseph, a member of the Tlingit people of southeast Alaska, talks about his totem pole sculpture.

The totem will be unveiled this weekend at the entrance of Polar World: Wyckoff Hall of Arctic Life and the Alcoa Foundation Hall of American Indians. The all-ages event will begin at 10:30 a.m. with Tlingit song and drumming by musician Morgan Redmon Fawcett. Following the celebration, Mr. Fawcett will play Native American flute, and guided tours of Alcoa Hall and other activities will be offered (included in museum admission).

The 16-foot tall totem pole is a blend of traditional and contemporary practices. The formal qualities of the bold stylized components, and the fact that they memorialize a story told by a Tlingit elder, are timeless. Mr. Joseph carves with hand tools that would have been recognizable generations ago, including an adz, gouges and knives, some of which he made. However, the vivid paints are latex.

When the museum commissioned the totem pole, it requested a story that included a raven but was otherwise unrestricted. That gave Mr. Joseph, 49, an opportunity to fulfill a project that had been on his mind for three decades.

“They told me I could pick any story. This story has never been told before. When I first heard it, I wanted to tell it,” Mr. Joseph said last week.

The description he gave the museum was of two young men on a hunting trip:

“While out on the open ocean with a storm approaching, a young man spotted a large seal and fired at it. He was happy to see that his aim was true, and he piloted his boat over to haul in his catch. The young man grabbed the seal by its tail, but it began to thrash about. So as not to lose it to the ocean waves and the approaching storm, he bit down on the tail, gripping hard between his teeth while grabbing the seal’s flippers with his strong hands and arms.

“In a boat not far away, the young man’s hunting partner and Clan brother was watching this entire scene unfold. He fired a shot into the seal, saving the catch. The hunt was a big success, and both men were able to bring food home to their families, along with an adventure story that would live on for generations to come.”

But there’s more, a personal connection. The men in the boats were Mr. Joseph’s father and the elder who related the story in the mid-1980s. Mr. Joseph’s father was lost at sea when he was 6.

“The museum wanted a traditional raven story,” Mr. Joseph said. “But what is a traditional raven story? It’s a story an elder told. Raven is my Dad’s moiety [descent group].” Mr. Joseph is of the Eagle Moiety.

The raven, at the bottom of the totem pole, appears in Tlingit legends, myths and creation stories. The middle figures are the hunters in dugout canoes. The top figure, a dog-salmon, completes the circle of life, the seal eating the salmon and the people, the seal.

Darrell Sapp/Post-GazetteOne of the painted "trappings" on the Raven portion of the totem pole Tommy Joseph has been commissioned to carve for the Carnegie Museum of Natural History.
Darrell Sapp/Post-Gazette
One of the painted “trappings” on the Raven portion of the totem pole Tommy Joseph has been commissioned to carve for the Carnegie Museum of Natural History.

“Alaskan natives still eat seals today,” Mr. Joseph said. “They’re part of our subsistence lifestyle.

“A totem pole is a visual tool for telling a story,” he explained. “The whole purpose is to be a reminder of the story. [Subjects include] migration, individuals, groups of people, events, history, clan history; grave markers, mortuary poles that memorialize people.”

Mr. Joseph first became infatuated with wood when he made a halibut hook out of yellow cedar in a third-grade woodcarving class. His art includes Tlingit armor, masks and bowls in addition to totem poles. He sells them at his Raindance Gallery in Sitka along with work by other Alaskan native artists.

Funded by a Smithsonian visual artist grant and a USA Artist Fellows award, he traveled to 20 museums and collections in the U.S. and abroad in 2009 to study Tlingit armor. The Alaska State Museum, Juneau, presented the first exhibition of Mr. Joseph’s armor this year. In July, he gave a TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) talk on constructing Tlingit armor.

At his gallery, he teaches carving in affiliation with the University of Alaska Southeast, Sitka Campus. “I always hope there’s going to be some of our young people who will be interested. But to keep [the tradition] going, I’ll teach anybody of any age who wants to know, as long as they’re old enough to work safely.”

TotemPoleMag07-1
Darrell Sapp/Post-Gazette
Tommy Joseph works on the details of his totem pole.

For 21 years he ran the wood studio of the Sitka National Historical Park’s Southeast Alaska Indian Cultural Center. While there he observed leading wood conservators from the National Park Service and now he conserves, restores and replicates totem poles for the Park Service and other institutions and individuals.

“It’s a huge honor for me that [this totem pole] will be in the Carnegie Museum forever,” Mr. Joseph said. “I have the coolest job around. I get to go to work every day and make stuff, and share it with everybody.”

Tlingit artifacts including baskets, halibut hooks and objects relating to the totem pole creation process may be seen in the Simmons Gallery today through Friday. Information: 412-622-3131 or www.carnegiemnh.org.

Post-Gazette art critic Mary Thomas: mthomas@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1925.