Art in the Hall: Love from the Deep. A SeaMonster Art Opening with Cultural Educator and Indigenous Storyteller Pamela SeaMonster
What a wonderful, fun and successful Art Opening event last Saturday with Pamela SeaMonster!
We had 80-some people come along and enjoy a day of art showing and storytelling, learning about Pamela's art and about Pamela herself. The afternoon included a free raffle and Pamela gave away a very generous 5 pieces of art. Everyone enjoyed the drinks, including cedar cider, (thank you Pamela), soup and salad, nibbles and sweet treats for Valentine's Day.
Pamela SeaMonster is legally blind. She lost most of her sight about 10 years ago due to Lupus. Pamela transitioned from textile art (like cedar bark weaving) to digital/print art during COVID. She typically uses hemp, cotton and linen paper, and makes 12 pictures of any one image on one kind of paper.
Following are extracts from Pamela's talk, in her own words:
"My name is Fighting Woman. I'm Snohomish. I'm the daughter of the Sea Monster Man. My father's ancestral name was the Sea Monster Man. About my art, I get so many questions. I want to tell you everything.
Art was my thing. I loved art, and I loved textiles, and I loved mosaic art a lot. When I was a kid, anything that was mosaic art was mine, and I was so happy with it. And I had a really great art teacher that really inspired me and made me really feel positive about creativity and about being able to show it off. I do cedar bark weaving, and I also have some wool that I weave, and I have some dog hair and other fibers, like alpaca. I make what I call 'blind Indian girl poster art' with traditional stories."
"Art became love. Love for myself, love for my family, a way to share my family, a way to share my culture. Traditionally, Puget Salish art only has circles, half circles, semicircles, crescents and trigons (triangles) - that negative space between your fingers, that trigon around your circle of your eye, the trigon between your ribs, trigons between your toes, the moons in your fingernails.
You'll see a lot of circles - eyeballs - in my art, in the dresses of my girls, or in different things, and the men and the Galaxy riders. I had to find different ways to have eyes. We have a traditional teaching about the clothes that wore the people, the clothes that watched the people. It took me a long time to figure out that maybe I could be like the clothes that watch the people."
Pamela told us that her art represents traditional stories, and is active story-making. Indigenous stories serve as teachings, not entertainment; there is no word for 'story', only teaching. She shared several stories - including one of the octopus woman and the crow - crow ignored several warnings, and got eaten as a result! Lesson well learned there.
For today, we'll end with this from Pamela:
"There is this idea among the Indigenous that if we try to be perfect, then we must think we're God or we're Creator. And so sometimes the women who bead will make something wrong with the most beautiful beadwork ever. They will change one little spot. They will put a different color there. They will make it so that it is not perfect."
"Because it takes a really long time to learn how to be a human being."
All proceeds from Pamela's art sold on Saturday go to People of the Confluence, an Indigenous non-profit empowering Indigenous Youth and Families.
People of the Confluence:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/peopleoftheconfluence
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/peopleoftheconfluence/
Appreciation for Pamela SeaMonster's art, talk and
storytelling afternoon, above.
Pamela SeaMonster is a Cultural Educator, Indigenous Storyteller, Laurel Winning Filmmaker, Weaver, Artist, Plant Medicine Specialist and Daughter of the SeaMonster Man