SUSAN POINT
Heritage
- Coast Salish
Susan A. Point is a Coast Salish artist from
Musqueam, a First Nation in Vancouver, British
Columbia. Born in 1952, from childhood Susan has
been taught the traditional values of her culture
and legends of her people by her many aunts and
uncles, but above all by her late mother, Edna
Grant-Point, and her late uncle, Dominic Point.
Susan began her artistic career in January 1981
designing and creating gold/silver jewellery. At
this time, Coast Salish art was an almost lost art
form (due to European contact) therefore much of the
native artwork produced and sold through various
galleries and museums consisted of northern First
Nations art. Eager to learn more about her own
peoples art style, Susan chose to concentrate on the
traditional designs and elements created by her
ancestral artisans.
Through research and consultation with various
museums and libraries (both in Canada and the U.S.),
Susan began her study on the design and art style of
traditional Coast Salish artifacts. Consulting with
her uncle, Professor Michael Kew, at the University
of British Columbia, who focused in “Coast Salish
Art and Culture”, Susan then began her career as a
Coast Salish artist (representing “all” of her Coast
Salish peoples) creating designs reflecting
traditional images of the past in jewellery, limited
edition serigraphs, and paintings … taken from the
spindle whorl which is a disk, elaborately carved,
which was used in the spinning of wool by Coast
Salish women.
Coast Salish women have used the spindle whorl for
centuries to spin their mountain goat wool into
yarn. The oldest whorls discovered by archaeologists
were carved from stone.
Shell, bone, and whale vertebra were also used, but
wood became the most common material from which they
were made. Spindle whorls consist of a circular disk
and a center pole. They came in various shapes and
sizes; the size of the disk and the center pole
determined the thickness of the diameter for the
strands of yarn.
Ironically, although Susan researched and tried to
understand the art style of her ancestors, her very
first two-dimensional image using the silkscreen
process was a “contemporary” print entitled
“Salmon”.
Over the past 3 decades, Susan has been instrumental
in re-establishing Coast Salish art both in Canada
and the United States … drawing inspiration from the
images of her ancestors and commencing the use of
non-traditional materials and techniques in paper,
glass, bronze, wood, concrete, polymer, stainless
steel, and cast iron; Inspiring a whole new
generation of Northwest Coast artists. Susan’s
biggest reward has been the opportunity to meet
elders and teachers from other communities around
the world, and to see the current renaissance in
Coast Salish art and culture.
As a result of Susan’s willingness, drive, and love
of experimentation, she has been awarded numerous
public art commissions, including building facades
and large sculptures in Canada and the U.S. To name
a few, these large scale works welcome visitors at
the Vancouver International Airport, Stanley Park in
Vancouver, B.C., the National Museum of the American
Indian in Washington, D.C., the U.B.C. Museum of
Anthropology as well as numerous public buildings
and corporate developments paying tribute to the
native peoples that once inhabited these lands as
well as all peoples from the four corners of the
earth (past, present and future) who also share and
inhabit these same lands. Susan also has collections
worldwide in various museums as well as within homes
of private clientele.
For Susan’s hard work over the years, in educating
all people on Coast Salish art, which is unique to
the lower mainland of Vancouver, the southern tip of
Vancouver Island and the North Coast of Washington
State, she has been awarded the Order of Canada, in
addition to a National Aboriginal Achievement Award,
a YWCA Woman of Distinction Award, a B.C. Creative
Achievement Award, appointed to the Royal Academy of
Arts, was elected to the International Women’s
Forum, and has received four Honorary Doctorates
from the University of Victoria, Simon Fraser
University, University of B.C. and Emily Carr
University of Art and Design.