![]() “His strength was that he was incredibly humble and generous.” “They were really interested in talking to him, because he was really interested in talking to them,” says Bunn-Marcuse. As an outsider to Native arts and culture, he had immersed himself in the Burke Museum beginning as a teenager in the 1940s, learning from director Erna Gunther before traveling the region to meet Native artists and learn about their craft. People crowded in and sat in the aisles in Kane Hall. The auditors included Indigenous artists like Haa’yuups Ron Hamilton and Joe David. Holm taught a three-quarter sequence of Native art to UW students in the 1970s, inviting anyone in the community to sit in on the class. ![]() Even though Holm is no longer with us, students at the UW continue to learn through the people who learned from him, teaching the classes he helped shape. Holm, a leading scholar of Native art and art history, mentored Bunn-Marcuse, ’98, ’07, and was like a grandfather to her children. The class has a particular weight this quarter because of the passing of the legendary Bill Holm in December 2020. This exercise lets the students think about how the class is inhabiting or occupying a wide swath of Indigenous land because they’re not at UW. Today’s students are in land that first belonged to the following tribes: Seattle, Snohomish, Snoqualmie, Puyallup, Tulalip, Yakima, Spokane, Nooksack, Stillaguamish, Butte, Okanagan, Massachusett, and Cherokee. On a virtual map from native-land.ca, Bunn-Marcuse asks students to plot where they currently are, and the map converts it to Native terms-most of which are still recognizable to us. The fact that the class is being taught remotely, with students from across the state and the nation, actually contributes in a way. Listen to the pronunciation of “Siʔaɫ” by Salish tribal elder Vi Hilbert, who taught the Lushootseed language at UW for many years. “That is the name of our city,” Bunn-Marcuse says, telling the students that throughout the quarter, they will take turns sharing a longer land acknowledgment each time the group convenes. The vocal lesson has another purpose: It’s a collective land acknowledgment at the start of the quarter. “And since we’re not in class, you won’t be spitting on anyone.” The apostrophe in the middle of the word is a glottal stop, she adds, like when you briefly pause in the middle of the phrase “uh-oh.” A cacophony of voices ping-pongs around the Zoom room as the students try it out:īunn-Marcuse smiles in acknowledgment of the chaos, and promptly asks everyone to mute themselves. Along the way, there may have been encounters with wildlife, exchanges of memories and laughs, or introspective thoughts and new understandings that only the allure of mountains, cliffs, and seas can bring about.“To say this barred ‘L’ at the end, you put the tip of your tongue on the roof of your mouth, behind your teeth, and you blow air out the side,” she says. It may have been a moment of solitude or one shared with dear friends. This idea was then brought back to Tanya’s Squamish art studio to be painted to bring the outdoors into your homes. There was an adventure that brought the West Coast artist here, a moment where the landscape spoke to her, a flash of inspiration that sparked an idea. Inspired by the rugged and mysterious beauty, each of Tanya Stewart’s nature oil paintings of the Pacific Northwest and the West Coast of Canada has a story behind it. The fluidity and feel of oil paintings conveys the natural world in a stunning way, accurately illustrating its beauty while adding a little extra dash of wonder. ![]() There’s something special about painting with oils that is hard to explain to those who have yet to pick up a brush. Looking for oil paintings of British Columbia’s West Coast and the Pacific Northwest? You’ve come to the right place! Tanya Stewart’s oil paintings, created at Stewart Art Studio in Coeur D’Alene, Idaho, are inspired by all the stories this side of the natural world has to tell.
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