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Earlier this month, I ran away to Newport, Ore., with a longtime friend for an annual getaway to catch up with each other over meals and work in an upstairs/downstairs condo the rest of the time. These getaways have given me uninterrupted time to finish personal writing projects — Washington Territory’s Grand Lady, The Reluctant Pioneer, and Shattered Peace.
I had hoped to make progress on my next novel but spent all week editing three other books so we could launch them this month — The Grace Writers, a cozy women’s fiction debut novel by Heather Alexander of Olympia; Silver Wings Falling Down, the true story of a World War II B-24 bomber pilot written by his niece, storyteller Yvonne Kays of Bend, Ore.; and Son of Bigfoot, a delightful memoir by Michael Wallace of Castle Rock that shares stories of his father’s lifelong avocation perpetrating and perpetuating the Bigfoot hoax and his life growing up in logging camps and later in Toledo, Bellingham, and Colorado.
Because I was gone, I missed attending a presentation by Andrea Wilbur-Sigo of Shelton, Wash., a Native American artist. She shared her gifts for woodcarving, beadwork, and weaving with members of the Lewis County chapter of the American Association of University Women Oct. 2 at Westminster Presbyterian Church in Chehalis. But I’m fortunate her presentation was recorded, so I watched it to share her stories with readers. And Donna Loucks graciously took photos.
Wilbur-Sigo was born in Seattle in 1975 into the Squaxin Island Tribe, known as People of the Water because they traditionally lived along the shores of the southernmost inlets of the Salish Sea. That sea includes the Puget Sound, Strait of Juan de Fuca, and Strait of Georgia. She also has ties to the Suquamish, Nisqually, and other tribes.
At the age of three, she learned to do beadwork and later acquired skills as a weaver and a woodcarver. She has created bentwood boxes, welcome figures, masks, panels and house posts, button blankets, twill weaving, and basket weaving. Her artwork, which is displayed throughout the Pacific Northwest, has won first-place and people’s choice awards at competitions throughout the region since she entered her second show in May 1998.
Wilbur-Sigo, who spoke about the sacredness of the cedar tree, teaches Coast Salish art classes to children and adults throughout the Northwest. She discussed the rich multigenerational “living” museum at the University of British Columbia filled with Native American and First Nations artifacts.
“What people don’t realize, every one of those pieces is our written history,” she said. “Our written language is in every one of our pieces. They continue to teach us.”
She has worked with engineers, archaeologists, and professors writing books and teaching college classes about the tools used by indigenous people. These tools for carving, weaving, and other artwork can’t be purchased at the store, but they’re part of a rich tribal history.
Wilbur-Sigo described herself as a wife, mother, and grandmother. She spoke of her great-great-grandfather Henry Allen, who preserved the tribe’s history and culture.
“Did they ever realize that I was going to be standing here today doing exactly what they have been doing probably the seven generations prior to that in our tribe?” she said. “We like to say we only speak in the next seven generations. There isn’t a day goes by that I’m not thinking of how what I do is affecting my grandchildren. Am I doing and saying the right things?”
She has served 25 years on the Squaxin Island Tribal Museum board to make sure the story is told correctly.
“We’re working together to preserve what needs to be preserved,” she said, noting her involvement in preserving stories of fishing and treaty rights and overseeing budgets, education, and other departments.
“How am I changing it for the next generation? What are we needing? What am I teaching? And I like to think the Creator put me here to teach just that.”
Indigenous people suffered after colonization by Europeans who banned them from speaking their language, performing their dances, or sharing their artwork.
“Boarding schools took a toll on a lot of our people,” she said.
But Native people are growing healthier and working together to embrace their heritage.
When she was 16, Wilbur-Sigo dropped out of high school to marry, and she gave birth to her first of seven children at 17. She later obtained her GED and wants to encourage her children and grandchildren to pursue an education. In fact, when her daughter was the first in her family to graduate from high school (and later college), she created a fully hand-dyed twined blanket to wrap around her for the ceremony. The blanket won first place and people’s choice awards in 2016 from the International Salish Wool Weavers Symposium in Suquamish, Wash.
Twenty years ago, elders encouraged her to hone her carving skills to pass down Native stories. Her parents, Andy and Ruth Peterson, taught her along with her grandfathers, Bert Wilbur and Dennis Allen, and her great-uncle, Pete Peterson.
“I love yellow cedar, and it carves okay,” she said. “It carves like butter sideways, but I love it.”
Wilbur-Sigo said she wants her artwork to represent all Native people. She has taught many people how to weave baskets, carve boxes and totems, and string together beads.
“My job is to know the Salish art form,” she said.
She spoke about the artwork of Bill Reid, a native of Victoria, B.C., the son of a Haida mother and American father who worked as a radio broadcaster and began exploring his native roots at 23. Much of his artwork is preserved in the Bill Reid Gallery of Northwest Coast Art in Vancouver, B.C.
A deep respect for the environment and nature resonated in her words as she spoke about a longhouse near Little Bear Creek at Brightwater near Woodinville, Wash., and bringing to life the Strong Man and Salmon People, an eight-foot piece created from 14 pieces of yellow cedar sewn together, for Little Creek Casino near Shelton. Her work is also displayed at the Squaxin Museum in the Veterans Memorial Garden, the Salish Cliffs golf course, the Suquamish Tribe near Silverdale, the Washington State Convention Center, and a cruise terminal at the Port of Seattle.
“That’s the key,” she said. “It’s keeping the old days. Those are our roots. But you have to add to those roots. We are a living culture.”
Although she works with guidance from her ancestors, as part of a living culture, she adapts new technology to her work, including chainsaws, digitization of sketches, and laser etching. While she prefers to draw with a pencil, her children and grandchildren draw on computers and phones with their fingers, incorporating traditional elements while adapting to new technology.
“That’s what really culture does,” she said. “That’s what we’re supposed to do. But remember where we came from and remember who we came from.”
Another piece of her artwork, the grandfather octopus, represents the seven generations of his babies that he cares for, “and when he flaps his tentacles, the stars come up,” she said. “It reaches the phosphorus.”
Most of her artwork is sold or given away.
“I don’t have artwork that usually stays around my house,” she said. “My kids get it, and then people like you.”
For grass weaving, she suggested asking Hazel Pete’s family where and how to harvest the best grasses for weaving.
Native American culture has always fascinated me, and I’m happy to see indigenous people embracing their rich heritage through artwork, education, and storytelling.
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Julie McDonald, a personal historian from Toledo, may be reached at memoirs@chaptersoflife.com.
