{"id":5440,"date":"2015-07-30T00:40:09","date_gmt":"2015-07-30T00:40:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.clarissarizal.com\/blogblog\/?p=5440"},"modified":"2015-07-30T00:59:33","modified_gmt":"2015-07-30T00:59:33","slug":"1964-carving-by-amos-wallace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.clarissarizal.com\/blog\/2015\/07\/1964-carving-by-amos-wallace\/","title":{"rendered":"Watching Over Me: A Carving by the late Amos Wallace"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"A<\/a>

A sculpture of a human wearing a Chilkat robe and cedar bark neckring by the late Tlingit carver Amos Wallace in 1964<\/p><\/div>\n

While talking with the owner of the Haa Shagoon Gallery in downtown Juneau, in the middle of the conversation I suddenly turned around. \u00a0I wasn’t even sure what I was looking for; just pure instinct led my eyes to this sculpture that totally caught my fancy. \u00a0Why? \u00a0I’m not sure, but as soon as I saw this figure I felt so compelled that it had to go home with a local, not a tourist, that I immediately called Amos’ grand-daughter and my friend, Donna Beaver Pizzarelli. \u00a0With no answer and worried that a tourist would buy the sculpture, I snatched up this 8″ tall mold of a carving by Amos Wallace made in\u00a01964 and I have it placed in a prestigious location: \u00a0next to my weaving loom. \u00a0This figure watches over me as I work. \u00a0It’s great to have the company!<\/p>\n

This small sculpture is a cast made of a plaster-like compound that gives it the appearance of wood or a stone called argillite. \u00a0Manufactured by a company called Griffin’s Alaska based in Edmonds, Washington State between the years of 1964-67, they had a complete line of bowls and totems which are frequently mistaken for stone. \u00a0Even the weight of this little guy feels like stone.<\/p>\n

Amos Wallace was one of less than a handful of local Tlingit carvers here in Juneau, Alaska in the 1940’s until a few years before his passing in 2004. \u00a0I grew up in the Russian Orthodox Church where\u00a0he and his wife, Dorothy Wallace sang in the choir. \u00a0It wasn’t until recently I discovered from his son Brian that Amos was of the Raven Moiety, T’akdeintaan Clan of Hoonah, which is also my clan! \u00a0A gentle, soft-spoken man, his name was Jeet Yaaw Dustaa. \u00a0 Born in 1920, his older brother \u00a0Lincoln Wallace, was also a carver.<\/p>\n

Read the Juneau Empire article about Sealaska Heritage Institute receiving a collection of Amos’ drawings for their archives donated by Amos’ son, Brian Wallace at: \u00a0http:\/\/juneauempire.com\/art\/2012-07-12\/amos-wallace-collection-donated-walter-soboleff-center\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While talking with the owner of the Haa Shagoon Gallery in downtown Juneau, in the middle of the conversation I suddenly turned around. \u00a0I wasn’t even sure what I was looking for; just pure instinct led my eyes to this sculpture that totally caught my fancy. \u00a0Why? \u00a0I’m not sure, but as soon as I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[19,150],"tags":[90,62,259,7,52,100],"class_list":["post-5440","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-honoring-others","category-tools-of-the-trade","tag-alaska-native-art","tag-alaskan-artists","tag-amos-wallace","tag-chilkat","tag-chilkat-weaving","tag-native-american-art"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clarissarizal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5440","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clarissarizal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clarissarizal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clarissarizal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clarissarizal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5440"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.clarissarizal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5440\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5445,"href":"https:\/\/www.clarissarizal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5440\/revisions\/5445"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clarissarizal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5440"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clarissarizal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5440"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clarissarizal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5440"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}