{"id":890,"date":"2010-11-17T12:00:39","date_gmt":"2010-11-17T08:00:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.clarissarizal.com\/blogblog\/?p=890"},"modified":"2010-11-17T08:09:37","modified_gmt":"2010-11-17T04:09:37","slug":"how-northwest-tlingit-form-line-art-came-to-be","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.clarissarizal.com\/blog\/2010\/11\/how-northwest-tlingit-form-line-art-came-to-be\/","title":{"rendered":"Ever Wonder How Northwest Tlingit Form Line Art Came to Be"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The obvious "Split U-shape!"<\/p><\/div>\n

Have you ever wondered how the\u00a0 unique Northwest Coast Tlingit form line art came to be?\u00a0 Ever wonder where and when it started?\u00a0 Look at the photograph above.\u00a0 The clouds were shaped like a “split U” against the forest.\u00a0 (Any of you who understand the terminology of the form line art will understand it when I say the terms like “ovoid” (the oval shape), “split U” (a shape of a U that has a split down its center), etc.}\u00a0 The split-U shape in this photo was the real thing!–As I have mentioned before, I do not tamper or enhance any of my photographs on my blog.<\/p>\n

I have a theory about the origins of the Tlingit art.\u00a0 It is a “natural” theory – meaning:\u00a0 it came naturally through nature, just like the photograph above. \u00a0 My theory is Northwest Coast Native form line art evolved from Nature.\u00a0 The following is a story I made up to support my theory:<\/p>\n

“There was a modest pile of split cedar logs near the campfire where he sat.\u00a0 He was relaxing after a full day of fishing.\u00a0 His belly was full of fresh salmon and herring eggs. The wife was putting the kids to sleep and she probably feel asleep too, or else she would have joined him by now.\u00a0 He stoked the fire.\u00a0 Identical colors of the sunset tied rolled in reflecting the same kind of fluid motion as the fire.\u00a0 As if sunset, tide and fire were one.\u00a0 As if the fire were imitating the sea’s sunset.\u00a0 As if the sunset were an act to be imitated!\u00a0 And as if the sea eve cared! – He was delighted and amused with the awesome view and his lazy insights.<\/p>\n

His mind rolled with the tide, soft movements of wondering left no place for a thought to truly rest.\u00a0 he put some more wood on the fire.\u00a0 Just as he was about to place another piece into the flames, he noticed the grain of wood.\u00a0 It seemed no different than any other pieces of wood he had handled, he had built many, many campfires, yet for some reason, he was attracted to this one.\u00a0 he placed it on a rock before him.\u00a0\u00a0 In the firelight, he could see the grain of wood layered as if the waves along the shoreline were intentionally imprinted:\u00a0 “What? ”\u00a0 He thought to himself, “Now the grain of this wood, the fire, the sunset and the ocean are all one?”\u00a0 He laughed.\u00a0 he stoked the fire with his stick.\u00a0 “How come the world has to be in unison, how come it seems everything is related, how come human beings seem to be the aliens? ”\u00a0 he began poking the piece of wood that lay between he and the fire.<\/p>\n

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With the end of the fire stick, he poked the ashes and doodled mindlessly on the split log...He just followed the grain...naturally...and before he realized, there was this form...hmm... now what does that remind you of?<\/p><\/div>\n

The tip of the stick followed the grain, leaving a trail of charcoal following the lazy lines that he felt in his mind.\u00a0 he liked the fluid movement.\u00a0 He put the stick into the fire again, gaining more charcoal at the tip, and began darkening other areas, giving contrast to areas he hadn’t ever really noticed before.\u00a0 “Whoa!\u00a0 That’s cool, like, check this out!”\u00a0 he could see where lines widened, where they tapered, where they flowed in a motion around one another.\u00a0 He continued to play with making some areas darker than others as well as leaving some as they natural became, just lines and blobs.\u00a0 Suddenly, there was a cracking sound in the forest behind him.\u00a0 He froze.\u00a0 He waited for a few seconds.\u00a0 He turned slowly towards where the sound came but did not look.\u00a0 He arose slowly, walked a few steps inside his home where he felt safe in his nice warm bed.<\/p>\n

In the morning, his children were poking at the embers.\u00a0 He remembered his “journey” from the night before and searched for the piece of wood.\u00a0 He thought he left it where he first set it on the rock between where he sat and the fire pit.\u00a0 Where did it get to?\u00a0 Huh, even the stoking stick was gone!\u00a0 He asked his kids if they had moved the piece of wood from the rock.\u00a0 The replied “What wood?”\u00a0 Confused, they looked about the rock; all they could find were a pair of footprint impressions in the sand, impressions like that of a Raven!”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Have you ever wondered how the\u00a0 unique Northwest Coast Tlingit form line art came to be?\u00a0 Ever wonder where and when it started?\u00a0 Look at the photograph above.\u00a0 The clouds were shaped like a “split U” against the forest.\u00a0 (Any of you who understand the terminology of the form line art will understand it when […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[23,91,50],"tags":[90,100,98],"class_list":["post-890","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-photo-essays-of-alaska","category-eagles-and-ravens","category-tlingit-cultural-events","tag-alaska-native-art","tag-native-american-art","tag-northwest-coast-tlingit-native-art"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clarissarizal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/890","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\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clarissarizal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=890"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/www.clarissarizal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/890\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":893,"href":"https:\/\/www.clarissarizal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/890\/revisions\/893"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clarissarizal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=890"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clarissarizal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=890"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clarissarizal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=890"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}