Tlingit Seaweed
Merino wool, silk, cedar bark. Wall hanging, 9″ X 15″, 2023. Collection of the Burke Museum.
Chilkat weavings have traditionally most often depicted animals, to tell a story or evoke the spirit of that animal in its dancer. For the past four years, I’ve had a solid practice in evoking specific energies into my life to increase my strength and authenticity in order to believe in my goals and carry them out to the end. I’m really tired. I now need archetypes that do NOT hustle and talismans that breathe deeply. So, I’ve been finding myself drawing, painting, and now weaving plants. I need plant energy.
We might not consider how important seaweed is to this world — how there is far more seaweed in the oceans than there are plants on land, and how seaweed feeds all the little critters that don’t eat other fish but do get EATEN by bigger fish. It is the foundational nutrient of the sea. It represents that underworld that most of us don’t spend too much time thinking about yet is always there. Just like our own inner worlds.