Campus Classes
SHI offers instruction on Northwest Coast art at the Sealaska Heritage Arts Campus in Juneau. The program provides beginning, intermediate, and advanced training to individuals interested in learning about these unique and culturally rich art forms. Led by experienced instructors, these classes offer teachings in a wide variety of subjects, including basket weaving, beading, formline design, metal engraving, skin sewing, spruce-root and cedar-bark harvesting, tool making, and wood carving. The classes are part of SHI’s goal to establish a bachelor's degree in Northwest Coast art through its partners, the University of Alaska Southeast (UAS) and the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Many of the classes at the campus may be taken for college credit through UAS, which offers an Associate of Arts (AA) degree with an emphasis on Northwest Coast arts.
Master-Apprentice System
SHI sponsors master-apprenticeships to perpetuate and revitalize Northwest Coast art, especially endangered traditions, such as spruce-root weaving and dugout canoe carving. The program was fostered at SHI's first Native Artists Gathering, which brought together nearly 30 artists in 2015 who identified the most imperiled Northwest Coast Native art traditions. This traditional method of training younger artists still provides the best instruction.
Designated Artist’ Spaces
SHI operates an artist-in-residence study room at the Walter Soboleff Building named after master artist Delores Churchill to encourage the study of NWC art. Artists have access to SHI’s extensive ethnographic collection for study while they are in residence. SHI also hosts artists at its Sealaska Heritage Arts Campus and accommodates artists working on large-scale projects, such as totem poles and dugout canoes.
Yellow and Red Cedar (Ts’úu Isgyáan Sgahláang)
For hundreds of years, the ocean and the forest have provided life sustaining resources for the Haida people of Southeast Alaska. Using red and yellow cedar trees they made their homes, canoes, clothing, tools, dishes, baskets and monument poles.
Canoes (Tlúu)
Canoes represent unity and teamwork, strength training and health, as well as being a sophisticated art form and symbol of cultural identity. In this unit students learn what makes objects move and understand how they move. Central understandings include the concepts of friction, gravity, force, and the movement of sound waves.
Canoes (Yaakwx’)
Canoes were the primary mode of transportation used by the people of Southeast Alaska for hundreds of years. Tlingit people use canoes and other watercraft to support their coastal lifestyle, to gather resources, and for basic transportation.
Instructional Books
SHI published the three-book series Tlingit Wood Carving, which includes step-by-step instructions on how to make a traditional Tlingit tray, hat, and mask. Learn the ancient Tlingit tradition of wood carving with artist Richard A. Beasley. You'll also learn how to inlay abalone and opercula into the wood. Learn techniques used for millennia by some of the world's most accomplished artists-the Tlingit of Southeast Alaska.
Instructional Videos
SHI has posted numerous videos online, including a two-day formline workshop taught by Steve Brown, ovoid construction with David R. Boxley using Adobe Illustrator, and how-to video series showing spruce root weaving in practice, from harvesting the roots to weaving and finishing the basket, as well as some time talking with Delores Churchill, a master Haida weaver. This series was created to help revive the endangered art form of spruce root weaving and features several apprentices. The video documentation was gifted to SHI by Lindblad Expeditions as a way to give back to the cultures that their clients (tourists) are exposed to. Instructional videos on how to make horn spoons were created in an effort to save this endangered Northwest Coast art practice. Horn spoon instructor Steve Brown narrates the videos. Videos are posted online on our YouTube channel and on our Vimeo page.