Art-Making Activity: Coast Salish Designs

INTRODUCTION

Susan Point is a Coast Salish artist from Musqueam First Nation. Coast Salish territories include what is now known as British Columbia in Canada and Washington and Oregon in the United States. Point works in wood, glass, paper and screen printing and she employs stylized Coast Salish designs, which incorporate forms like ovals, circles, crescents, and trigons (or triangular shape).   

Look closely at the work, Butterfly Whorl, by Susan Point below. 

Do you see a butterfly?  Butterflies are a common symbol employed by Point in her sculptures. According to the artist, they represent change and balance.   

Coast Salish artists use their cultural designs to create abstract patterns or illustrate animal and human figures, relying on positive and negative space to create images.  

In Butterfly Whorl, Point is referencing wooden spindle whorls used in Coast Salish weaving, a culturally significant artform traditionally done by women. Coast Salish weavers use whorls that, like Butterfly Whorl, are often intricately carved with designs or images, to spin their own yarn for textiles like blankets. 

“I am mostly inspired by nature and our connected ‘human spirit,’”

—Susan Point  

Feeling inspired by Susan Point’s Butterfly Whorl? Continue reading to create your own Coast Salish-inspired design! 

CREATE

Materials

• Paper 
• Pencil (Graphite and Colored pencil) 
• String 

Instructions