lessLIE: spindle wHOLE

lessLIE's painted meditations reflect upon changes in culture and tradition within Coast Salish communities. Featuring innovative compositions on linen canvas inspired by spindle whorl designs

Spindle wHOLE

spindle wHOLE is a temporally holistic visual meditation on Coast Salish spindle whorls. On one hand, some of the paintings in this exhibition are an affirmation of the historic and contemporary cultural value of spindle whorls within Coast Salish culture. Within traditional Coast Salish culture were weaving implements utilized to spin the wool of wealth, and create a woven currency within Salish societies. While creating this Coast Salish currency in the form of weavings, Coast Salish spindle whorls, were traditionally carved by men for women to weave with, spindle whorls also affirmed respectful relationships between men and women in Salish society (as cathARTically reflected in "we've.")

 Beyond the spirit of spindle whorls, "spindle wHOLE" is also a visual meditation on the vitality and viability of contemporary Coast Salish culture. Since one definition of culture is what people do, carving spindle whorls and weaving wool of wealth is not what many contemporary Coast Salish people do. Coast Salish culture, amongst the most urban of First Nations cultures, is not static. Coast Salish people or New Age beLIEvers or racist Canadians should not perceive Coast Salish culture as culturally static. So from this perspective spindle whorls (although iconic) are not the wHOLE Coast Salish world.

 In the spirit
 of spindle whorls
 contemporary
 Coast Salish artists
 designing spindle whorls
 as if this was
 our enTIRED cultural world
 "privileging the past."

 in the spirit of spindle whorls
 the poetic motif
 of my oeuvre