Susan Point

Susan A. Point is a Coast Salish artist from Musqueam, a First Nation in Vancouver, British Columbia. Born in 1952, from childhood Susan has been taught the traditional values of her culture and legends of her people by her many aunts and uncles, but above all by her late mother, Edna Grant-Point, and her late uncle, Dominic Point.

Susan began her artistic career in January 1981 designing and creating gold/silver jewellery. At this time, Coast Salish art was an almost lost art form (due to European contact) therefore much of the native artwork produced and sold through various galleries and museums consisted of northern First Nations art. Eager to learn more about her own peoples art style, Susan chose to concentrate on the traditional designs and elements created by her ancestral artisans.

Through research and consultation with various museums and libraries (both in Canada and the U.S.), Susan began her study on the design and art style of traditional Coast Salish artifacts. Consulting with her uncle, Professor Michael Kew, at the University of British Columbia, who focused in “Coast Salish Art and Culture”, Susan then began her career as a Coast Salish artist (representing “all” of her Coast Salish peoples) creating designs reflecting traditional images of the past in jewellery, limited edition serigraphs, and paintings … taken from the spindle whorl which is a disk, elaborately carved, which was used in the spinning of wool by Coast Salish women.

Coast Salish women have used the spindle whorl for centuries to spin their mountain goat wool into yarn. The oldest whorls discovered by archaeologists were carved from stone.

Shell, bone, and whale vertebra were also used, but wood became the most common material from which they were made. Spindle whorls consist of a circular disk and a center pole. They came in various shapes and sizes; the size of the disk and the center pole determined the thickness of the diameter for the strands of yarn.

Ironically, although Susan researched and tried to understand the art style of her ancestors, her very first two-dimensional image using the silkscreen process was a “contemporary” print entitled “Salmon”.

Over the past 3 decades, Susan has been instrumental in re-establishing Coast Salish art both in Canada and the United States … drawing inspiration from the images of her ancestors and commencing the use of non-traditional materials and techniques in paper, glass, bronze, wood, concrete, polymer, stainless steel, and cast iron; Inspiring a whole new generation of Northwest Coast artists. Susan’s biggest reward has been the opportunity to meet elders and teachers from other communities around the world, and to see the current renaissance in Coast Salish art and culture.

As a result of Susan’s willingness, drive, and love of experimentation, she has been awarded numerous public art commissions, including building facades and large sculptures in Canada and the U.S. To name a few, these large scale works welcome visitors at the Vancouver International Airport, Stanley Park in Vancouver, B.C., the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C., the U.B.C. Museum of Anthropology as well as numerous public buildings and corporate developments paying tribute to the native peoples that once inhabited these lands as well as all peoples from the four corners of the earth (past, present and future) who also share and inhabit these same lands. Susan also has collections worldwide in various museums as well as within homes of private clientele.

For Susan’s hard work over the years, in educating all people on Coast Salish art, which is unique to the lower mainland of Vancouver, the southern tip of Vancouver Island and the North Coast of Washington State, she has been awarded the Order of Canada, in addition to a National Aboriginal Achievement Award, a YWCA Woman of Distinction Award, a B.C. Creative Achievement Award, appointed to the Royal Academy of Arts, was elected to the International Women’s Forum, and has received four Honorary Doctorates from the University of Victoria, Simon Fraser University, University of B.C. and Emily Carr University of Art and Design.

Susan Point

Selected Exhibitions

1985 The Northwest Coast Native Print, Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, Victoria, BC

1986 New Visions - Serigraphs by Susan A. Point, UBC Museum of Anthropology, Vancouver, BC (Solo Travelling Exhibit)

1986 Salish Images - Tribute to Salish Art, UBC Museum of Anthropology, Vancouver, BC

1988 In the Shadow of the Sun, Canadian Museum of Civilization, Ottawa, Ontario (Travelling Exhibit)

1989 Susan A. Point, Joe David, Lawrence Paul, Indianische Kunstler der Westkuste Kanadas, Volkerkundemuseum der Universitat Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland

1989 Beyond Revival, Emily Carr College of Art, Charles Scott Gallery, Vancouver, BC

1990 From Periphery to Center, Thunder Bay Art Gallery, Thunder Bay, Ontario

1990 Salish Point, Canadian Museum of Civilization, Ottawa, Ontario (Solo Exhibit)

1992 Here Today, Open Space Gallery, Victoria, BC

1992 Museu Da Gravura Cidade De Curitiba, Curitiba, Parana, Brasil

1993 Mythological Creatures of the Northwest, Stonington Gallery, Seattle, Washington

1994 Bit Im Presseclub, Zeitgenossische Kunst der Indianer der Nordwestkuste Kanada, Bonn, Germany

1994 Exhibition of Northwest Coast Indian Art, Nordamerican Indian Museum, Zurich, Switzerland

1995 The 6th Native American Fine Arts Invitational, The Heard Museum, Phoenix, Arizona

1995 Expressions of Spirit: Contemporary American Indian Art, Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian, Santa Fe, New Mexico

1996 Topographies: Aspects of Recent B.C. Art, Vancouver Art Gallery, Vancouver, BC

1996 Written in the Earth, UBC Museum of Anthropology, Vancouver, BC

1997 River Deep - Mountain High, St. Fergus Gallery, Wick, Scotland (Travelling Exhibit)

1999 Susan A. Point Exhibition, Arctic Raven Gallery, Friday Harbour, Washington

1999 Vision Keepers, Alcheringa Gallery, Victoria, BC

1999 Susan Point, Motherland Gallery, Fukuoka, Japan (Solo Exhibit)

2000 New Art of the West 7, Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art, Indianapolis, Indiana

2000 Susan Point - Coast Salish Artist, Spirit Wrestler Gallery, 8 Water Street, Vancouver, BC (Solo Exhibit)

2001 Long Time, Vancouver Art Gallery, Vancouver, BC

2002 Fusing Traditions, Museum of Craft and Folk Art, San Francisco, California (Travelling Exhibit)

2003 Kiwa: Pacific Connections, Spirit Wrestler Gallery, Vancouver BC

2004 Clearly Tradition: Glass in American Indian Art, The Glass Gallery, Bethesda, Maryland

2005 Awakenings; A Gathering of Contemporary Coast Salish Artists, The Stonington Gallery, Seattle, Washington

2006 Manawa - Pacific Heartbeat, Spirit Wrestler Gallery, Vancouver, BC

2006 Past to Present, Equniox Gallery, Vancouver, BC

2006 First Nations: Myths and Realities, Vancouver Art Gallery, Vancouver, BC

2006 Peripheral Visions, Arctic Raven Gallery, Friday Harbour (Solo Exhibit)

2010 Giving Traditions, Alcheringa Gallery, Victoria, BC

2010 Pacific Patterns and Dreamings, Group Exhibition, Alcheringa Gallery, Victoria, BC

2011 Pacific Prints 2011, Alcheringa Gallery, Victoria, BC

2011 Gallery Artists: Focus on Fibres, Alcheringa Gallery, Victoria, BC

AWARDS

April 7, 2000: Awarded an Honorary Doctorate in Fine Arts by the University of Victoria, Victoria, BC

May 25, 2000: Awarded YWCA Woman of Distinction Award in the Arts and Culture Category

April 4, 2004: Awarded National Aboriginal Achievement Award for achievement in Visual Arts by the National Aboriginal Achievement Foundation

October 2006: Awarded the Order of Canada

APPOINTMENTS

January 1985 - December 1994: Elected Council Member for the Musqueam First Nation, Vancouver, BC

June 10, 1992 - July 31, 1998: Appointed to the Board of Directors for the Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design, Vancouver, BC

May 1 - May 14, 2001: Delegation member (visual artist) of State Visit of the Governor General of Canada to Argentina and Chile

March 2004: Appointed to The Royal Canadian Academy of Art

VIEW SHORT BIOGRAPHY