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postings related to the maintenance of welcome figures.com

Chief Shelton Story Pole

For years I have worked to bring awareness to the first peoples of Western Washington and been a huge fan of Chief William Shelton. Granted my grandmother heralds from Tulalip so I have bias, even still this man made a mark on making a difference in his body of work. Today, I'm coordinating with the Burke Museum and Hibulb cultural museum to take a trip to an off site storage facility where the pole was delivered to Seattle from Chicago.

You might be asking yourself, why am I talking about a Story Pole on a welcome figure page? Well, it's because it's about the regional sculpture. Story poles were part of a movement created to preserve Western Washington Salish mythology. In the turn of the 20th century totem poles were the rage due to the Alaska gold rush and Seattle as the go between for people venturing that way. This trend never died and to this day people identify totem poles as a Native Washington phenomena.

At any rate I will be going to see the pole soon and hopefully get some footage of William Shelton's grandson Wayne Williams at the site with some potential insight about the poles history. Stay tuned.

   It's been over three years now! On the 13th this year which was last Friday the welcome figure in downtown Tacoma was officially standing for three years passing it's day of dedication. A lot has happened since then but I was recently asked to speak at a Rotary meeting downtown where I was able to speak to locals about it's significance. In recent months the Tacoma totem in Fireman's park has had a lot of press and I held my tongue for some time to gain some clarity on what I should say. I posted about that on my personal website and that post can be found here in case you are interested. However, I will say in summary what I shared that day. Tacoma's totem pole was commissioned to one up it's rival but in so doing continued to mislead the public to believe that totems were a long tradition in Washington Native history which was not so. Atop this, the pole has a murky history that has a lot of holes in the story on who carved it, where and what the figures represent. At least in Seattle's Pioneer pole stolen as it may have been it had a legit origin that was clear. What I shared with business people of Tacoma speaking last week is that the welcome figure across from the Tacoma art Museum has a story that is clearly for all to read on Pacific Avenue. It comes from a tradition to welcome people into a territory that dates over 500 years. It is the tallest figure free of exterior supports (24 feet) and the first of it's kind to have an internal steel structure. And what I pride myself in knowing is that it was carved by a Native who descends from the very village from which it stands.