Eight-year-old Dylan Adams, left, of Belfair learns how to do Coast Salish tribal weaving from Susan Pavel of Skokomish, who is married to a Skokomish Tribal member. The weaving was to be given to Al Adams of the salmon center. (LARRY STEAGALL | KITSAP SUN)

via In Belfair, Saying Thanks to the Salmon » Kitsap Sun.

From The Stranger:

Susan Pavel, du’kWXaXa’t3w3l (Sacred Change for Each Other), 2007

No list like this would make any sense without native art, and yet most everything that passes for the native art of Seattle is actually art from hundreds of miles north of here. Only in the last few decades have the Salish-speaking people, the real native people of this coastal-turned-urban region, begun to reclaim their lost and undervalued traditions. This mountain-goat-hair robe—the first such robe to be made in a century—woven and hand dyed with native plants by Susan Pavel, is not just a robe: It is a she, a feminine entity with a mission, as one Skokomish spiritual leader says. She (robe) commemorates the “sacred change” of rediscovering Salish ways and is meant to inspire future generations. The vertical dashes are backbones, urging strength even in struggle; the tied ends on the robe’s fringes are a reminder not to leave things undone. She is a soft monument.

From the Seattle Times Jan 28, 2007:

Revered elder Vi Hilbert of the Upper Skagit tribe, seated, is assisted by Susan Pavel in donning the Coast Salish mountain-goat-hair blanket Pavel wove. Photo by Alan Berner - Seattle Times

With prayer and song, tribal members from around the region Saturday named and blessed the first known hand-twined mountain-goat-hair blanket made in Puget Sound country in generations.

The art was retained by a few master weavers, including the late Bruce Miller, a Skokomish spiritual leader known as subiyay, who passed the art on to his apprentice, Susan Pavel. Pavel, who made the blanket, brought it out in a joyous ceremony at the longhouse at The Evergreen State College. The one-of-a-kind blanket will hang in the new addition of the Seattle Art Museum, which is scheduled to open in May. Read More »