A Native American, Pacific Northwest Coast story tells how once it was so dark here that the People sent Raven and Mink to bring back light. Artworks by Mare Blocker, Carl Chew, Ron Hilbert Coy, and J.T. Stewart located throughout the Kenneth S. Allen Library are parts of a contemporary retelling of this story. In this retelling, light symbolizes the Library’s collected knowledge.
Raven Brings Light to this House of Stories is a project of the Washington State Arts Commission, Art in Public Places Program in partnership with the University of Washington. The title of the work can be found written along the southeast wall in the Ground Floor Lobby, Allen North. It is in Lushootseed and English. Lushootseed speaking people are the Native Americans ancestral to where Seattle is today.
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Title of the exhibit |
Phonetic representations of sounds in Lushootseed |
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Raven brings light
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The installation includes:
- Ravens and Crows
By the artist team. In the Lobby and throughout the Library. - Table of Knowledge
A cedar table by Ron Hilbert Coy celebrating the passage of knowledge from one generation to the next. In the Lobby. - Presentations from the International Symposium of Light
A book by the artists, printed and bound by Mare Blocker. In the Lobby on the Table of Knowledge. - Broadsides
Poems by J.T. Stewart, printed by Mare Blocker. In the Lobby, and 2nd Floor Bridge between Allen North and South Wings. - Study Desks
Two Cawpets by Carl Chew. Balcony 1st Floor Allen North, and 3rd Floor Allen South. - Things the Crows Left
Special Collections.
Mare Blocker is an artist book maker and publisher from Jerome, Arizona.
Rug designer and manufacturer Carl Chew, artist, carver, and story teller Ron Hilbert Coy, and literary artist and instructor J.T. Stewart reside in Seattle.
More about this exhibit and related information:
- Lushootseed dictionary / Dawn Bates, Thom Hess, Vi Hilbert; edited by Dawn Bates.
Seattle : University of Washington Press, c1994. - Northwest coast texts : [stealing light] edited by Barry F. Carlson.
University of Chicago Press, 1997. - Whulshootseed Language
- Contact Special Collections