A little history of the totem:
The lower third is a representation of me and my life. I chose to be
represented by the white Northern Jack fish swimming low at the
bottom of the lakes but winding through
greenery and drift wood, in other words drifting through known and
unknown waters. The mountains and sky are just above.
On the second level and middle level is Susan represented by a white
wolf running in the harvest moon light. Sometimes it looks like the
she wolf is chasing her tail but it is the
force and the determination that I wanted to portray.
The head on portrait of a polar bear and paw is found in the top
third and it represents Alison. She is the most traditional likes to
keep order. But the bear is happy and its mouth
could be the opening through which the birth process takes place. In
the potlatch houses the door of the building was often the mouth of
an animal.
The piece is pulled together by a fourth piece which secures on the
top like a plug. It was made of 4 vessels and each one was cut out
of the original form and pieced together to
create a hocker. The hocker is the oldest form of a man represented
object ( I call it a feman) It is found in just about all first
nations peoples although it is carved and embelished
differently in each case. In this case my feman hocker is the
guiding force of the 3 sisters. She has a sunflower/ or brown eyed
susan on the one side or it could look like a feather
head dress from the other. The face is smooth and ageless as all
mother figures should be.
Now each section is a vessel thrown and carved in its own right and
the final totem does not work without all the sections. So each
piece becomes equal which is very important
to insist on in a family heirarchy of femen.
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