Behind the Northwest Coast’s Ferociously Feminist Masks
The masks at the Audain Art Museum’s new exhibit are vivid visions of ferocious femininity. One shows a woman with salmon woven into her hair. Another features a figure with a sharp, beak-like nose, morphing into an eagle spirit. And yet another depicts a woman who’s half-human, half-shark. Featuring the work of 14 Indigenous women carvers from the Northwest Coast, the exhibit spans 80 years of artistry. Curators Dana Claxton, an artist from Wood Mountain Lakota First Nations in Saskatchewan, and Curtis Collins, the museum’s director and chief curator, selected more than 130 sculptures for the show, including totem poles, panels and bowls carved from wood and argillite, a dense black rock found in the Haida Gwaii archipelago.
More than 60 of the works on display are masks, which are often used as ritual objects in potlatch ceremonies and dances, where wearers embody animals, ancestral spirits or supernatural beings. Today, carvers are also creating masks for the market, where they’re finally getting recognition as works of high art.
Carving on the Northwest Coast stretches back around 5,000 years, but the practice was nearly lost due to government assimilation policies and residential schools. It was revived toward the end of the 20th century, coinciding with a broader reclamation of Indigenous ways of life. Despite this resurgence, it remained a male domain. Indigenous women’s contributions were often overlooked, their talents recognized more in beadwork, weaving or painting. “Good ol’ gender inequality,” says Claxton. “In the larger art world, women have historically been excluded. But Indigenous women also faced racism and classism.” Haida artist Freda Diesing, who was part of the 20th-century Northwest Coast artistic revival and whose works, including the eagle and shark woman masks, appear in the exhibit, faced these barriers while working in the 1970s through to the 1990s. “Her works never commanded the prices her male counterparts’ did,” says Collins. “This show brings them forward and gives them the recognition they deserve.”
Claxton and Collins scoured communities along the Northwest Coast to find carvers, visiting artists in their studios and combing through public and private collections in Canada and the United States. “Curating this show felt like detective work,” says Collins. “You have to find out where these things are and who to contact.” In the end, the pair chose works from emerging talents alongside those from revered carvers, like Diesing; Kwakwaka’wakw artist Ellen Neel, the first known woman in Canada to carve totem poles professionally; and Doreen Jensen, a celebrated Gitxsan carver venerated for her advocacy work in promoting Indigenous art.
Titled Curve! Women Carvers on the Northwest Coast, the exhibit will run from November 23 through May 5. There’s also a tie-in book from Figure 1 Publishing. In the following pages, Claxton and Collins tell us the stories behind some of the exhibit’s most striking masks. “They predominantly represent female faces,” says Collins. “The carving tradition in this exhibit is women representing women.”
Stephanie Anderson, The Dreamer
Claxton: “The main figure here is in a dream state, where ancestors may offer guidance, warnings and visitations. The challenge lies in discerning true teachings from surreal dreams. Much of Anderson’s work is hand-carved and knife-finished to create a smooth surface without the use of sandpaper. She makes many of her own tools, harvesting the wood herself and bending the knife blades."
Dale Marie Campbell, Woman Who Brought the Salmon
Collins: “In 1971, when Campbell was 17 years old, she joined a carving class taught by Freda Diesing, who was pivotal in the resurgence of traditional Haida art forms. One day, she walked past Diesing’s 26-foot totem pole across from the library in Prince Rupert, B.C., which made her realize that she could be an artist. Campbell has now been carving for 52 years.”
Dale Marie Campbell, Shaman Woman
Claxton: “Transformation is a recurring motif in Northwest Coast culture and art—humans transforming into eagles, eagles transforming back into humans. These aren’t fairy tales but deeply rooted belief systems. For instance, medicine people have unique mana, or spiritual force. If they have the mana of the eagle, then they can see as an eagle sees, or they’ll have the strength of the bear or the skill of the wolf.”
Cori Savard, Becoming Eagle Spirit
Claxton: “In Haida Gwaii, you belong either to the Raven or Eagle clan, with the clan lineage passed down through the maternal line. You can sense the Haida Gwaii tradition in this piece, particularly the predominance of red. Often, within the carving world, an artist is mentored by an established carver for many years. Savard learned carving techniques through two multi-year apprenticeships with Haida artists Reg Davidson and Ben Davidson.”
Freda Diesing, Shark Woman Mask
Collins: “This is one of my favourites from the exhibit. It’s clearly an aristocratic woman by virtue of the labret in her lower lip—a symbol of high status among Haida women. She has a blend of human and shark features. You see it in the red slits on her cheeks and forehead, which are like gills. This piece captures the transitional space between human and animal existence.”
Veronica Waechter, Legends of the Blue Sky
Claxton: “This mask embodies the artist’s worry for the planet and future generations. Waechter sourced the wood from a fallen tree and carved it with tools that she made and sharpened by hand. She also found plastic from her ancestral territory of Gitxsan and attached it to this mask as hair.”
Ellen Neel, Untitled
Claxton: “Here, the lips are shaped in an ‘Oh,’ capturing the sound meant to accompany a dance. But this mask wasn’t crafted for ceremonial use— it was made for the market, intended to be bought and displayed rather than danced. One clear giveaway is the lack of eye holes; you can’t see through it during a performance. A skilled viewer will know this as a Kwakwaka’wakw mask, distinguished by its colour palette and emphasis on painted, rather than carved, features. Neel learned to carve at an early age from her grandfather, Charlie James, who was a revered Kwakwaka’wakw carver.”
Cherish Alexander, Salmon Mask
Claxton: “Every carver’s incision is unique. It all depends on the curve of the blade, the bend of the wood and the movement of the artist’s hand. The way Alexander shapes the ears, eyes and mouth are forms that are entirely specific to her. She began her training in 2007 at the Freda Diesing School of Northwest Coast Art in Terrace, B.C., where a number of the artists in the show have also studied. She recalls being the only woman in the first year of the school’s program.”
Freda Diesing, Eagle Mask
Collins: “Diesing didn’t begin carving until she was 42, but she soon joined a small group of artists who revived carving traditions on the Northwest Coast in the 1960s and became a mentor to revered carvers like Dempsey Bob. This decorative mask traces its roots back to ceremonial regalia, in which masks are meant to be danced, a tradition still alive in contemporary Haida culture. It also represents face-painting traditions—you can see it in the blue around the eyes.”
