Tlingit artist Wayne Price teaches a formline design class sponsored by SHI in Haines. (Emily Files)
Haines resident and master carver Wayne Price will be teaching his craft to students at the University of Alaska Southeast this fall. This will be the first time that Price has worked with UAS as a professor.
Price was first approached by Lance Twitchell, an associate professor of Alaska Native Languages at UAS.
“We thought that having a chance to merge language with the art and the culture would maybe be a real good fit,” Price said.
The two of them went for it, and Price said UAS has been very supportive throughout the whole process. Now he is in Juneau. In a short period of time, he has set up shop and organized classes for the coming term.
Price will be teaching design and drawing of Pacific Northwest Coast Native Art. In this class, the students will create their own artwork while exploring some of the distinctions between designs from different cultures in the region.
“The meaning of it, the form of it, and the language of Northwest Coast two-dimensional design and what makes it Tlingit or Haida or Tsimshian. Because they’re all really close but sometimes we don’t really know which one makes what, and I want to bring that to attention,” Price said.
In addition, Price will teach a carving class. Part of the course will guide students through the process of making a canoe paddle, a specialty of Price’s.
“Hopefully we finish the completed paddle and that will then get to have some use in the jibba dugout, which is also here on campus. I brought it down from Haines. A lot of what we’re going to do is going to include the healthy lifestyle with adventures with the jibba dugout and hopefully the creation of other dugouts in the near future.]
Price will be living on campus while he teaches classes. At the moment he is working on getting his shop ready. He said he is excited to get started.
“I think the work I’m doing with Lance to combine the art that I’m doing with the language that he’s doing—there’s some Tlingit immersion that’s going to create some new opportunities,” Price said. “I bring a whole lifetime of what I know about wood. We’ll see if we can put it to good use for my time while I’m here in Juneau.”
Classes start August 27th.
