20th Wedding Anniversary, 2017, yellow and red cedar, cedar bark, copper, acrylic paint, and sea pebbles. SFU Art Collection. Gift of the Salish Weave Collection of George and Christiane Smyth, 2022. Photo: Janet Dwyer
20th Wedding Anniversary, 2017, paper, dyes, copper, and cedar bark. SFU Art Collection. Gift of the Salish Weave Collection of George and Christiane Smyth, 2022. Photo: Janet Dwyer
Angela Marston has been studying and creating Salish art for over 25 years, blending printmaking with weaving, and incorporating traditional Coast Salish weaving techniques into her artwork. She learned the traditional process of collecting cedar roots and pulling and cleaning the bark as a teenager and uses cedar bark rope in all her ceremonial dance and healing rattles. 20th Wedding Anniversary (rattle) is painted in shades of turquoise acrylic paint, with cedar bark rope wrapped around the middle of the handle and protruding from the top of the rattle to resemble wild hair. Marston uses traditional Coast Salish design elements of circles, trigons, and crescents in these works. The work is an excellent example of a contemporary Coast Salish healing rattle, using a combination of traditional (cedar and copper) and current (acrylic) materials.
20th Wedding Anniversary (work on paper) is a unique work incorporating weaving, printmaking, and braided cedar bark. The rattle and work on paper refer to one another: the three circular designs in the work on paper are similar to the carved designs on the rattle, with both using Coast Salish elements of circles, trigons, and crescents. Marston uses the similar shades of turquoise in both works.
These two works are representative of Marston’s wide-ranging, dynamic, and experimental oeuvre.
Angela Marston (Statu Stsuhwum) (b. 1975, Ladysmith, British Columbia) is from the Stz'uminus First Nation. Like her two younger brothers, Luke and John Marston, she studied art with her parents, experienced carvers Jane and David Marston. Marston began her art studies as a cedar bark weaver with weavers Kathy Edgar and Minney Peters, then embarked on a series of rattles which received critical acclaim. Marston’s formidable interpretative capacity combines customs of spiritual healing with physical healing, joins the Coast Salish traditions of “women’s” and “men’s” arts (weaving and carving), and represents a system of knowledge passed from mother to daughter, from hand to hand, for generations.
Marston has exhibited in several prestigious galleries and has accepted commissions for individual designs for a wide variety of innovative projects. Her work is held in the collection of SFU Galleries (Burnaby), UBC’s Museum of Anthropology (Vancouver), the National Gallery of Canada (Ottawa), and the Canadian Museum of History (Ottawa).