Summer Loon, 2019, painted cedar bentwood box. SFU Art Collection. Gift of the Salish Weave Collection of George and Christiane Smyth, 2022. Photo: Janet Dwyer
Margaret August’s Summer Loon is an outstanding example of a contemporary interpretation of a significant historical, ceremonial, and functional Coast Salish object. On each side, August’s restrained palette of red and black is cleverly inverted, so that each face is the echo and inversion of its opposite face.
The bentwood box was historically designed and constructed for both ceremonial and utilitarian purposes: oil and food dishes, storage boxes for food, medicine, or ceremonial regalia, water buckets, burial boxes, canoe tackle boxes, and more. For Summer Loon, August created a design to represent a traditional naming ceremony that the artist had the privilege of witnessing in 2018. They thematically designed the loon, to which the name represents and in doing so, to connect the loon in its natural cycles.
Margaret August (b. 1983, Victoria, British Columbia) is a Two-Spirit, Coast Salish artist from the shíshálh Nation in Sechelt, BC. August began developing their visual artistic practice at an early age, drawing inspiration from traditional teachings and encounters with nature. August cites renowned Coast Salish artists Susan Point, lessLIE, and Mark Preston (Tlingit) as influences on their own artistic practice. Seeking to refine their skills regarding Salish art and design, August began training with Coast Salish artist Dylan Thomas; this mentorship experience led to August creating art in multiple mediums such as serigraph/giclée prints, glass, cedar sandblasted pieces, and wood carving. August has been exhibiting their work in group art shows since 2011.