Framed Art Card - Vitality (Salmon)
People often ask me why I keep including salmon in my artwork. The answer to this lies with the importance of salmon to me, my relatives and my ancestors. Put simply, salmon was the vital link between mere survival and the development of the splendour of our culture. The large numbers of salmon provided us with abundance and vitality.
One of the most magnificent sites you can see in the Pacific Northwest is when the rivers turn a vivid scarlet red. As the sockeye salmon return from their journeys in the open ocean to the freshwater rivers of their birth, they undergo a startling transformation. Their sleek silver bodies turn crimson as they enter the rivers. Upstream, they fight, battle and struggle to find an ideal spawning ground. Using centuries-old memory they remain steadfast in their determination to reproduce. It is in this irony of nature that when they have achieved their life’s work in returning home that their vitality ends with death.
It is with their dying actions that they ensure that future generations will be born to enter this same cycle of life. We give thanks to salmon for their vitality and for their gifts that they provide us.
(9" x 12")
