In an artistic double-take, viewers will be able to examine tribally inspired creations that will be looking right back at them.
The artworks are nine masks carved by artist Bill Rutherford that are on display through Aug. 25 at the Fort Vancouver Visitor Center.
Rutherford will discuss the Chinookan stories behind the masks at 2 p.m. Saturday at the Visitor Center, 1501 E. Evergreen Blvd., Vancouver.
“Though Chinookan peoples traditionally are not mask makers, like their Salish neighbors to the north, these masks were inspired by a few Chinookan stories,” Rutherford said.
The masks on display are his interpretation of nine beings: She Who Watches, Raven, The Darkness One, Coyote, Salmon, Swallowing Monster, Wind, Yuhlma (a spirit that brings sickness) and Atathlia, a female ogre.
“The creatures could be helpful, mischievous, dangerous, wild or evil,” he wrote in his lecture notes. “To the people of the Lower Columbia, everything — real and mystical — possesses a spirit.”
The Oregon artist has made a couple of previous appearances in Clark County with fellow artist Lillian Pitt, a descendent of Wasco, Yakama and Warm Springs people. It was Pitt who “challenged me to artistically honor my Indian heritage,” said Rutherford, whose family tree includes Chickasaw ancestry.
While researching for another project, he read Chinookan stories and was inspired to shape several of the characters who appear in them. He worked with Tony Johnson, chairman of the Chinook Nation, to understand more about the stories and their place in the culture of the Lower Columbia River peoples.
Rutherford created one piece from an existing image — the iconic wide-eyed face of She Who Watches, the ancient petroglyph in the Columbia River Gorge.
“She Who Watches is the only mask that I drafted full-size and transferred to bare wood,” he said. “The other mask faces evolved as I carved. It was as if someone else was deciding how I should proceed,” Rutherford wrote in his lecture notes.
Rutherford also will discuss techniques and materials he used in carving the masks. White cedar is the most common material.
While they’re all three-dimensional, coils of copper wire add extra depth to a mask representing the blowing wind. And lamb ribs provide the teeth for Atathlia, a big-eared, red-faced female ogre that emerges from the night fog to take away children so she can eat them.
