Artist captures spirit of region’s icons on pole

Toma Villa made sure there was a place on the Spirit Pole for a beaver. They are kindred spirits, after all.

“Beaver is a carver, too,” the Yakama artist said.

The animal is among 14 iconic Northwest images on the Spirit Pole, which represents a new gateway to Fort Vancouver National Historic Site.

Almost 10 feet tall, the two-piece sculpture was carved from a single cedar log that Villa split in two. The hollowed-out halves stand just inside the front entrance; the space between them provides a pathway into the Visitors Center, which serves as the front door to the park.

There is additional significance to the arrangement. The two cedar segments “represent Washington and Oregon, separated by water,” Villa said.

Villa augmented the cedar with glass art — mask-style sculptures that represent natural icons of the Northwest. They include salmon, coyote, deer, eagle, berries and beaver; water, fire and wind.

The masks were inspired by Columbia River and Puget Sound traditions, he said, plus some of Villa’s own touches. The figure representing wind is wearing a headband that features gale warning flags. The mask representing berries includes basket patterns pressed into the face.

Even though the artwork was dedicated Saturday, Toma was still working on some finishing touches this week at the park’s visitors center, 1501 E. Evergreen Blvd.

Villa’s sculpture is another element in the modernization of the 55-year-old visitors center, which reopened in November after a 13-month renovation.

Fort Vancouver superintendent Tracy Fortmann said she wanted an art installation for the interior, but she didn’t know what it might be.

That’s not all that was up in the air.

“We didn’t have a funding source,” Fortmann said. “It all came together in a wonderful way.”

First, she said, “Toma came with a vision.”

Although the artist remembers it differently.

“I came with nothing,” Villa said, and that’s not a figure of speech. “They had to supply paper and pencil.”

Villa’s eventual concept, as a Park Service news release describes it, symbolizes the relationships among resources that have sustained people in the Pacific Northwest for thousands of years.

Anonymous donor

Then Fortmann found a private donor to fund the acquisition.

“She’s never given before,” Fortmann said of the donor, who wants to remain anonymous. “I shared the vision and she embraced it.”

The $60,000 donation funded the project from initial purchase to installation.

It took Villa a month to find the right piece of cedar. He found it in a wood pile near Welches, Ore., and hauled the two-ton log to his studio in Suquamish, a Puget Sound community near Bainbridge Island.

He used a small chain saw to cut a slit in each side, then hammered in wedges to split the log. After hollowing out each half with a variety of adzes and chisels, Villa had two segments that looked like pieces of a traditional dugout.

“People would ask me if I was making a canoe.”

At its base, the larger segment is 41 inches in diameter. That translates to a tree trunk measuring almost 11 feet around.

The Spirit Pole is designed to be a piece of hands-on art. It is roped off temporarily while Villa does some touch-up work, but visitors soon will be to feel the textures of the cedar and the glass sculptures.

Portland resident Nicolas Patzkowski, 12, was among those who took an opening-day look at the Spirit Pole.

Patzkowski was already familiar with the artist’s work. In 2013, Villa spray-painted a large mural of Chief Joseph on a wall of the Portland boy’s school, Chief Joseph Elementary.

Villa also has worked on art projects with students in several Clark County schools.

Other works by Villa are on temporary display at the visitor center. They include a collaboration with another carver — the one whose face is on the Spirit Pole.

Villa sculpted a wooden mortar from a downed red alder he found on the Oregon side of the Columbia River, near Bonneville Dam. The tree had been cut down by a beaver.