Rick Bartow


Each pole has a horizontal wave-like pattern that represents the succession of generations.


“BARTOW’S MOSTRECENT WORK, TWO LARGECARVEDPOLES ENTITLED WE WERE ALWAYS HERE, WILLBERAISED AT THE NATIONALMUSEUM OF THEAMERICANINDIAN ONTHENATIONAL MALL THISSEPTEMBER 21...”


museum’s native habitat. In another, it is a testament to indigenous people, past, pres- ent and future, who have remained strong despite insurmountable challenges. Thirdly, it is an offering of respect to the spirits who reside within the baskets, textiles and other artifacts in the Museum collection. This will not be the first time Bartow has


brought his healing art to Washington, D.C. In 1997, he was one of 12 Native artists


included in the exhibition Twentieth Cen- tury American Sculpture at the White House: Honoring Native America, displayed in the Jacqueline Kennedy Garden. Bartow con- tributed Cedar Mill Pole, a 26-foot-tall pole 18 AMERICAN INDIAN FALL 2012


incised with a ribbon-like pattern and a hu- man head peering from the top. As the artist explained, it told “a story [about] the tree, of grief, of people who lost their land. Yet it also speaks of embracing the future.” He carved it to heal an Oregonian community divided over a road expansion project that razed a grove of cedar trees. The pole came from one of the removed trees and now stands in that town’s new green space. Another sculpture, From the Mad River to


the Little Salmon River, or the Responsibility of Raising a Child (2004), is in the collection of the National Museum of the American Indian. It features a coyote with a basket


carrying a child on its back. Animals like an eagle, salmon and raven surround and guard the child. The work is a personal story about “pride of place, love, lost and found, [and] survival,” Bartow says. The trickster Coyote can create chaos and harm. Consequently, parents may need help, especially from the love and support of community members, in raising a child. Bartow was born in 1946 in Newport,


Ore., a seacoast town more than 100 miles southwest of Portland. Even as a child he was an incessant doodler, and his sister encour- aged him to earn a bachelor’s degree in art education from Western Oregon State Uni-


PHOTO COURTESY OF THE FROELICK GALLERY


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