Indian Artists at Work

Patricia Morley is professor emerita of English and Canadian studies at
Concordia University, Japan Foundation Fellow 1991-92, and the author of
Margaret Laurence: The Long Journey Home and As Though Life Mattered:
Leo Kennedy’s Story.

Photographer Ulli Steltzer and carver Robert Davidson are well matched.
Their combined gifts and sensitivities have shaped an impressive book
that spans more than 25 years of Davidson’s career.

Davidson, a master carver of large totem poles and powerful masks, is a
longtime student of his own Haida inheritance and has become a leading
figure in the renaissance of Haida art and culture. Two earlier books,
by Hilary Stewart and Ian M. Thom, have been published on his work.
Here, the text is his own. He writes with humor, directness, and
intensity; the book includes notes and a chronology.

Steltzer, a seasoned photographer with many books to her credit,
chooses to focus on Native peoples in North and South America. She
credits Davidson’s art with continuing to kindle her curiosity after
more than 20 years, and notes the “challenges” (read difficulties)
of photographing wood, especially in the carving shed and on the dance
floors of Masset. The art remains addictive.