House of Learning Guest Artists
Spring/Summer 2011 - Jimmy Price
Port Gamble S’Klallam tribal artist Jimmy Price is the featured artist in the Peninsula College Longhouse Art Gallery for the 2011 spring quarter. Gallery viewing hours are Monday through Thursday from 9:00 to 11:00 am.
The 18 pieces on exhibit include a wolf mask, a carved eagle, a paddle and three drums. Each piece has a special meaning for their creator, but he singles three out as particularly significant:
The purple eagle is a piece that he did for his grandmother four years ago. Purple was her favorite color, and Price incorporated it into his carving. “The purple mellowed and softened the carving,” he says.
The drum with the killer whale and eagle in the colors of gray and black is one Price completed for his seven-year-old son. “He’s autistic,” he explains.
The deer mask, Price’s personal favorite, was carved for his brother as a Christmas gift and loaned for the show.
The son of a Port Gamble S’Klallam mother and a Navajo father, Price says one of his earliest influences was his grandfather, a kachina doll maker in Arizona, who had a big influence on Price\ as he was growing up. Price also credits his wife’s uncle, Joe Ives, for helping him to become the carver he is today.
“I like carving because I can bring a piece of wood to life,” Price says. For him, carving is a way of representing the Port Gamble S’Klallam culture to others and of “keeping the tribe’s art going and alive.”
Price says he hadn’t really thought about being an artist until Ives invited him over one day and the two sat down and began to carve together. “We started on a small project, and I found I liked carving. Gradually I began to go to Joe’s place more and more, and eventually I was going four times a week,” Price says. “We’d work side-by-side, and he showed me how. He taught me designs, the tools to buy and about art in general.”
One of the elements that sets Price’s work apart from many other Native artists is his use of color. Although he works mostly with the primary colors of red and green, he likes to experiment with more unusual color combinations as well. One of the hallmarks of the current exhibition is Price’s deft use of blues and purples as well as red and green. Blue is a color he has just started using. “I saw the color and I liked it,” he says by way of explanation.
Price will soon start his next commissioned work, painting a mural on a storage container at the David Wolfle Elementary School in Kingston. The design will be done in black, green and red and will feature a killer whale and salmon. When completed, it will be one of the largest pieces in his body of work.
You can contact Jimmy Price by email: jihmp@yahoo.com
Suggest a Spotlight Artist
If you would like to become or nominate a guest artist, contact Amy McIntyre at amcintyre@pencol.edu. Below is a slide show of spotlight artists past, present, and future.