The two brothers went into Rocket’s studio with a few beers and two dogs at their feet, Marc admiring the craftsmanship of a carved oak and copper sign over the threshold: Tolkien’s “Not All Who Wander Are Lost.” The studio had double-wide barn doors with antique hinges and latches, enabling large projects like Rocket’s totems to fit into the shop. One of the massive poles was perched dramatically on Rocket’s 15-foot-long workbench, propped up at one end by a sturdy antique steel jack.
The workbench was lit by adjustable track lighting, trained on an almost completed Indian figure. “This is a Pomo Indian woman, a basket maker,” Rocket explained as his brother bent closer to see the fine detail of the carving. Rocket picked up a narrow-bladed chisel and mallet to demonstrate. “The Pomo were traditionally acorn eaters and salmon fishers, but they also ate small game, wild greens, mushrooms, even grasshoppers,” he said, tapping his mallet gently on the chisel. Marc loved how his brother’s work was interlinked with the work of the Pomo artisans. Energy that flowed through their baskets – adorned with willow shoots, woodpecker feathers, and shells – had its origins in Pomo cultural traits and beliefs, then was expressed by Rocket’s own hands, and finally felt by viewers of the totems.
“This cultural story you are telling in the totems reminds me of a beautiful nature story I’ve told in a class or two, about the forests further up the Northwest coast, literally built by salmon. Fingerlings no bigger than fat pencils are born upstream in the forests, then migrate into the ocean for three to six years where they grow into mature fish weighing up to sixty pounds. When they return to their birthplaces their bright silver scales turn deep red and purple. After their chosen mates dig out a little hole, the females bury their eggs, then quickly die, leaving behind all the rich nutrients they’ve amassed. Black bears, insects, fungi and plants distribute those nutrients, and four-fifths of the nitrogen in the forest was shown by research to have come from the ocean.”
From the novel, Tickling the Bear: How to Stay Safe in the Universe, by David Wann
