I bought my first copy of People Among the People: The Public Art of Susan Point in the fall of 2019 from Iron Dog Books, a charming fixture on Simon Fraser University‘s Burnaby Mountain campus.
It was tagged as a City of Vancouver Book Award winner and highly recommended by owner, Hilary Atleo. I knew it was a goody when I opened it and realized it was my favourite kind of book: a treasure map disguised as a coffee table tome. Really, really good-looking and ready for adventure.
A prolific and celebrated Coast Salish artist, Susan Point descends from the Musqueam people. She re-birthed the knowledge, forms and traditions of Coast Salish art lost to colonization, and added her own contemporary overlays. Most of her public art hides in plain sight across Vancouver, the Lower Mainland, southern Vancouver Island and the greater Pacific Northwest.
For years, I ran by her house post on Semiahmoo Bay, passed her carvings on the footbridge to the parking garage at Vancouver International Airport, and admired her three gateways at Brockton Point in Stanley Park without knowing what I was looking at.
That day, with the book tucked under my arm, I was on my way to meet Dr. Brent Ward, Head of the Department of Earth Sciences, to pitch an artist residency for 2020/21. Under the terms of the AiR, I would develop a body of visual art based on the department’s research and interests and, in turn, leverage this work to raise departmental profile. After an engaging discussion and a ritual exchange of rock samples, Dr. Ward agreed.
Later, I realized that Blue Herons, a trio of Ms. Point’s carvings, gifted to the university from the Salish Weave Collection, were installed on the second floor of TASC1, just above Dr. Ward’s office. Seems I would begin my residency under the auspices of Ms. Point’s genius.
The book felt like a talisman and a portal to an elusive body of key knowledge that was hidden in plain sight.
I made my notes, plotted my routes, and hit the road in search of her work. But the book wasn’t long in my hands.
After a few weeks of heavy-duty use as a not-so-portable guidebook, I gifted it to someone who, by chance, had lent his own copy of the book with no expectation of a return. It made a happy kind of circle trip into a receptive pair of hands.
A few days later, I picked up another copy at the Museum of Anthropology. This time, I entered the coordinates for the nearly 100 art pieces on a Google Map to simplify navigation. Then I poured over the images and text to commit them to memory.
It’s easy to see things when you know what you’re looking for and understand their context. This explains why it’s possible to drive around Vancouver yet be unfamiliar with Ms. Point’s unparalleled wealth of public art. Knowledge precedes seeing.
For me, People Among the People: The Public Art of Susan Point serves a dual purpose. It is a guide and a teaching tool about the ‘art’ of creating public art. Point not only has an impressive portfolio of public work from a volume perspective, but the forms – and media, especially – vary remarkably between installations.
She employs – and this is not an exhaustive list – cast concrete; carved, painted and oiled red and yellow cedar; powder-coated and water-cut aluminum; stainless and galvanized steel; Forton; stone, including black and coloured granite and sand-blasted basalt; cast iron; paint on plywood; sand-cast bronze; kiln-cast gold glass; stained glass; carved, fused, engraved and antique blown glass; patinated green copper; oil paint; ruby sand; wool; paper; fabric; and adhesive plastic.
She produces spindle whorls the size of small cars, traditional house posts, towering welcome figures, prints, banners, sculptures, church windows, manhole covers, medallions, cast panels, retaining walls, concrete runnels, glass friezes, concrete baskets, totem work, architectural decoration, even stylized Thunderbird decals for every marked police cruiser in the City of Vancouver. Again, not an exhaustive list.
The book begged to be ‘walked’ and became my bible for understanding the parameters and opportunities for moving ideas into the public sphere. Point’s work is site-specific and she pushes the boundaries of the possible.
Last trip out west, I made the mistake of bringing the book home to Ottawa. Even with my Google Map, photographs and notes, being in Vancouver without it feels like a missing appendage.
I see a third copy in my future.
Click here to access a Google Map containing all of Susan Point’s public works
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Other books I use for similar purposes:
Guastavino Vaulting: The Art of Structural Tile by John Ochsendorf
New York’s Underground Art Museum from MTA Arts and Design
Exploring the Capital: An Architectural Guide to the Ottawa Gatineau Region by Andrew Waldron