...inspired by ancient spirits
This is another hand carved bear design by Owen Walker, and it occurs to me that I don’t know how many different bear designs I have produced, and I guess it doesn’t matter. When you live in South East Alaska (the Panhandle), bears are your neighbors even in the towns. […] Read more »
Dentalium is everywhere and yet, as a Trade Bead researcher and jewelry designer at Walker Goldsmiths, it’s been my experience to find that so few people even know what it is. Dentalium is a seashell harvested on the Pacific coast of western Washington and southern British Columbia in waters averaging […] Read more »
Walker Goldsmiths did the Seattle Gift Show again this year and it’s been fun to see lots of old friends from AK and the lower 48. We definitely noticed that the buying was slower and more cautious in volume and that folks are totally sick of having to be this […] Read more »
Raven Transforming It was Raven, with both human and bird qualities, which placed the sun, the moon and the stars in the heavens. First, that sly character, would devise a way to trick Grandfather Creator into letting him play with the glowing orbs in his magic box. Succeeding in that […] Read more »
Wolf is an enigmatic character on the North West Coast because there is not a great body of Wolf stories as there are for Eagle and Raven. On Haida Gwaii the Wolf was only known from hearsay as there were no wolves on those islands, but the Wolf was an […] Read more »
This Large Beaver Bracelet with Abalone Inlay hand carved by Owen Walker is in keeping with the Northwest Coast Indian lore that speaks of Beaver, who at first was a woman who loved to swim. Many of the stories of the first peoples are both entertainment and a cautionary tale similar […] Read more »
It’s 9:00 at the Walker Goldsmiths Studio and there’s incredible ZZ Top, LenneRockers and Wanda Jackson blasting out their tunes. Is this night or morning? What day is it? Rooster’s crowing and chicken politics makes a huge squabble as the neighbor’s cat wants some chasing fun. The compressor blasts off […] Read more »