First Nations Raven Head wall carving has a horizontal shape and soulful expression. Measures 20.5 x 4.5 x .5, priced at $425. The piece is signed by the artist, and is dated 11/2021 on the back. The Raven head is decorated with traditional hand-worked cedar bark fringe along the top that falls to nine inches in height total. The fringe is attached with leather loop guides.

The artist lives in North Vancouver, Canada, and is a Coast Salish (Squamish) artist. His Squamish name is Sequilem. He was born in 1950.

At just 12 years old he started carving in 1962 and his great art teachers were Tony Hunt, Bill Reid, and Bobby Cole. He also ventured into painting and designing totem poles. In 1972 he carved big poles that were sold to Germany. One of them was 80 feet tall. In 1980 he carved a 60-foot pole for Sea Span and another one for the Chief Joe Matthias Centre as well as the welcome figure on the West Vancouver Pier. At about the same time, he started teaching and carving with children.

Since he was 17 years old, he was interested in the spiritual dances of the Coast Salish people and became one of the Spirit dancers, especially dancing the Eagle and Snake spirit dances. He became a teacher for these dances for many young people, who wanted to follow in his footsteps. Stan learned to carve silver and gold jewelry and became so good at it, that he started teaching this art at the employment center.

Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Úxwumixw (Squamish Nation) members are descendants of the Coast Salish Indigenous people who have lived in this area since before recorded time. A Squamish is a strong and often violent wind occurring in many of the fjords, inlets, and valleys of British Columbia. Squamish occurs in those fjords oriented in a northeast-southwest or east-west direction where cold polar air can be funneled westward, the opposite of how the wind generally flows on the Coast.

“Squamish” is a loose English adaptation/mispronunciation of Skwxwu7mesh, meaning “Mother of the Wind”, “people of the sacred water”. Although the first recorded contact with Europeans happened in 1791, disease had devastated much of the population before in the 1770s. For decades following, more diseases, including influenza, reduced the population significantly. Along with the influx of new foreigners, usurpation of their ancestral lands, and later policies of assimilation by the Canadian government, caused a significant shift in their culture, way of life, and society.