Full Circle
by Susan Point

A numbered print, custom triple mat with cutouts and stained two-tone wooden frame (shown without mat or frame)

"Full Circle" is not just about the cycles and the seasons of the salmon which one would obviously expect at first encounter with this image but this was the case when Susan first experimented with the format of this motif in 1980 and later, in 1981, producing it into a limited edition serigraph of 40 entitled "Salmon". Now, in this adaptation of Susan's earlier original drawing, the image "Full Circle" is as much about the artist as it is about the salmon. For the past 15 years Susan has continually tried, and successfully so, to inform the public through her art that there was an almost lost, but not forgotten, art style indigenous to the aboriginal peoples of the central coast of B.C. Talented Coast Salish artists today continue to debase the Salish style of art by borrowing and incorporating elements from other prominent northwest coast tribes (i.e. use of the ovoid). However, Susan, along with a handful of other Coast Salish artists, have taken a purest approach to their art by trying to maintain its distinct cultural identity as it would have been found prior to European contact. Susan, in creating very contemporary expressions in various mediums has addressed political, environmental and social conditions but she has always come full circle back to her roots deeply embedded in Salish tradition. In this image, Susan says that the four salmon represent the continuity of her people's life on the Pacific Northwest coast. Within each of the four salmon is an original spindle whorl motif created with traditional Salish elements, which represents coming back to ones beginnings (completing the circle). The spindle whorl is a disc, which acted as a flywheel on the spinning device used for making wool yarn. From the wool yarn, the Salish women wove blankets.