Jean Vollum Natural Capital Center - Exhibitor Profile
Scott Sutton
Installation Statement from the Artist: Marysville Pictograph Project
The Marysville Pictograph Project is a multidimensional project that embraces art, culture, and environment by emphasizing the importance of the stories that were told by the people of the Clackamas Chinook tribe. The Clackamas Chinook tribe lived along the east side of the Willamette River (Portland/Oregon City) where they fished at Willamette Falls and hunted and gathered food and materials in the surrounding area from the Willamette River to the Cascade Mountains. These stories have been an important way for knowledge and wisdom to be passed from one generation to the next, which has occurred in all cultures across the world. The importance of storytelling is undeniable, especially when a culture relies on oral communication as its primary means of passing on this knowledge and wisdom to its children.
One way to tell stories is by making images through mediums such as carving and painting. The art form of the Clackamas Chinook and other tribes that have lived along the Columbia River and the Willamette River still exists today, but most people who make Oregon their home today are unaware of the cultural history that once flourished in the Pacific Northwest. In 1929, ethnographer Melville Jacobs made a series of wax cylinder recordings of Victoria Howard, one of the last speakers of the Clackamas Chinook dialect who told stories and sang songs that had been passed down to her. These recordings were then translated into a written form of Clackamas Chinook and English by Melville Jacobs and later published in 1958 and 1959 under the title “Clackamas Chinook Texts”. The story of “Tongue” which takes place at a village near Willamette Falls is the foundation on which the Marysville Pictograph Project is being created.
Artist Scott Sutton, who lives in Portland and grew up along the Columbia River outside of the The Dalles, Oregon has been teaching art to tribal members of The Confederated Tribes of Grande Ronde in Portland and Eugene for the past three years. Scott has been making paints for the past ten years to use in his own paintings as well as gathering minerals from the Pacific Northwest to use as traditional paints within the classes he teaches to tribal members. “Camas Woman” is a design based on the art and stories of the Clackamas Chinook that was painted with egg tempera and minerals that are from or can be found in Oregon and Washington. As Scott has learned about the art and stories of the Clackamas Chinook and other surrounding tribes, he has been inspired to create art within the physical landscape to honor the cultures that existed here before us.
As a result Scott has been working in collaboration with Marysville School, Confluence Project, RACC, and the Marysville School Park team for the past two years to create an art installation destined for completion in the summer of 2008. In 2005, Scott wrote a proposal to the Confluence Project to create art with 65 4th and 5th grade students at Marysville School in the spring of 2006 that would tell the story of “Tongue”. The project itself brought art into the classrooms and integrated components of culture, history, and the environment into a project that the students of Marysville School have already become a major contributor. The project will incorporate the student’s pictographs onto basalt columns that will reside on one of the grass covered earth mounds of the new playground. The asphalt will be replaced with a permeable surface that will contain the image of “Camas Woman” in vibrant colors and will extend up a ramp to the top of one of the mounds. After the playground has been remodeled and the basalt columns have been put into place, the students will help to paint pictographs onto the surface of the stone visually depicting the story of “Tongue”.
The students at Marysville School in outer SE Portland come from very diverse backgrounds that range from Central America, Asia, Africa, and Eastern Europe to name a few. Scott saw the opportunity to work with the students at Marysville School as a way to emphasize the importance of art and cultural diversity by embracing the stories of the Clackamas Chinook. Scott worked with the students at Marysville for seven weeks in the spring of 2006 by bringing his vision into the classroom where the students created art during class time for 2 hours each week. The students learned about the importance of art and stories of a variety of native cultures including that of the people Clackamas Chinook, Multnomah, Wasco, and Wishram. As a part of the project, the students took a field trip up the Columbia River Gorge to see the pictographs and petroglyphs at Columbia Hills State Park. They also got a tour of the Maryhill Museum’s collection of cultural artifacts from the Columbia River. As the students learned about the history of the Northwest, they also talked about the importance of their own cultural backgrounds and the struggles that they have experienced trying to retain the traditions of their own culture amidst an environment and culture foreign to themselves.
The Marysville Pictograph Project has been in part funded by the Confluence Project, RACC, and potentially Spirit Mountain Community Fund, but funds still have to be raised make this vision become a reality. The Marysville Park Team consists of a group of individuals and businesses that have been donating their time to create a space for the Marysville Community to gather, interact, and share their own personal stories.
The main contributors in the development of this project have been MCM Architects, Portland Impact, Marylhurst University, Marysville School Advisory Board, Williams and Dame Development, and Hoffman Construction along with a variety of other businesses that play an important role in the construction of the project once the all funds are raised. If you are interested in getting involved or want to donate to the project you can email Scott Sutton of call him at 503-293-5059.
