One City, Two Capitals: The living treasure of Juneau's Northwest Coast art.

• Author: Rhode, Scott
• Position: ALASKA NATIVE

"We used to say--this is something we used to say--that we don't have a word for art," says Rosita Worl, emphasizing her own Tlingit heritage. Even though she has a PhD in anthropology, the president of Sealaska Heritage Institute (SHI) was surprised when she learned the Tlingit language can in fact convey the concept.

It happened at a council of traditional scholars. Worl recalls, "Our meetings are all held in Tlingit and we have simultaneous translation, and the translator came running out and said, 'What is that word, At.nane?' It was actually the chair, Ken Grant, who said, 'It refers to an iconic event between a supernatural being and a human being.'"

When At.nane is memorialized in a visible form, Worl explains, the result is recognized as art. When invested with sacred importance, such as a clan crest, it becomes At.oow.

The art of the Tlingit, Haida, and Tsimshian people of Southeast Alaska and British Columbia is particularly distinctive for one of its foundational features: formline design. The term itself, barely fifty years old, describes an aesthetic system that developed around the same time as Greek vase painting yet is still inspiring new works of graphic art, clothing, jewelry, architecture, and totem poles.

"There are very specific rules around how the different forms and shapes are put together," says Kari Graven, art director at SHI. "You can see that there are some key types of shapes that are repeated over and over again. You can't just put them together randomly. There's a strict system with a lot of personal interpretation opportunity in there."

The rules evolved over time but achieved their familiar form thousands of years ago. Lee Kadinger, SHI's chief of operations, observes that the rich ecology of the temperate rainforest afforded the luxury of intricate designs and wooden monuments. "There was far less worry about gathering food here," he says. "A lot of that time was poured into art, and that's why you see such a complex art form."

After contact with Europeans, the rules were in danger of being forgotten. Even as the artifacts themselves were coveted by collectors far and wide, the cultures that produced them were diminished by disease and assimilation.

Worl recalls, "After we had a juried art show in 2000, the master artist Robert Davidson told me he thought that our art was deteriorating. So I freaked out because art is the basis of our culture."

Sealaska Heritage Institute, a nonprofit founded in 1980 to perpetuate the indigenous cultures of the Panhandle region, evidently had work to do...