Two peoples, two cultures, two different worlds are coming together this month, their meeting bridged in part by the stroke of a paintbrush.
In a far-reaching cultural exchange, a delegation from the Tulalip Tribes is traveling halfway around the world to visit a place that seems exotic, remote and very different from our own.
But it is the similarities between the Tulalips and the Goans, the people of Goa, India, that has forged this encounter: a common cultural heritage of fishing and living by the sea, the importance of ceremony and storytelling and a concern for the environment.
Tulalip Tribal Chairman Stan Jones Sr. and four members of his family will leave here on Feb. 21 for a 10-day visit to Goa, a prosperous state of golden beaches and palm trees on the western coast of India.
It’s a small state, by India standards, located halfway between Bombay and the tip of India on the Arabian Sea.
“It’s a long way to go,” said Jones, who will spend something like 20 hours on airplanes.
The family is going to teach and to learn, and will open a museum exhibit of paintings of Indians of the coastal Northwest, visit a spice farm and a health care facility, take a fishing trip with Goan fishermen and perform the Tulalip salmon ceremony.
While they are packing their Indian regalia, their drums and cedar hats for the journey, Angela Crawley would love to be packing her bags, too. The journey would be too strenuous for Crawley, who is 87.
But she will be there in spirit and in the unique collection of Indian portraits that is at the heart of this exchange. Crawley – who is Angie to her friends and signs her paintings “Anje” – has been making art for more than half a century. She no longer paints portraits, but sketches almost daily.
“Art is my life,” she said.
A big part of her artistic legacy is the series of portraits she painted of Indians of the Northwest, many of them of Tulalips, rendered in oil and casein, a medium made from the protein of milk.
These portraits were a major undertaking, painted over a lifetime of travels and encounters and capturing American Indians, young and old, in careful brushstrokes.
Her subjects have ranged from the famous, such as Chief Dan George (Robert Redford has a copy in his Sundance collection), to tribal elders and little children.
Most of the paintings were sold. Except for a few precious originals, most are now in collections around the world. She had copies made for her own collection.
The last major exhibit of her Indian paintings was in 1980 at Seattle’s Frye Art Museum, when 44 paintings were on display. Twenty will make the trip to India.
“There’s a story with every painting,” Crawley said, holding a painting of a woman she knew as Old Julia. “She carded her own wool.”
Her subjects came from many tribes and from Alaska and Canada as well as Washington.
“In the faces of the people I’ve painted, you will know their feelings. You will feel their suffering and the wonderment and joy of the little children,” she has written. “I know them and I feel their emotions.”
“She has a great feeling for people,” said her husband, John.
Crawley has enjoyed a long and interesting life. When she was 13 her family moved from the East Coast to the Tulalip Reservation. She inherited her artistic talent from her parents.
Her interest in the Tulalip Tribes was fostered by her father, Stephen Philipp, who worked on their behalf.
She went to high school in Marysville and was Strawberry Festival Queen in 1937. When she met and married John Crawley, his Navy career took them to all over the country, including Honolulu, where Crawley got serious about her art while studying at the Honolulu Art Academy.
She was discouraged from this because she was a woman and she was married. Crawley ignored that advice, and just worked harder and longer.
Fifty years ago the Crawleys returned to the Pacific Northwest, where they purchased an old waterfront home from the Tulalips. The site was an Indian mission school dating back to the 19th century.
Today, it’s full of mementos and memories. The Crawleys are people with a world view and an abiding interest in people, places and ideas. ,They are remarkably young looking and acting, and full of humor and curiosity.
At a time in life when many people become isolated, the Crawleys remain connected and involved, especially with family and friends.
One of their closest friends is Joyce Mitchell, who helped organize the cultural exchange and was instrumental in securing Crawley’s paintings for the exhibit.
Mitchell is a native of India, a self-described “happy wanderer of the road” who traveled the world with her husband, a Boeing engineer.
“I met Angie many, many years ago through a mutual friend of ours,” Mitchell said. “She invited us to one of the first salmon ceremonies.”
That cemented Mitchell’s interest in American Indian culture, and laid the foundation for the cultural exchange program to Goa.
She wanted Crawley’s paintings. The artist had the trust of the people she painted, and because of that she captured their spirit, Mitchell said.
This month’s meeting of Indians – from the west and from the east – is a watershed event.
“They are doing a little cultural history and I am woven into the whole thing,” Crawley said with pride.
“I’m very proud to be a part of this historical event,” she said. “My long period of 60-plus years of portrait paining has found many harbors in the world.”
Julie Busch / The Herald
Angela Crawley stands next to a portrait she painted of Johanna Sheldon, a Snohomish Indian and family friend. Crawley’s paintings will be on exhibit in the Indian state of Goa as part of a cultural exchange.
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