Sealaska Heritage Institute in 2003 partnered with the Burke Museum to create two new house posts for the Seattle facility. The posts will replace two house posts from the Tlingit village of Gaash that were returned by the museum to Cape Fox Corporation in July 2001. Through the project, the museum hired Stephen and Nathan Jackson to carve the new posts for its permanent collection. The new posts are original designs, not meant to be replicas, but contemporary expressions based on the Teikweidi Tlingit story of Kaats, the grizzly bear hunter, who married a grizzly bear and was eventually killed by his bear children.  Nathan Jackson’s design closely follows the form of the old cedar house posts, showing a the grizzly bear wife with Kaats in her arms.  Stephen Jackson’s design shows a moment at the end of the story, after Kaats has been killed by his bear children and torn limb from limb.  This innovative approach to the subject, will also employ new media, casting the highly complex design in urethane foam resin...(more)  Click any photo to enlarge. Use your browser's back button to return.
 

A piece of Stephen Jackson's post, which features new media (2005)	Stephen Jackson's intern, Robin Lovelace-Smith (2005)
Nathan Jackson and intern Bill Pfeiffer (2005)	Nathan Jackson's post (2005)
A detail of Nathan Jackson's post (2005)	Nathan Jackson works on his post (2005)
Nathan Jackson post in progress (2004)	Nathan Jackson post in progress (2004)
Nathan Jackson stands by his post (2004)	Nathan Jackson design
Stephen Jackson design