The Cultural Conservancy - Artist-In-Residence
 |
| Tonu Shane Eagleton |
The Cultural Conservancy honors indigenous artists through our Artist-In-Residence Program (AIR), formally started in 2001 with Polynesian wood carver and environmental artist Shane Eagleton. After years of collaborating on environmental and indigenous arts projects, The Cultural Conservancy formalized our Artist-In-Residence Program (AIR).
TCC began collaboration with Pacific Islander woodcarver Tonu Shane Eagleton in 1997 on the Kohola Project, a multicultural, interfaith project focused on cross-cultural healing. This project focused on building bridges between Pacific Islanders and Native Americans, starting with honoring the local Ohlone California Indians by gifting them with a large, yellow cedar healing pole carved by Shane Eagleton. This healing pole and the marine life bench both find their homes on Mutsun Ohlone lands at Indian Canyon, managed by Ohlone leader Ann Marie Sayers of the Ohlone-Costanaoan Indian Research Center. This Kohola Project would not have been made possible without the generous donations of the Jon and Karen Larson Family Foundation and many other community partners.
 |
| Tonu Shane Eagleton |
For more information:
Jon and Karen Larson Family Foundation
www.larson-foundation.org/hal/main.htm#4carving
Indian Canyon
www.indiancanyon.org/, www.indiancanyonvillage.org/
We officially launched our Artist-In-Residence program in February 2001 with an art exhibit, In Reverence of the Ancestral Feminine, in the Thoreau Center for Sustainability at the Presidio of San Francisco. This was the first major art exhibit in the same space that has become the successful Thoreau Art Gallery,
www.thoreau.org/san-francisco/exhibits-programs/index.html
For a description and review of this historic show please see this writing by the late Yolanda Nuñez, who worked with TCC from 2000 to 2002 and was instrumental in developing the AIR and promoting indigenous arts. We are eternally grateful to Yolanda for her gifts and contributions to TCC.
In Reverence For the Ancestral Feminine, by Yolanda Nuñez
Between 2001 and 2005, TCC produced many exciting art projects with Shane Eagleton, including assisting in creating stage art for the main stage of the annual Bioneers Conference.
Feeling the pull of his Pacific Islander roots and wanting to return to the beautiful islands, waters, and cultures of Polynesia, in the fall of 2001, Shane relocated from San Francisco to Oahu, Hawaii where he started teaching wood carving at the University of Hawaii - Windward Campus. As Shane said, “I wanted to re-immerse myself in the Pacific to be closer to my Polynesian heritage and help protect and restore the trees. For years I have been working with at-risk youth in the mainland and I knew it was time to give something back to the youth of the islands and re-teach them how to give downed trees new life by carving them into art and cultural items.”
Tonu Shane Eagleton continues to produce the stage art for the annual Bioneers Conference. He travels between Hawaii, California, and other places in the Pacific carving canoes, producing art, and sharing his environmental message.
|
|
|
