Simon Ottenberg's Contribution to Coast Salish Arts

I first met Simon Ottenberg in 1976, when I began a graduate program in anthropology at the University of Washington, focusing on research with indigenous people of the region. As I began to study Lushootseed language and literature and Coast Salish art from the Pacific Northwest coast, I took Ottenberg's course on the anthropology of art. I found him to be deeply interested in, and supportive of, local indigenous studies.A scholar of African art, Simon Ottenberg turned to local indigenous art with a passion in the 1980s. As a result, he has made a hugely valuable contribution to Coast Salish visual arts and to its study. In the 1980s, he began collecting prints by Coast Salish artists. In the flux of a huge revival of art production among Northwest Coast indigenous artists, Coast Salish work was underrepresented. Ottenberg was one of the few collectors to recognize and seek out the brilliant work of these emergent artists. His collection became what the Burke Museum has called “one of the most comprehensive collections of contemporary Coast Salish prints that is available to scholars.”1 He donated his collection to the Burke.In 1982, Ottenberg made the acquaintance of Ron Hilbert (1943-2006), a Coast Salish visual artist and story teller. Hilbert's artwork is distinctive, not influenced by the same design aesthetics of other Coast Salish artists. Many of those artists’ works reflect the fact that they had first studied the northern Northwest Coast design styles, so prevalent in the revival, and later the stylized designs of historic Coast Salish. Hilbert did not use either stylized design system. His work is realistic, more like that used by historical Coast Salish carvers for house posts to illustrate the owner of a house or to represent significant spiritual partners. Hilbert's work illustrates traditional and contemporary Coast Salish cultural practices with human figures, scenes, or even multiscene narratives (Figs. 1-2).Ottenberg was struck by the unusual nature of Hilbert's work, and he was fascinated by its power. He was also drawn to the gregarious young artist. His 2019 book, Ron Hilbert adəsqidəb: The Life and Work of a Coast Salish Artist, is a thoroughly engaging biography. This book is enriched by interviews with Hilbert, his immediate family, and close friends and colleagues. It is exemplary anthropology. Ottenberg was also close to his subject, in that Ron Hilbert became a friend. Ottenberg became part of an extended family around Hilbert, including many of Ron's own friends and some of his associates. The book as a whole reads as a tribute, deeply felt, but it is nonetheless written with a biographer's more scholarly perspective. It is a compassionate portrait that celebrates Hilbert, and it also frankly illuminates struggles the artist faced.The book situates Hilbert's life and work in a complex cultural context. Born on the Tulalip Indian Reservation, Hilbert lived in several locations between reservations and Seattle. In addition, Hilbert was a participant in Coast Salish traditional spiritual life. Hilbert's range of experiences is wide, as is the range of subjects depicted in his art, and the techniques he used. Ottenberg gives thoughtful discussion to it all.Much of Hilbert's artwork focuses on ceremonial practice, and an indication of Ottenberg's closeness is that Ron invited him to attend gatherings. This is an opportunity rarely offered to people outside participants’ immediate families. Respecting the traditions of secrecy that surround this practice, Ottenberg wrote carefully to illuminate the artwork while maintaining the boundaries that traditional practices required. Some think that the practice should not be represented visually in artwork, and Ottenberg acknowledges this.Ron Hilbert was also a storyteller, and Ottenberg attends to this gift as well. He notes how much Hilbert relished public story telling events and how he enjoyed teaching at a preschool during the last decades of his life. Ottenberg also describes the storytelling nature of much of Hilbert's artwork depicting myths and historic events.Ottenberg was able to identify aims that Ron Hilbert had for his artwork, namely to communicate the power of Coast Salish culture to wider audiences. A “corollary,” Ottenberg states, was for Ron himself to be known (Ottenberg 2019: 133). This book certainly helps Hilbert achieve these aims, and—with the last—the accomplishment is a tribute to Ottenberg himself.