Susan Point

Susan Point is a Musqueam Coast Salish artist from Canada, who works in the Coast Salish tradition. Her works include public pieces installed at the Vancouver International Airport, Stanley Park, the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington D.C., the U.B.C. Museum of Anthropology, and the city of Seattle. Point was born in Alert Bay while her parents, Edna Grant and Anthony Point were salmon fishing. She grew up with her family in their home on the Musqueam Indian Reserve. In the early 1980s, she joined a group of artists interested in reviving the traditions of Coast Salish art and design, including artists such as Stan Greene, Rod Modeste, and Floyd Joseph. Little research had been done on Salish art, so Point taught herself the Salish traditions. She studied the collections of Coast Salish art at the University of British Columbia's Museum of Anthropology and the Royal British Columbia Museum. There is broad agreement that Point's works were critical to the current efflorescence of contemporary Coast Salish art. She was a leader in expanding the audience for Salish art to a market that was heavily biased towards Northwest Coast artworks produced in northern Northwest Coast formline design principles. Her close study of the formal characteristics of historical works of Salish art laid the foundation for her contemporary productions - some based closely on new renderings in print form of historical spindle whorls in museum collections, and later expanding out into original forms in new media, such as glass, concrete, and bronze.