Cultural Art - Blog Posts

Recently I went on a mini vacation to Seattle Washington. On the trip, I went to the Art Museum and I thought I would share with you all some of the cultural art that stuck out to me. 

If you ever get the chance to go to Seattle, I highly recommend visiting this museum. It is absolutely amazing!

Beneath each picture, I have added info about them from the museum.

Turban Cloths

Cotton with brocade border - Jodhpur 20th Century

Mehrangarh Museum Trust

Men chose their turbans carefully - a wrapped headdress is said to be akin to an unspoken language. Each social group in Marwar has a distinctive style of tying the long cloth and might add accents with ornaments that say more about who they are. Men also wear turbans for specific seasons, ceremonies, or moods. The wave pattern seen here is worn during the monsoon season, when the coming of rain is celebrated. In the harsh summer months, a turban is a shield against the blazing heat. It can also be a form of protection in battle. Many rulers wear turbans that are like crowns, loaded with jewels, which denote their rank in court society.

Masks of the Animal Kingdon Dance

Performances featuring masked dancers are the birthright of particular families and derive from long-ago auspicious encounters between human ancestors and supernatural beings, in the guise of animals or unique spirits. The “Dance of the animal kingdom” represents a heroine ancestor’s adventures among the animal beings who in turn bestow the dance and masks upon her for use by her family and subsequent generations.

Drum with skull painting - 1991

Animal hide, acrylic, wood, bone

Art by: Susan Point - Canadian, Musqueam

The First People

Red cedar, yellow cedar

Art by: Susan Point - Musqueam band

The homelands of the Musqueam of the Fraser River Delta are punctuated by meandering pathways as the Fraser reaches the Strait of Georgia. The faces within the tendrils represent the hereditary bloodlines that connect the families in the region, and the waterways that were lifelines yielding food resources, sustaining the Delta people from time immemorial.

Food bowl: Frigate bird with shark - 20th century

wood, mother-of-pearl shell

Melanesian, Eastern Solomon

Men in the Solomon Islands consider fishing or skipjack bonito (a member of the tuna family) to be a sacred endeavor. The fishermen watch for frigate birds feeding off of schools of smaller bait fish and observe the bonito that follow, in a season that lasts from November to April. Sharks swarm this whirlpool of frothy activity and devour what they need to survive. This vessel features two predatory creatures merging together to suggest the cycle of consumption, with the humans who eventually feast on the bowl’s contents completing the cycle.

Pyramidion of Hori - 1350 B.C

Limestone, pigment

Egyptian, Abu Tig. New Kingdom

18th Dynasty

Family Room Loft-Style San Francisco Mid-sized classic loft-style family room library design example with white walls, a regular fireplace, a stone fireplace, and a wall-mounted television.