In a small workshop/gallery at the very end of Kitamaat Village, Sammy Robinson is busy preparing for his biggest and final public art sale.
His 88-year-old hands meticulously work small pieces of yellow cedar, carving signatures to finish off his most recently completed pieces that will go on display and be up for sale to the public from Sept. 24 to Oct. 2.
These will be the last pieces to have the now trademark three-dimensional signature he started using approximately 10 years ago. He says at two to three hours to carve the initials, he just isn’t up to doing it anymore and will go back to carving his signature directly on the artwork.
Surrounding Robinson in his clean, well-ordered workspace are dozens of carvings, from 18-inch to 8-foot totem poles to canoe paddles and plaques to jewellery in gold and silver. Much of the work, mostly in yellow cedar, incorporates abalone and each piece tells a story of Haisla culture, which he cagily says will be revealed at the art show.
“They all have stories, you’re going to get the story and biography, everything.”
In a smaller room at the back of the workshop, which he uses for fine finishing work and an office, he proudly shows off photographs from particularly important milestones in his life, perhaps most significantly from the ceremony at which he was elevated to hereditary chief of the Haisla Nation.
Those milestone moments go back a long way. Among his earliest accolades was a First Nations art award at the Pacific National Exhibition in Vancouver in 1963.
That success was followed up in 1967 when he was appointed as a special carving dignitary at the Montreal Expo world’s fair and three years later when he became a resident carver on site at the 1970 Olympic Games.
Most recently, in 2013, he received the BC Achievement Foundation’s Fulmer Award for First Nations Art.
But for Robinson, his carving journey goes back way further still. As a child, nearly 80 years ago, he picked up the craft by watching the “old people” carving. He believes you can show someone carving techniques, but you can’t teach the art because that comes from within.
Robinson’s art is now in high demand and has found its way into the collections of dignitaries, celebrities and public institutions the world over. At his last show some years ago, most of the pieces were pre-sold, which didn’t go over very well with some people, he said.
This time, he promises nothing is being pre-sold, even though he has had requests.
“This is gonna be my biggest show. I’ve never collected this much in my life because of COVID. The road was closed and I closed the shop, but I kept carving and that’s why I can accumulate that much.”
Most of the pieces for the upcoming show were completed during the period of the pandemic, but others go back further, even 20 or 30 years. Some are pieces he wouldn’t sell at the time, because they wouldn’t have commanded a price that would make it worthwhile.
“If I have a piece that I worked too long for and I know I won’t get the money that it’s worth, I just put it away knowing that this day is coming. In my basement, I had them on the wall and a few in the storeroom. If I sold it at that time, I would have got $150, now it’s going to sell (for) $3,000.”
It’s not just about the money, though, he said.
“It’s my life. It keeps me alive. It inspires me in everything. Like what I done for the health centre, the money wasn’t half enough, but I done it.”
Robinson is referring to the totem pole he carved for the entrance to the new Haisla Health Centre in Kitamaat Village that was just unveiled last week in a blessing ceremony.
He has come a long way from carving in a smokehouse before he had his own workshop.
“People would come over and buy art from me,” he said. “I’d work on a piece of art for, let’s say, two, three weeks, and I was able to sell it for 10 bucks. My wife now says, ‘you were making 15 cents an hour, maybe 10 cents’.”
When he wasn’t carving, which was almost always, he worked as a commercial fisherman. After Alcan came to the Douglas Channel in the early 1950s, Robinson worked at the smelter.
On the side, he ran fishing charters and was in big demand because having grown up and fished in the area all his life he knew all the stories of every little inlet and point of interest up and down the north coast.
Robinson is obviously proud of the life he has forged and one of his biggest sources of pride is he did it without outside help.
One of the biggest customers for his charter business was his former company, Alcan. When the company wanted him to get a larger boat to accommodate larger groups, he went to the bank for a loan, but couldn’t get it. The company wouldn’t help him either, he said, so he saved up and eventually got the bigger boat on his own.
He is also extremely proud to represent his people and when he speaks in public, he speaks his ancestral language, because that is how he was taught.
“It’s drummed into my head since I was nine-years-old, my mother, my grandmother, my aunt Nancy, when you make public speech, you use your mother tongue, you’re not a white man, that’s what my mother said.”
These days, he does so with an interpreter, though, because so many of the young people just don’t know the language, something he worries about.
Robinson’s show starts Sept. 24 at his studio, Kakhan Arts & Crafts Shop, on Haisla Avenue in Kitamaat Village.
