These two panels of the Tunics of the Changing Tide series depict Nicolson’s interpretation of the back of two Northwest Coast button tunics. Native art of the Northern Pacific Coast—the objects produced by tribes including the Kwakwaka’wakw, Tlingit, Haida, and Coastal Salish peoples—is primarily known for dramatically carved objects, such as totem poles, which utilize a style that was dubbed “form line” design in the late twentieth century by Anglo artist-anthropologist Bill Holm. Yet, as scholar Megan A. Smetzer points out, the intense institutional and anthropological attention paid to carved objects—which have traditionally been made by men—has been at the expense of the expansive traditions of bead work, basketry, and textiles made by Northwest Coast Native women.¹ The production of beaded tunics, such as the ones portrayed here, began in the nineteenth century. Their designs were based in part on the military uniforms which Native people received as gifts and through trade with Russian, American, and English settlers. These uniforms—and later, the clothing which Native women made by adapting their forms—were one way in which communities expressed the power and prestige of their leaders.²

      Nicolson’s work captures the beauty and importance of these objects. She notes that the original tunics were made at a time when the Kwakwaka'wakw "culture was intact enough to integrate new forms and create new things that were still conceptually consistent with the traditional culture."³ Depicted as if on display within a museum case, the tunics are more elaborate than the historical examples on which they are based, offering viewers a contemporary interpretation of the craft. The surface of the two works is inlaid with materials including copper, abalone shell, and Canadian coins from 1929 [fig. 1], the year that the Kwakwaka’wakw people finally began to recover after their population hit a historical low point. The artist notes that while the Tlingit people, who are based in Alaska, retained their traditions of tunic making, those of the Kwakwaka’wakw, who are based in Canada, were disrupted after the Canadian government banned Native people from participating in the potlatch ceremony, a critical aspect of their culture.⁴ These objects are now returning to use as Canadian Indigenous communities strive to regain and preserve traditional cultural practices.

      The artist holds a PhD in linguistics, and her practice often draws from her familiarity and experience with museum archives of Northwest Coast Native objects. In addition to her artistic practice, which incorporates painting, glass work, and large-scale light installations, the artist has written extensively on the history, preservation, and revival of the Indigenous artistic practices of the Northwest Coast. Her knowledge of Kwakwaka’wakw culture, language, and history is drawn from both community-based and academic sources, and she notes that her deeply personal relationship to the material gives her the “emotional and psychological drive to know more.”⁵ In her writing and through works like Tunics of the Changing Tide, Nicolson also points to the importance of the archival records in recovering traditions that have been lost through the impacts of colonization. This richly resourceful viewpoint, informed both by practice and rigorous academic study, makes Nicolson a unique voice, not only in the Northwest Native artistic community, but within the larger fabric of North American art.

¹ Megan A. Smetzer, Painful Beauty: Tlingit Women, Beadwork, and the Art of Resilience, (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2021) 12.

² Ibid, 86-88.

³ Charlotte Townsend-Gault, Lisa Baldissera, and Marianne Nicolson, Marianne Nicolson: The Return of Abundance, (Victoria, CA: Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, 2007), 25.

⁴ Smetzer, Painful Beauty, 174-77.

⁵ Marianne Nicolson, “Starting from the Beginning,” in Charlotte Townsend Gualt, Jennifer Kramer, and Ḳi-ḳe-in, eds. Native Art of the Northwest Coast: A History of Changing Ideas, (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2013), 530.

Images courtesy Marianne Nicolson. Photographs by Bob Matheson.