Master carver, students chip away at Archbishop Murphy healing pole

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TULALIP — Eager to get their hands on an adze and hack away at wood grain, students at Archbishop Murphy High School lined up next to a 4,000-pound hunk of old-growth redwood sitting a few yards from their empty football field.

They hollered and clapped for their peers as chunks of trunk splintered off the log, landing in pooling rain puddles. It was Friday morning — the first day of a year-long, school-wide endeavor to carve a Coast Salish style healing pole for the campus.

“It’s healing in the sense that we’re coming out of COVID and asking, ‘How do we build community and bring everybody back together when our experience was so disjointed for the last few years?’” Principal Alicia Mitchell said. “So we wanted to create something together while teaching kids about Coast Salish art and Native American traditions.”

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Staff toyed with different ideas, then called up James Madison, a Tulalip and Tlingit tribal member. Madison has two sons at the school and volunteers to coach the football team, but he’s also a full-time artist and master woodcarver. His work is displayed in galleries and businesses across the region, and he currently has an exhibit at Steinbrueck Native Gallery in Seattle.

https://www.heraldnet.com/news/master-carver-students-chip-away-at-archbishop-murphy-healing-pole/