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The American Goldfinch may be Washington’s state bird, but that doesn’t mean it’s the only thing that’s migrating this season.
Marvin Oliver, internationally celebrated Native American printmaker and sculptor, is on campus now until Feb. 25, to interact with UMaine students and staff, present lectures to the public and meet with the local and tribal communities of Maine. He is also the only professor in the nation providing a technical approach to teaching Northwest Coast graphics and wood design in studio courses.
“Northwest Coast Indian art is often taught in art history courses,” Oliver said. “But rarely is there a course offered that is as graphic as a studio course. You have to get into it and create it to understand it. When the students create the art themselves, they never see it in another way again.”
As a Visiting Libra Professor of Diversity at UMaine, Oliver has been teaching “Two Dimensional Art of the Northwest Coast Indian” via compressed video technology delivered through the Internet from his on-site location at the University of Washington. It is a class that has been linked in real time to a UMaine classroom from the classroom back in Washington. The class has an emphasis on the structure and style of two-dimensional art; it has been offered this semester on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 5:30 to 8:20 p.m.
Robert White, dean of the Division of Lifelong Learning was impressed by the University of Washington’s American Indian Studies Program, and was then prompted to offer Oliver the Libra Professorship. Libra Professorships were established at the University of Maine through the generosity of Elisabeth B. Noyce, in order to increase diversity in university programs.
“The course is bringing a Native American artist and well-known sculptor to UMaine. It’s a course that’s never been offered here before,” Devon Storman, assistant to the dean of the Division of Lifelong Learning.
The class is taught annually at the University of Washington, which has one of the nation’s premier American Indian Studies programs. He teaches them how to create the Northwest Coast Indian art by exposing students to the language of the art.
“We look at how the images are constructed graphically.” “Oliver said. “The art has meaning in terms of how it utilizes shapes, forms, colors, balance and spacing in a correct fashion. Northwest Coast Indian art is a visual language that is present from Vancouver Island, British Columbia, to Alaska. It is shared by a variety of tribes. Their speech may be different linguistically, but they share a common visual art.”
Using modern technologies, Oliver creates his works with such modern techniques as laser and water cutting processes, which is certainly the case for his larger sculptures.
“[My works are] formulated by merging the spirit of past traditions with those of the present.to create new horizons for the future,” Oliver said.
