I teach Northern Northwest Coast formline art. You could also call it Tsimshian art, but it also expands Tlingit and Haida art forms as well. The art program began here in Metlakatla back in the late 1970s, and it was the brainchild of my father, Jack Hudson.
I'm teaching everything from beginning design, as far as the basic elements of northern formline art to relief carving, which is a two-dimensional carving. I teach sculpture, painting, and even a bit of digital art form, such as vectorizing.
NEA helps support my teaching practice specifically by helping to create a contract for me to have academic freedom in my classroom and help me feel like I'm in an environment that supports the ideals of my local school board.
My hopes for the future of the students in this program are that they hold the traditional values and the traditional rules of this art form sacred, and they continue to take it places so new that we might not even know what that is yet.
