SHI lecture to explore carver's lifelong journey through Northwest Coast art
Master carver Wayne Price to share how tradition and craft shape identity, healing
April 30, 2025
Sealaska Heritage Institute (SHI) will sponsor a presentation this week as part of its spring lecture series featuring prominent voices in Indigenous knowledge, art, culture and language.
Tlingit master carver Wayne Price will present his talk, “A Career in Northwest Coast Arts.”
Price will share reflections from his decades-long journey as a traditional artist and discuss how Northwest Coast art has served as both a cultural calling and a profession. He will offer insights into how the art form can shape identity, foster community wellness and provide meaningful career pathways for the next generation.
Price, whose Tlingit names are Aayaank’i and Kaajis.yoodzi.a’xk, belongs to Tóos’ Hít of the Wooshkeetaan clan in Kake. He is also a Child of the Raven Frog Xíxch’i Hít of the Gaanaxteidí clan in Klukwan. He is a professor of Northwest Coast art at the University of Alaska Southeast and is renowned for his masterful formline designs and woodwork. Over the years, he has restored, replicated and carved dozens of totem poles and traditional art pieces, many of which are used in ceremonial spaces and featured in collections worldwide.
Price is also known for reviving the traditional knowledge required to carve and sail Indigenous oceangoing canoes. His 17 dugouts have been used in cultural journeys across oceans, lakes and rivers. His work centers traditional art as a powerful platform for healing, wellness and cultural reconnection.
The lecture is scheduled for 3 p.m. Thursday, May 1, in Shuká Hít within the Walter Soboleff Building, 105 Heritage Way, in Juneau. The event will be livestreamed and posted on SHI’s YouTube channel.
Sealaska Heritage Institute is a tribal organization founded in 1980 to perpetuate and enhance Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian cultures of Southeast Alaska. SHI also conducts scientific and public policy research that promotes Alaska Native arts, cultures, history and education statewide. The institute is governed by a Board of Trustees and guided by a Council of Traditional Scholars, a Native Artist Committee and a Southeast Regional Language Committee.
CONTACT: Kathy Dye, SHI Communications and Publications Deputy Director, 907.321.4636, kathy.dye@sealaska.com.