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After visiting the area,
I noticed that there is a lot of healing that needed to happen.
So I thought of prayer paddles.
It's like a design.
that shows thank you and prayer.
I think when you pray for people,
it's not necessarily for an outcome.
It's for them to find the strength so they can find clarity.
We call it the red road.
The red road is about finding yourself to better yourself.
And really, that's what this work is about.
The designs are Coast Salish or Co-Salish.
Seattle should have more Salish influence
like we don't have any welcome figures or we don't have any story poles,
house posts. Alaskan art,
which a lot of people are familiar with in Washington
is like the totem poles and the form line.
Really, when that totem pole
gets put in the ground, then it says that this is their territory
and it basically negates our people that are here
Muckleshoot, Tulalip, Suquamish, Swinomish,
all these people that are still here and we still don't have our own mark
and that is something that I'm hoping
this does is helps to bring back our mark.
That would be like a Salish person and their hands would be up like this.
Usually when we pray either like this and that's a way to say
thank you too, when we say thank you, raise your hands up.
And then Salish design is we use crescents, trigons, ovals
and what's called positive and negative shapes.
So if I were to carve that so like those red shapes they would be carved in.
This is a good spot for these pieces because it's at a historical park.
One of the first parks that Seattle opened, and it's
kind of a good mingling spot where a lot of the city
kind of crosses paths.
Hopefully it just helps in whatever way.
Maybe it'll lift somebody's day up.
You know, everybody can use a prayer.