Lingít Master Carver Wayne Price is returning to the University of Alaska Southeast as part of its Northwest Coast Arts program.
“The attention being paid to all branches of Northwest Coast Native art. I really feel the support out here at UAS,” Price said.
He will be teaching carving courses and formline design classes.
Both art forms have beginning, intermediate and advanced curriculums, but some of the classes are combined. Price says the formline class is intensive.
“In my formline class, they were sweating,” Price said. “It seems they were trying so hard.”
Price said he only found out last week that he would be teaching this term, but he thinks his classes will fill up fast. Students in the beginning carving class will be making paddles, while intermediate and advanced students can choose their projects.
“So they have the benefit of an artist who’s got 50 years of Northwest coast art under my belt. And I bring that all here to the University of Alaska, at Áak’w,” Price said.
Price has taught at UAS before. Since then, he has carved dugout canoes — or yaakw — with high schoolers across Southeast Alaska and most recently unveiled a healing totem at Twin Lakes in Juneau, which was built in remembrance of missing and murdered Indigenous women.
Price lives in Haines with his wife, but he moved to Juneau for the semester. He said he doesn’t yet know if he’ll teach in the fall.
“I’m just taking it one semester at a time,” he said. “And let’s see how it goes.”
A UAS spokesperson said that anyone interested in taking one of Priceʼs classes can call the registrar’s office to ask if there is space.
