Rocky LaRock - Spirit Masks
Summer 2022
For information about available work please email, info@monteclarkgallery.com.
Installation views, Monte Clark, Vancouver, 2022.
Sqáqele lexwst’í:lem tutl’o (Baby is always singing)
2022
Cedar, cedar bark & antlers
30 x 34 x 23 in, (Overall dimensions with cedar bark: 53in)
Inquire
Sásq’ets, the gifted. (The one who hears the spirits’ song)
2022
Cedar, antlers, fur and wil- low branches
30 x 29 x 15 in (Willow Branches ~64 in)
SOLD
Th’ōx̱iya (The cannibal woman)
2022
Cedar, antlers, horse hair & copper
31 x 55 x 22 in (Overall lenght with hair: 40in)
SOLD
Há:we (the hunter)
2022
Cedar, antlers, wool & feathers
32 x 21 x 12 in
SOLD
Sásq’ets héyeqw (Sas- quatch fire)
2022
Cedar and antlers
23 x 30 x 12 in
SOLD
Sásq’ets syiwí:l (Sasquatch spirit power)
2022
Cedar, cedar bark & feathers
14 x 21 x 6.5 in (Overall height with bark: 50 in)
SOLD
Sásq’ets the portal (travels between the physical and spiritual worlds)
2022
Cedar, cedar bark, horse hair, antlers, bones, copper, deer and bear teeth
30 x 24 x 16 in (Overall height with hair: 50 in)
Inquire
E`yies`lek “Rocky” LaRock
Sásq’ets Sts’eláxwem “Sas-quatch Spirit Dancer”
2022
Charred cedar, elk antlers, copper, horse hair and suede
51 x 42 x 21 in
The Sasquatch, or “Sásq’ets” is an important figure to the Stó:lō people, featured in myths as a powerful but generally benign wild man. He is described as a tall and hairy supernatural creature of the woods. Rocky tells the story of his encounters with Sasquatch:
“When we go out into the woods, it’s important that we alway acknowledge Sasquatch, or Sásq’ets. We bring him food, we pray to him, we give him fish and meat, plants and berries and medicines. He’s our go-to guy, he’s our god.
One morning it had just snowed, I was on my usual morning trek into the forest with a bag of leftovers for the ravens and I dumped my food onto a stump and faced the east, and acknowledged gave thanks to creator, to spirit for everything. On my way back home, I looked down and there was a big indentation in the snow. At first I thought it was maybe from the snow falling off the branches. But it was shaped just like a bear foot, but it was much bigger. So I stepped back and looked back, and there was another one, and another one. And they were really far apart, so I had ato jump to get from one to the other. And when I followed the tracks back, they went right from the stump where I’d left the food, all the way right to my yard. That showed me I wasn’t walking alone, and I wasn’t only feeding the ravens.
Back home all the elders could tell you stories of encounters with the Sasquatch. To the Coast Salish people, he’s what we have left of our culture. We don’t hunt him, we don’t exploit him, we leave gifts for him and we respect him. Every winter and spring all the longhouses make plates of food for him, and we spoil him rotten. ”
– Stó:lō master carver Claude “Rocky” LaRock in conversation with Adrienne Fast, curator of The Reach (Abbotsford, BC), 2021.
