Word: totems
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...Heads. The lavish display of pot-latching carried over even into the religious ceremonies. Indian artists were called on to outdo themselves in carving masks, staffs and rattles. Each symbol and convention had its meaning. The double-profiled portrayals of totem gods were apparently adapted from images first painted on both sides of the prow of a war canoe. Totem gods like Killer Whale were sometimes pictured with their entrails revealed to show lesser animals which they had swallowed. Even the massive totem poles were meant as seriously as medieval coats of arms to display family crests and famous ancestors...
...which spelled cultural disaster elsewhere, had a tonic effect on the avid, acquisitive fisheaters of the Northwest. The steel tools they got in trading started a great, final flowering of the traditions of wood sculpture that had been slowly evolving for centuries. Its most spectacular achievement: the giant totem pole that emerged within a century from the small carved house post...
...more affirmative motive. Lippold does not hide his love of geometric form ("The fragile snowflake appears in more variations of form than any kind of 'permanent' sculpture"), but his take-off point is the human emotion. His Primordial Figure (see cut) is a kind of family totem, with the outline of a wasp-waisted male figure with hands upraised superimposed on a skirted female figure. To critics who complain that his finished work looks more like aerial rigging and radar antennas than sculpture, Lippold replies: "Our faith is in space, energy and communications, not in pyramids and cathedrals...
...Frank, who bills himself as the biggest U.S. dealer, is selling almost three times as many cars this year as he did in 1954, has less than a ten-day supply of Chevrolets on hand. Dallas dealer inventories averaged 25% below last year's, and Seattle's Totem Pontiac Co. had on hand only half its normal 65 new cars. Said a Washington Buick dealer: "We sold 136 cars in May, expect to sell 170 in June. June will be the best month we ever...
Chicago's sculptors rallied to stave off the threat to a potential source of work for their profession. The city's chapter of Artists Equity thumbed through the city's records and found that "excluding cannons, boulders, flag poles, totem poles, chains and fire relics," there were only 68 works of sculpture for Chicago's 6,020 acres of parks with their 205 miles of boulevards and drives. Then, because Illinois Attorney General Latham Castle showed no inclination to contest the Art Institute's decision, Artists Equity moved to substitute its President Haydon and vociferous...