Welcoming Springers

Muckleshoot artist Tyson Simmons honors the cycles of salmon with this artwork featuring a Lushootseed message of welcome. The springers are the first salmon to return home. They come at the change of seasons, when the earth is waking back up after winter. They are very important to Coast Salish people, who harvest them from their rivers as soon as the dogwoods start to bloom, just as their ancestors did.

About Tyson Simmons

Tyson Simmons is a member of the Muckleshoot Indian Tribe and a talented Coast Salish artist. His work spans a diverse approach and perspective. By tapping into the history and teachings of his people and merging them with his own approach and experience, Tyson is able to create something entirely new and exciting. Traditional Salish art for the 21st Century. His vision and his voice are indicative of this: honoring the past by celebrating the future. This all comes together in an exciting and unique way, and informs Tyson’s world view and work. From metal working and creation of his own carving knives, through rattles and spears, to canoes and story poles, Tyson’s range of abilities covers extremes.

Tyson has a broad range of influence and is thus able to produce a unique and diverse perspective of work. He will tap into and utilize any and all tools available to him to achieve a goal of vision. Whether this means carving cedar with an adz which is hundreds of years old or accessing the most-cutting edge and contemporary digital imagery to realize an image, Tyson’s artistry and creativity are paramount.

Tyson carries on the long tradition of Salish artists from the region. He has bridged the traditional with the contemporary and as a result is able to create something entirely new and exciting. Over the course of thousands of years and hundreds of generations, a completely unique worldview and expression developed in the Salish Sea region which is both beautiful and insightful in tapping in to the Native American perspective and point of view.

Tyson had the formal honor and training of being mentored by his people’s last-remaining master carver of dugout river canoes and spent literally thousands of hours perfecting this training and technique. However, he has since also been influenced and inspired by many. Most notably, the strong traditional knowledge and influence of his traditional people and homelands shape and inform his approach and style. He honors these teachings and principles through his expression and products, today. As is also customary with the traditional teachings of his people, Tyson, who now carries the knowledge and teachings of this vitally important and spiritual work, is responsible and required to continue to pass them on in a good way and humbly. This is what Tyson’s work represents.