Winter Nights Arts: Raven House Mouse

About Winter Nights

Why the name "Winter Nights"? It is during the long, dark winter nights in Alaska that we turned to creative activities. The summers are full of subsistence activities, fishing, berry picking, gathering seaweed and gardening. During the winter nights is when we made the baskets from the materials gathered in the light of summer, mold the clay and fire it and also write books. Winter Nights Publishing is my publication company for producing various projects, the most recent being Raven House Mouse.

Now, in Mexico, the winter nights are also productive as this is when it is cooler, the skies are jam-packed with stars and warm breezes rustle through your hair as you walk along cobblestone streets with lavendar jacaranda blossoms showering down on you. I return to my studio and create clay images reflecting the life here, an Aztec water goddess for the top of the fountain, Spirit of the Egrets hinged panels and masks. I am also working on a book early mornings on my Alaskan path. Life is good.

Email me for any information or purchases.

Welcome to Lake Chapala, Mexico.

This where I now live. We are a community on the north side of Mexico's largest lake at 5000 ft. above sea level. The weather runs about 70 degrees year round except for the months of May and June which are hot. Our rainy season starts then which I, as a Sitkan, relish. (never thought I'd say that after living theTongass National Rain Forest for 12 years.) Everything grows here--just take a cutting, stick it into the ground and in a month, you have a new plant! The local people are friendly, the arts community is thriving; I never run out of image ideas for my own art.

Monday, November 24, 2008

Raven House Mouse - by Jan Steinbright

This is a childrens book about Tlingit culture. I wrote it for Austin Hammond, a great Tlingit leader who operated a culture camp in Haines on the Chilkoot River for youth so they could learn about Tlingit ways of doing things and values. The mouse in the book actually lived behind the dryer at the clan house, Raven House. I took the story from there. The book is beautifully illustrated by Robert Davis, a very fine Tlingit artist. Using Northwest Coast formline drawings, he brought the story to life as we follow this little rodent fellow from bring an orphan to finding a new culture and home with the Tlingit people of Haines. The book retails for $19.95 and is available from winternightspublishing.com. Britt Coon is the new manager and she will give wholesale quotes on the book also.

The first illustration shows the little mouse being afraid of the carved raven on the face of the clan house when he first sees him. The second one shows a great procession at the annual gathering of the Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian nations in Juneau every two years entitled "Celebration".