Dan Friday

Midnight Lightning Bear

2021

Dan Friday is a Native artist and member of the Lummi Nation. Based in Seattle, Friday has spent the last 20 years honing his skills as a sculptor. Friday’s themes and imagery are drawn from his Coast Salish heritage.

Often using deceptively simple silhouettes, Friday makes blown and sculpted glass works of totems with owls, ravens, or other birds, as well as bears, which honor his family history. Creativity was fostered in his family from an early age. Living with no television and knowing his rich cultural heritage of the Lummi Nation meant making things with his hands was a regular activity. In the artist’s words:

“My family are the ‘Children of the Setting Sun.’ We are the descendents of Xa-Tel-Ek (pronounced Haytelock), also known as Frank Hillaire. Hillaire signed the Treaty of Point Elliott of 1855, effectively removing our people from the San Juan Island chain in Washington State and establishing the Lummi Nation Reservation near Bellingham, Washington. Xa-Tel-Ek was known as ‘The Bear’ and the bear has been an important spirit to my family; from my great-grandfather’s totems to his father’s drum. Through works like this, I embrace the large color palette glass has to offer, and a longstanding family identity.”

Friday has worked for Dale Chihuly and has demonstrated and had exhibitions at the Corning Museum of Glass in New York, the Museum of Glass in Tacoma, Washington, and the Burke Museum in Seattle, among other noteworthy institutions.

Find Dan Friday's sculptures today on 1stDibs.

(Biography provided by Chesterfield Gallery)