First Name: Stan 

Last Name: Greene

Full Name: Stan Greene

Alternative Names: A-E-Ya (Good Doctor)

Date of birth: April 25, 1953

Place of birth: Mission, British Columbia, Canada

Community/Heritage: Semiahmoo, Coast Salish

Sex: Male

Art Media: carving, painting, limited editions prints, masks, poles

Bio: 

Stan Greene was born in 1953 and is from the Semiahmoo Band of the Coast Salish people. Based in Chilliwack, he has built an international reputation through his artistic revival of Salish traditions. 

Greene’s mother was Halkomelum (Sto Lo) and his father was from Semiahmo (White Rock). His paternal grandfather was a member of the Nez Perce people and could trace his lineage back to Chief Joseph. Greene was raised by his grandparents and exposed to Salish culture from an early age.

Greene has been carving since the age of 13. His grandfather had a small collection of carvings and a set of tools that Greene worked with as a young man. He studied with Vernon Stephens, Ken Mowatt, Chuck Heit and Murphy Green at the Kitanmax School of Northwest Coast Indian Art at K’san, where he learned the Tsimshian and Haida principles of design. However, there was no one to teach him the Salish design forms so he is largely self-educated in this realm, gathering inspiration from historic Salish arts in museums and exhibition catalogues as well as through Salish stories, dances and ceremonies.

“I got pictures of Salish pieces from the UBC Museum of Anthropology and took them to the elders and asked what they meant, but they couldn’t help much — a lot had been forgotten because of the residential schools, and because some of the traditions were kept private. I studied books of Salish art and began to teach myself the traditions. Long ago our carvers made most of what people needed, like ladles, spoons, canoes, and spindle whorls for spinning yarn, and they incorporated art into the design.” - Stan Greene, University of the Fraser Valley, 2007

In 1978 he did his first Salish designs for the limited edition prints, "Human and Thunderbird" and "Man with Wolves", which are considered to be the first examples of pure Salish design to be marketed in the Northwest Coast art market. Greene now carves in both the northern style and the Salish style; however, he does not believe in mixing the two styles. 

Exhibitions

• 1986: Expo ‘86, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
• 2011: Convergence/Divergence: Landscape and Identity on the West Coast, Legacy Art Gallery, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada
• 2014: Contemporary American Indian Art, Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, Overland Park, Kansas, United States

Collections

Kanazawa Park, Yokohama, Japan

Articles

2005: Changing Hands: Art without Reservation 2, Museum of Art and Design, New York, New York, United States

Awards

2007: Honorary Doctorate, University of the Fraser Valley