> [!NOTE]+ Meta > Author:: American Craft Council > Reference:: American Craft Council. (2025). Permanent marker. _American Craft Council_. https://craftcouncil.org/articles/permanent-marker/ > Date:: 2025 > Tags:: #warp/article #USA #glass > WeftLinks:: [[Cultural value of craft]] > Claim:: [[Claim - Craft strengthens relationships between members of a cultural group]] > [!SUMMARY] Summary > Lummi glass artist Dan Friday turns Coast Salish stories and family history into luminous glass sculptures and public art. His salmon, bear, and owl pieces honor Indigenous lifeways and make those stories feel permanent. The Seattle Aquarium installation and other commissions bring ancestral tales into public view. ### Highlights Since time immemorial, the salmon has been a core symbol of identity and culture for Native peoples like the Lummi, who call themselves the *Lhaq'temish*, or People of the Sea, reflecting their close ties to the Salish Sea for their livelihood. *Schaenexw (Salmon) Run*, an installation of 33 glass salmon at the Seattle Aquarium's new Ocean Pavilion, was created by artist Dan Friday (Kwul Kwul Tw). Hillaire was a totem pole carver who used his work to share the ways of the Lummi and Coast Salish people, and Friday sees himself as the next link in this ancestral chain. "Art is a way to keep the stories of my family going, to keep their fires burning," he says. Two of the most common figures in Friday's work are the owl (*kwai-el-hu*) and the bear (*kwái-it-shin*). The owl is associated with knowledge and intuition in Lummi traditions, and the bear holds a deeply personal association for Friday, as children of his great-great-grandfather Frank Hillaire (Hae Tel Uk) are known as the bear family.