PORT TOWNSEND — Susan Pavel considers herself the conduit for the craft she loves: Coast Salish weaving.
“I’m at that place in my life where it’s not about me. I’m merely the vessel or the vehicle through which it passes,” she says in a video on her website, Coastsalishweaving.com.
Pavel will give an in-person presentation at 7 p.m. Friday at the Northwest Maritime Center, 431 Water St., to a maximum of 30 attendees, while her program will be recorded for later viewing online via the Jefferson County Historical Society website.
The society is hosting Pavel in its First Friday Speaker Series events, for which tickets — required in advance — are available via JCHSmuseum.org.
Use the Education and Programs menu to find the First Friday page.
Admission is by donation, with $10 suggested.
Pavel, Filipina by birth, was introduced to learning Coast Salish wool weaving during the summer of 1996. Her teacher was subiyay, Bruce Miller of the Skokomish Nation.
“I knew that he saw something in me, and I wasn’t going to squander that,” she says in her video.
“I figured out early on that I needed to stand up. I needed to give back.”
Pavel, who is known as sa’hLa mitSa, has displayed her work in 12 museum exhibits and more than 25 gallery shows, and given scores of presentations; she serves as the executive director of the Coast Salish Wool Weaving Center and as an adjunct faculty member at The Evergreen State College.
As she continues to weave and teach, she is obedient to SQ3Tsya’yay — Weaver’s Spirit Power.
In Friday’s presentation, Pavel will offer a show-and-tell of her work, a process that can require several months of dedicated focus.
In her video, she has a message for those who come to see a Coast Salish weaving.
“Let it talk to you. Let your heart be open, because the weaver put a lot of themselves into that.”
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Jefferson County senior reporter Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-417-3509 or durbanidelapaz@peninsuladaily news.com.
