PORT ANGELES — Linda Wiechman was away from home for nine years. A long way away, in Minnesota.
The Port Angeles native, the daughter of a full-blooded Klallam father, left to go and live with her husband, Jim Wiechman, in the late 1970s.
After inheriting 3 acres on the west side of the Elwha River, Linda Wiechman returned to her tribe’s birthplace; she has since made it her mission to teach others about Klallam art, traditional uses for native plants and the culture she loves.
Speaking at college
It’s been decades since she’s come back, but her passion for Salish art and tradition hasn’t dimmed in the slightest.
So this Thursday, Wiechman will be the Studium Generale speaker at Peninsula College, and later in the afternoon, she’ll be the guest of honor at a public reception in the college’s Longhouse Gallery.
Wiechman is a painter, drum maker, carver and weaver — who makes soaps, lotions and balms from the plants that grow near her home.
She’ll give a free 50-minute talk about her creative process beginning at 12:35 p.m. Thursday in the Little Theater, on the campus at 1502 E. Lauridsen Blvd.
And at 2 p.m., she’ll go over to the Longhouse Gallery, in the campus’ southwest corner, where about 25 pieces of her art are on display.
Inside the Longhouse are carved masks, button blankets, drums and more — such as “Eagle Woman,” Wiechman’s vision of a human encircled in bald eagle feathers and extending a hand to the winged creature.
Moved back in 1987
After she moved back to the Olympic Peninsula in 1987, Wiechman studied traditional foods and medicines at Northwest Indian College in Bellingham, and then taught satellite classes in Native American weaving.
Then, about a year and a half ago, she asked her husband to “invest” in her, by funding production of cards and prints bearing the images she carved and painted.
He did so, and Wiechman has been selling those pieces ever since in Olympic National Park visitor centers and Wagner’s Grocery, west of Port Angeles on U.S. Highway 101.
The long, dark winter is a time of creativity for the artist.
She’s been painting a lot this season — while embarking on a new course of study: a satellite course in casino management from Northwest Indian College.
New course of study
Wiechman says she’s still considering which direction she’ll take next, but one of the things she’s interested in is the bachelor’s degree in native environmental science offered at Northwest Indian.
Wiechman’s art, meantime, will grace the Longhouse Gallery through February.
Her display is part of a series of exhibits by members of the North Olympic Peninsula’s Native American tribes, including the Jamestown S’Klallam, Hoh, Quileute, Makah and Wiechman’s Lower Elwha Klallam.
To find out more about the series, contact Maria Pena, Peninsula College dean of student development, at mpena@pencol.edu or 360-417-6347.
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Features Editor Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-417-3550 or at diane.urbani@peninsuladailynews.com.
