Mana of the Trees
Woodcarving & Media Collaborations with Tonu Shane & Koa Stevens
Tonu Shane (formerly known as Shane Eagleton) and Koa Stevens are leading our collaborative work in:
Rejuvenating the Whale Totem Pole in the newly rematriated land at Heron Shadow as storytelling seats
Facilitating Indigenous Woodcarving Apprenticeships with Native youth (Native American and Pacific Islander), collaborating with a new Indigenous Woodcarving Learning Center on the Island of Oʻahu in Hawaiʻi
A storyboard woodblock by Tonu from the In Reverence of the Ancestral Feminine exhibit, produced by The Cultural Conservancy in 1996
Tonu works with youth from our Guardians of the Waters Youth Program
The Talking Seat, one of the three sections of the Whale Totem Pole, transformed and placed at Heron Shadow as part of this collaboration, and as part of the Sculpture Garden of Native Science and Learning.
Narrative History of Collaborations with Tonu Shane and Koa Stevens
Tonu displays one carved panel of the dozens made from recycled wood for the Bioneers Main stage art in 1997
The Cultural Conservancy (TCC) first met Tonu Shane, then known as Shane Eagleton (he received his Rotuman name of Tonu from an elder in 2002), in 1996 through our mutual interest in Indigenous cultural arts and intercultural healing at the new Presidio National Park in San Francisco where we were both working, TCC as the first Native-led nonprofit in the Thoreau Center and Tonu as an Indigenous environmental artist using recycled and salvaged trees.
From 1996 - 2001, TCC and Tonu Shane worked on a number of cultural arts projects together, primarily the Kohola Project, focused on carving half a dozen salvaged yellow cedar logs into Native American Healing Poles to be gifted and shared with local and national Native communities and public institutions such as museums and zoos. Two masterpieces of that project are a massive life-size Whale Pole and the Indian Canyon Healing Pole, which is the project where Koa began collaborating with TCC. For this project, we partnered with the Pacific Islander Cultural Association, the Interfaith Center at the Presidio, the Presidio Alliance, and the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe on a number of woodcarving and cultural programs.
Together, and with others, we hosted the first Earth Day in the Presidio, in 1997 with the “archdruid of the environmental movement,” David Brower and the famous tree-sitter Julia Butterfly Hill, who called in from an early cell phone from Luna, the 1,500 year old Redwood Tree she sat in for over a year. We also co-sponsored the Aloha Festival at Crissy Field, where we presented a Healing Pole to the Muwekma Ohlone tribe in a public ceremony. We worked on the National Parks Conservation Association’s “Diversity in the Parks” initiative and presented this work at their annual conference in Santa Fe, New Mexico in 2000. Additionally, we collaborated to provide beautifully designed recycled wood stage art for the Bioneers Conference in 1997 and that started a decade-long partnership with Bioneers where Tonu and Koa provided original, unique stage art for the Main stage at the Marin Civic Center.
In 2001, we formalized our relationship when Tonu became our first Artist-in-Residence, and we produced “In Reverence for the Ancestral Feminine,” the first art show in the hallways of the Thoreau Center for Sustainability (now the China Brotsky Gallery in the Tides building). Tonu and TCC also collaborated extensively at this time with Yolanda Nunez (Apache) to hold art shows, art classes, and carve canoes and totem poles. Our mutual work always strives to recognize the unrecognized, especially Indigenous peoples who often are invisible in their own homelands due to centuries of colonial erasure.
Also in 2001, TCC went to Oʻahu, Hawaiʻi at the invitation of one of our then Hawaiian board members, Mahealani Cypher, to meet with educators at the Windward Community College to discuss potential collaborations around Indigenous cultural arts programs. Tonu was interested in moving to Hawaiʻi and to more fully immerse himself in his Pacific Islander heritage and the College was looking to develop a woodcarving program. With TCC support, Tonu created and managed the Na Kukui Hoʻoulu O Naʻauao Program for Cultural Knowledge and Enlightenment Through Trees at the Windward Community College of the University of Hawaiʻi from 2001 to 2007, teaching dozens of students (of all ages and professions) how to use woodcarving tools and salvaged wood to create art, furniture, cultural items like drums, traditional weapons, storyboards, and more.
Today, The Cultural Conservancy continues to work closely with Tonu and his son Koa, who recently moved back to Northern California. After over 20 years of working partnership and over 30 years of professional work both as Indigenous artist/educators and as a Native-led nonprofit organization, we are deepening our collaboration and launching a refined vision of our life’s work in Indigenous revitalization and education.
Seed Spiral carved by Tonu Eagleton
Anne-Marie Sayers, Kanyon Sayers-Roods and Melissa Nelson in Indian Canyon, Hollister, California, with a group of Guardians of the Waters youth and the Healing Pole gifted by The Cultural Conservancy and Tonu in 2007
Whale Pole that we are planning to revitalize in the form of storytelling thrones
