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Minturn-based Weston Snowboards has launched several new lines this season featuring designs from Crystal Worl, who specializes in the formline art of the Alaska native Tlingit people.
The collaboration is part of a larger effort between Worl, Weston and others to raise awareness for the urgent situation in Alaska involving salmon harvesting.
Worl, who is herself Tlingit, said on Weston’s new Skyline-model skis and Backwoods- and Eclipse-model snowboards, she drew from her people’s artistic style in an effort to be communicative with the project.
“There’s a whole set of principles and way of creating the art, it’s very complex and something that’s passed on from mentor to apprentice,” she said. “Growing up, we didn’t call it art. It’s on our regalia, it’s on our houses, it’s a way of communication, it’s our literature.
“This formline design is used so that when I’m wearing my regalia, someone will look at my regalia and see my clan crest on there, and they’ll be able to tell who I am, where I’m from, and their relationship to me and my family,” Worl added. “It’s a whole book of information just from one design.”
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Worl said the salmon depicted on her Weston boards represents “Xáat Kusteeyí,” a Tlingit term for “The Salmon Way of Life,” which focuses on protecting salmon and salmon habitat so the salmon can provide people with sustenance in return.
Crisis on the Kuskokwim
Worl grew up attending something she calls “fish camp,” where kids learn to filet and smoke fish.
But in recent years, fish camp has been canceled, she said.
“We’ve been going to fish camp and harvesting fish in the Kuskokwim River forever, something my grandfather passed on to his kids and on to me and my family,” she said. “But the past three years we haven’t been allowed to, because the number of salmon is too low.”
It’s a crisis for the native people of Alaska who live by Xáat Kusteeyí.
“It’s urgent,” Worl said. “It affects our small communities in Alaska, but it does ultimately affect everyone … the way the world is collecting salmon is not sustainable. We won’t have salmon in the future.”
Worl said she thinks about the situation every day, and it has altered the way she thinks about her art. Using the communicative formline style of her people, she now seeks to spread a message communicating the urgency of the salmon harvesting situation in Alaska.
“Part of creating an art piece that commemorates salmon is also telling people the importance of salmon and also the importance of learning to harvest them respectfully in a way that’s not wasteful,” she said.
Haa Aani Alliance
Worl has attended art school and taken on extensive studies including a three-year apprenticeship with Haida artist Robert Davidson, a master of the craft. But her first and most influential mentor was her brother, Rico Worl.
Rico carved out the recognition and respect of a corner of Alaskan skateboard culture with his signature style, eventually requesting the assistance of Crystal.
“My older brother was hand-painting skateboard decks and selling them online, and he was doing so well that it was hard to keep up with orders,” she said. “He started sending me blank decks, and I started hand painting them.”
The siblings formed Trickster Company, and while Crystal’s art continued to be featured on skateboards, she had yet to appear on a snowboard before the Weston collaboration.
Trickster Company, along with Weston, Zeal Optics, Smartwool, Pret, and MountainFLOW Eco-Wax, have now joined forces to form the Haa Aani Alliance. Has Aani is a Tlingit word meaning “our land.”
In addition to the Weston skis and snowboards, the Haa Aani Alliance will launch a collection of goggles, socks and accessories featuring Worl’s artwork, with a portion of proceeds benefiting nonprofits Yukon Salmon, Wild Salmon Center and the North Atlantic Salmon Fund.
Worl is a skier and enjoys the sport and its connection to Alaska. She also wants to make it clear that by putting her art on its products, these companies are supporting indigenous art, not appropriating it.
“I’m a small business owner, and like any other modern-day business, we want buyers and collectors to feel really excited about repping our gear, whether it be something they buy from the Trickster website, or they buy this snowboard or skis,” she said. “I want everyone to wear it and rock it, and I want people to be stoked about the art, and the story, and share the story, share the values that come with it, learn from it, and shred on the mountain with these boards and be excited to tell other people about it.”
