Here are the opening lines from my last musing.
“One huge benefit of being a book dealer is that you are constantly learning new things. Researching a new acquisition, its author, illustrator, press, subject matter, etc... Great for the brain – keeps it nimble, so they say.”
And this continues with today’s book. The subject is interesting Pacific Coast totem poles, which is why I bought the book. But doing the write up for posting on Abebooks, I found the story of the author more interesting. A Renaissance type of Man, who I had never heard of before and my guess is no reader of this musing had ever heard of him either. If I am wrong, drop me a note.
I’ll do the book first, and then address the Man.
The Totem Carvers: Charlie James, Ellen Neel, and Mungo Martin; Phil Nuytten; Panorama Publications Ltd., Vancouver, Canada, 1982. Inscribed by the author in both English and Indigenous languages with sketch.
And here is my write up about the book. It introduces you to the author, but the more intriguing bits will follow.
From the blurb – Art styles, it would seem, have greater viability than the cultures that produce them. The old Indian cultures of the coast are dead, but the art styles continue on in new and modern contexts. The Kwakiutl style never did suffer a full eclipse, but was kept alive by such artists as Charlie James, Mungo Martin, and Ellen Neel – Wilson Duff 1967. These pages tell a part of the story of those three people. The Totem Carvers will have some ongoing value to students and researchers but, primarily, was written to show that these people lived…and laughed…and, unlike many of the objects that they have left behind, they were not dusty museum pieces. To tell of these three people is to tell of Kwakiutl art, and to tell of Kwakiutl is to tell of the Kwakiutl people. This book tells a little of all of these things. Phil Nuytten was born and educated in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. He is well-known internationally in the field of undersea technology and has authored dozens of technical papers as well as articles for the popular press. Although Nuytten traces a portion of his parental background to the Metis Nation, in the province of Manitoba, his avid interest in Indian Art and culture began at an early age on Canada’s west coast. Nuytten apprenticed under Kwakiutl Artist Ellen Neel, during the summers, beginning at age 12, and, as is evident from this book, he has not forgotten those early lessons.
This book is in fine condition in a near-fine dust jacket that is now in a protective mylar wrap. A very scarce and important book on its subject matter.
And now onto the author Phil Nuytten. And much of this comes from his Wikipedia page. I have mentioned this before, but Wikipedia is a wonderful tool for a bookseller. And is why I always contribute to their annual fundraising campaign.
His photo is from the blurb. And his inscription is from the half-title as noted above. It reflects his art lessons from one of the totem carvers. Here is what I find so interesting.
René Théophile "Phil" Nuytten OC OBC (1941 – 2023) was a Canadian entrepreneur, deep-ocean explorer, scientist, inventor of the Newtsuit, and founder of Nuytco Research Ltd. He pioneered designs related to diving equipment, and worked with NASA for more than 25 years on applications related to undersea and space technologies.
When Nuytten learned as a boy that he was of Métis heritage, he set out to connect with his Indigenous roots. He became a master carver and engraver, working in the style of the West Coast Kwakwaka’wakw Nation, who adopted him in. His pieces were sought in galleries specializing in Indigenous art, and he took very seriously his role in keeping the cultural traditions of his adoptive family alive.
“It was his passion. He was such an unbelievably talented artist,” his daughter said.
There was most certainly overlap between those two worlds, Nuytten would say. At the bottom of the ocean, he’d be thinking of designs for a new bracelet or ceremonial mask. During a potlach dance, he’d be imagining new exosuit components.
He represents the correlation between deep sea and deep space. If you go onto Wikipedia and look at his Newtsuit, you might think astronaut.
Today, his equipment is used by a wide range of organizations, including the National Geographic Society, NASA, and is standard for almost a dozen navies.
During the 1960s and 1970s, Nuytten was involved in the development of mixed-gas decompression tables. He was part of a team that accomplished the first 600 FSW (feet of seawater) ocean "bounce" dives on Project Nesco. In the 1970s, he co-founded Oceaneering International, Inc. This company became one of the largest underwater skills companies in the world. In 1983, Nuytten appeared on the cover of National Geographic due to his dives into arctic waters to Breadalbane.
It was announced in September 2018 that Nuytten was designing and planned to build an underwater human settlement off of the coast of Vancouver, Canada, in the Pacific Ocean. A prototype was to be built as early as 2019, with cylindrical living chambers powered from Stirling engines powered by hydrothermal vent sources. The buildings would be built on land and transported likely to the Juan de Fuca Strait, and submerged a few thousand feet below the surface.
Resulting from his contributions to marine diving technologies, Nuytten appeared in the media numerous times, including: National Geographic, Time, Newsweek, Popular Science, Discovery, Fortune, Scientific American and Business Week. What an interesting mix of journals.
Just picture the 12-year-old boy learning how to draw from a Kwakiutl elder and how this became the foundation for his inventions.
Perhaps, no totem pole carvers – no Newtsuit.