In 1972, Walter Annenberg read an article in Natural History magazine about an exhibit called “Out of the Silence” at the Amon Carter Museum of Art in Fort Worth, Texas. The exhibit featured photographs of Pacific Northwest totem pole traditions of indigenous people in the region, who had abandoned their villages for almost a century.

Smallpox had wiped out local tribal populations, and missionaries put a stop to totem pole carvings out of fear of paganism. In the 1960s, these stolen artifacts were returned to the First Nations, and they performed healing ceremonies. The story of these villages was finally being told.

Annenberg wanted to have a totem pole installed on his Rancho Mirage property — now known as Sunnylands Center & Gardens — and sought information on how he could attain one. In a letter dated March 27, 1972, Annenberg asked Amon Carter to pass his information on to William Reid, who authored the exhibit.

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“The idea of getting a great old historic totem pole for my estate, ‘Sunnylands,’ in the Southern California desert, is rather appealing,” he wrote.

Annenberg, who owned and operated Triangle Publications, wasn’t just a businessman and philanthropist. He and his wife Leonore saw art as a way to bridge differences between cultures. Through their travels around the world, they encountered art that led to private commissions on their Rancho Mirage property. After seeing a 40-foot bronze columnar fountain at the Museo Nacional de Antrhopologia in Mexico City, they commissioned a half-scale fountain built by artists José and Tomás Chávez Morado.

Carter replied to Annenberg on April 4, 1972. “From what I have found out, totem poles are very hard to obtain now since Canada has imposed some laws on their removal,” he said. (In Canada, it is illegal to remove an indigenous totem pole from its original site.)

After a period of investigation, the Annenbergs found Henry Hunt, the senior member of the most significant family dynasty of Pacific Northwest Kwakiutl carving. His father-in-law, Mungo Martin, created two totem poles for the Canadian Pavilion at the 1939 New York World’s Fair. In 1958, Hunt and Martin carved a 100-foot totem pole for Queen Elizabeth II, which is now in Windsor Great Park in the United Kingdom.

Hunt accepted the commission. In the Kwakiutl village on Vancouver Island in British Columbia, he built a 30-foot pole then transported and installed it at Sunnylands in 1976. It sits on the dogleg turn of the fifth fairway on the golf course.

Forty-three years after that installation, Sunnylands is hosting a new exhibition, "Reach For The Sky: Tradition and Inspiration." The exhibit highlights work by the Hunt family as well as totem-like sculptures made by jazz musician Herb Alpert, who has been painting and sculpting for almost 50 years.

The Kwakiutl are known for totem poles

In Tsakis, the village of the Kwakiutl in Fort Rupert, native carvers create totem poles and other crafts related to their culture. There’s a welcome pole in front of U’gwamalis Hall, which is the Band office for the Kwakiutl First Nation, and some houses of the Kwakiutl have artwork painted on them.

During a recent phone interview, Hunt's son, Stan Hunt, said few people know about the Kwakiutl, despite the fact that his family’s art has been shown in museums around the world.

“There’s under 1,000 Kwakiutl around the world, and 3% of them carve,” Stan said. “Everywhere we go, we’re educating the public out there that we’re still here and we’re still carving."

Kwakiutl carvers are only allowed to carve their own family crests into totem poles. It limits every artist to what their family owns. Even on the Sunnylands totem pole, there are Hunt family crests.

At the top of the pole sits a Kwakiutl chief, showing the noble lineage of the Hunt family. The chief wears a hat and holds a shield-like plaque known as a “copper” to his chest, symbolizing wealth. The chief represents Henry Hunt, Stan explained in the exhibition program, and the three rings on its hat are a symbol of Hunt being chief three times.

A bear holding a seal to its chest sits below the chief. The seal is also a sign of wealth and represents people of the sea, such as fishermen. The bear is a symbol of a guardian spirit of the household, and the bear and the seal are both in the Hunt family crests.

Under the bear is Tsonoqua, a cannibalistic wild woman of the woods who carries a basket on her back to place the children she captures, though they always later escape. The Tsonoqua is a tale told to Kwakiutl children to keep them from leaving the village. She also holds a copper representing wealth.

At the very bottom is the Sisiutl, a double-headed serpent. The Sisiutl references the family crest of Stan's grandmother.

The first step of creating a totem pole is a sketch on paper, but the vision always differs from the final product, Stan said. Stripping a log of bark takes about 10 to 12 days before a carver can draw center lines and begin carving.

The pole at Sunnylands took his father three months to complete with three people helping him, Stan added.

“It’s a long process to make a totem pole,” Stan said. “We did a project recently in Argentina that was 43 feet, and it took seven months to complete and that was four of us working on it.”

There are 12 members of the Hunt family who carve. Growing up, Stan said he carved toys and other small items. Learning how to create totem poles starts at an apprentice level and takes several years to master. To get there, Stan arrived earlier than his father to sharpen chainsaws, chisels and knives. He passed all the steps taught by his father, which Stan then passed on to his own sons, Jason and Trevor.

“It’s difficult to think you can start a totem pole without being guided by someone who knows what they’re doing,” Stan said. “You look around and you’ll find people who are self-taught, and you can see that they’re self-taught. You need to have a good teacher.”

Even though he developed an early interest, Stan said he worked regular jobs before deciding on carving as a career path. His father encouraged him to pursue it for personal and cultural benefits.

“I spent a lot of time working and getting paychecks until I realized that I would rather carve, working for myself and creating things than being in the job force," Stan said. "I really appreciate educating people who look at one and (giving) them a little bit of Kwakiutl history.”

Herb Alpert is inspired by totem poles

Herb Alpert is best known as a nine-time Grammy Award-wining jazz musician, but he also is an artist drawn to totem poles.

After visiting Stanley Park in Vancouver in the 1990s, Alpert was awestruck with the indigenous pole display. An accomplished painter and sculptor,he started to make symbolic pieces with human and animal references, then with a more abstract vision. As an artist, his work is inspired by movement and freedom, much like the music he plays.

His 1965 album with the Tijuana Brass, “Whipped Cream & Other Delights,” is one of the most influential jazz albums in music history. But in addition to his 28 albums on the Billboard 200 chart and more than 70 million records sold, Alpert's art has been exhibited in museums around the world.

He has nine totems on display as part of the permanent collection at the Field Museum in Chicago, eight at the National Museum of Wildlife Art in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, and a current exhibition at Wynn Macau & Wynn Palace in Macau, China.

“I was just doing it because I was traveling around the world with the Tijuana Brass, and the modern art section of museums inspired me,” Alpert said by phone. “I saw a black painting with a white dot and black painting with a white dot. I thought, ‘Let me try that. I know how to make dots.’ I started painting when I got back to Los Angeles and had a good time.”

Painting soon turned to sculpting. Then the Northwest totem poles inspired him to take his sculptures, which were flat, to vertical.

Being a musician and an artist goes hand-in-hand for Alpert, and it’s part of his everyday routine. Alpert’s wife, Lani Hall, a vocalist who performed with Sergio Mendes and the Brasil ‘66, has said she hears music in his artwork.

“I paint every day, I sculpt every day, and I blow the horn every day and have been doing that since I was 8 years old,” Albert said. “I’m a right-brained guy. I live out of the right side of my head and I’m 80% in the creative world. I’m an introvert. My life is there.”

Alpert usually starts the process for totems in his kitchen, working with wax and a blowtorch. He shapes his vision and, if it’s worthy, takes it to his sculpture studio, where he makes a larger version with clay thrown onto a metal armature up to 3 feet. If he feels it needs to be bigger, he’ll make it up to 20 feet. Then, he makes a mold and bronzes it.

“I don’t think when I make music, paint or sculpt. I let creativity speak without being filtered,” Alpert said. “There are some rules and things that you’re conscious of. But you forget the mechanics and go for the feeling.”

Sunnylands exhibit contrasts the two approaches

"Reach For The Sky: Tradition and Inspiration" will show two different styles of creating totem poles. One presentation is the Kwakiutl traditional carving in totem poles and masks. The other is Alpert's abstract sculpture and paintings inspired by indigenous carvers of the Pacific Northwest.

One has the freedom to create what he feels. The other focuses on traditions and heritage.

“Artists have always been inspired by each other," said Anne Rowe, director of collections and exhibitions for Sunnylands. "Herb was in Canada and he saw these poles, and he was inspired to take his own sculptures that weren’t vertical to vertical. The Hunts are not in a history book frozen in time. They are taking their inherited motifs and riffing on those themselves. We’re watching the track of Herb Alpert being inspired by the Kwakiutls, and the Kwakiutls doing their own thing as well.”

Alpert and the Hunt family have never met before, but Alpert feels honored to be included in the exhibit at Sunnylands.

“My artwork wouldn’t exist without it being inspired by what the Northwest coast indigenous people did,” Alpert said. “I’m not only indebted to them, I admire what they do and how they do it. They do it with love and tender care.”

Stan said he admires Alpert's sculpture and feels this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to have an exhibit together at Sunnylands.

"Everybody including my mom and dad, listened to Herb Alpert," Stan said. "For this time in his life and in my life to finally be able to meet, it's incredible. It's something no one would consider having a chance to do, but here we are."

Since the original installation of the totem pole in 1976, the Hunt family has returned to Sunnylands to restore it in 2010 and re-dedicate it in 2012. This year's exhibition of their work speaks to the long-standing relationship between the Hunts and the historic Annenberg estate.

"I love working with the people at Sunnylands," Stan said. "They've always been magnificent to us. When we speak of them, we speak of them as our friends, not just clients. My sons Jason and Trevor will continue that relationship after I'm gone."

If you go

What: "Reach For The Sky: Tradition & Inspiration"

Where: Sunnylands Center & Gardens, 37-977 Bob Hope Dr, Rancho Mirage

When: Sept. 11, 2019 through June 7, 2020

How much: Free admission and parking

Desert Sun reporter Brian Blueskye covers arts and entertainment. He can be reached at brian.blueskye@desertsun.com or (760) 778-4617.