Tintah: Amongst The Trails

Cal Poly Humboldt’s Goudi’ni Native American Arts Gallery presents Tintah: Amongst The Trails, works in wood and works on paper by Robert Benson. Exhibition runs October 5th through December 2nd, 2023.

Focusing on a new body of work, Tintah, Hupa language for amongst the trails, features newly carved salvaged old growth redwood sculptures, and watercolor studies. Robert Benson, Tsnungwe, is a leading figure among artists in the northwestern California art world. He worked as a well-respected teacher for more than 30 years at the College of the Redwoods in Eureka, California, as well as a curator of Native art. 

His current paintings and sculptures are filled with trails, literal and suggested. “There is the trail into our family hunting camp that I traveled for more than fifty years, there are trails handed down through stories and mythologies, and there are the trails of imagination. When we consider that at the most basic level a trail is just something connecting two points, even the ladder and stairway forms that populate my work can be viewed as kinds of trails. To be amongst the trails is to find your rhythm, your place, and to discover the interplay between that rhythm and the melody of the universe.” Benson states.

Tintah:  Amongst the Trails

A trail is quite simply a rough path across open country formed by repeated travel. Trails are everywhere. Universal. But the physical act of walking a trail is personal. Some of the experience is dictated by what you bring, some by what you find: Walk the same trail at a different time of day, in a different season, at a different age, with a different load (be it physical or emotional) and even the most familiar trail becomes new, offering experiences beyond simply the convenient passage from point A to B. Much like the creative process, walking a trail is an act of will but also an act of discovery. There is the trail head, the point of origin, and there is a desired destination. However, despite our intentions, the reality and experience of a trail is often non-linear. In between origin and destination, a world of possibility exists filled with spurs, obstacles, confrontations, and resolutions. This trail is as much a place as origin or destination.

Tintah is a Hupa word that literally translated means, Amongst the trails. The word is used figuratively to mean, In the forest. I chose Tintah as the title for this exhibition for several reasons. First, my paintings and sculptures are filled with trails, literal and suggested. There is the trail into our family hunting camp that I traveled for more than fifty years, there are trails handed down through stories and mythologies, and there are the trails of imagination. When we consider that at the most basic level a trail is just something connecting two points, even the ladder and stairway forms that populate my work can be viewed as kinds of trails.

 There is also the notion that being "amongst the trails" is to be in the natural world and to recognize the ubiquity of the trail. When we start to look, we see literal and metaphorical trails all around us. Trails connect us. They act as touchstones to who or what came this way before. From antiquity to today, from dinosaur trackways to New York City subway lines, from a wildfire's trail of destruction to hidden ant trails and glacial moraines, the list of trail makers and phenomena is expansive.

Lastly, there is the trail's metaphorical sense regarding exploration of our world and ourselves. The path of life, path of least resistance, the road less traveled, stairway to heaven, the ladder of success: Our language is filled with phrases that speak to this connection between the trail and the pursuit of personal growth or enlightenment. In my Native culture, just to be on the trail to the high country is itself a spiritual journey. The trail is perceived as having its own life and is treated with appropriate regard.

Walking a trail, your mind gets clean. There is an auditory component to the work of it. Almost like music, your stride, each footfall and breath, creates a kind of rhythm. The mind becomes clear. In that state, you become open to what in you resonates with the natural world, the sounds and sensations outside of yourself layered atop that internal rhythm of breath and stride. To be amongst the trails is to find your rhythm, your place, and to discover the interplay between that rhythm and the melody of the universe.

—Robert Benson, 2023