T AʔC HALÁXP, My name is Savannah LeCornu. I am an Indigenous artist who has been a Bellingham community member for over a decade now. I am Tsimshian (Wolf Clan), Haida, and Nimiipuu (Nez Perce). I am originally from Ketchikan, Alaska.
I’ve been an artist all my life. My family is full of singers, dancers, artists and beadwork artists. I was inspired by them from a young age. Drawing, especially formline, stuck with me and would eventually become my main focus as an artist. I mostly draw with Copic markers and multiliners.
For the past decade I have split my time between pursuing my professional career in technical theater and cultivating my small Bellingham based business, Savannahpants Art. I focus on creating art that celebrates and centers Indigenous peoples. I am from both coastal and plains tribes, and in my works I look to combine coastal formline with plains ledger art. I feel that these styles uniquely represent not only me, but all the coastal and plains peoples out there.
Photograph Courtesy of Madison Lefever And Savannah Lecornu
While I seek to create art that represents Indigenous people, I want my art to be for and consumed by everyone. Since starting my business in 2017 I have always kept my work affordable. By selling prints of my original pieces, I have been able to distribute a large quantity of my art at approachable prices.
My art is also very rooted in the nature of both Alaska and the Pacific Northwest. I’ve lived in these areas my whole life and draw a lot of inspiration from the landscape. You’ll find a lot of mountains, trees, and the Pacific Ocean alongside my Indigenous art forms.
In our community here in Bellingham, you may have seen my art hanging during an Art Walk. You may have seen my painting “Still Here – The WWU Variant” in the Parks Hall lobby on Western’s campus. Or, you may have even seen my art on a beer can when I collaborated with Wander Brewing for their eighth anniversary.
I hear I’m best known for my Still Here Series, which highlights the perseverance of Indigenous peoples who are very much still here, and my Indigenize Series, which combines formline with line art and returns Indigenous names to stolen land.
Photograph Courtesy of Madison Lefever And Savannah Lecornu
Over the years I have been able to keep up with my art because there is a lot of standing by in theater. Most of my pieces have been at least partially created in a dark theater while waiting to take my next light cue. That has gotten even easier since I started drawing digitally. I work in the illustration app Procreate on my iPad because it’s easy to take on the go.
And while drawing is my main method of creating, I do also bead and paint. During the COVID-19 shutdown, I picked up beadwork again and have been finding ways to include that in my work. This year I attended my first artist residency at the Ucross Foundation as their 2022 Spring Native American Fellow for Visual Arts. During my time there I began painting again and created five new pieces. That eventually led to creating the painting for Parks Hall at WWU.
Recently my art has been getting noticed more, showing up on a few more things. This means that going forward you can expect to see more prints, painting, and beadwork from me, so make sure to keep an eye out. Qe’ci’yew’yew. T’oyxsut ‘nüüsm. Thank you for reading. Bellingham, savannahlecornu.weebly.com, @savannahpants
