Get Involved!
Contact AHA! about volunteer opportunities.
Chief William Shelton Story Pole in its location on the Capitol Campus. The story pole is an innovative artistic effort by an important Native American leader to preserve Salish culture and communicate it to a broad non-native audience. Chief Shelton's artistic style influenced many contemporary carvers. The pole is now in a climate-controlled storage facility to preserve it. c. 1945, photographer: Merle Junk, Susan Parish Photograph Collection, 1889-1990, Washington State Archives, Digital Archives, http://www.digitalarchives.wa.gov.
Olympia Dragon Mural, Mymy Nguyen, 2018. The Olympia Dragon Mural was conceived as an artistic tribute to the once vibrant Chinese American business community that was located along Columbia Street. In the words of muralist Mymy Nguyen: “The dragon is a symbol of strength, ordinarily depicted in great detail – scales, skin, features, expression: a sense of intention and motion. But in this dragon, we see only a silhouette – a ghost of the past strength, intention and motion of Chinese immigrants who left their homes, crossed the widest ocean, and came to Olympia for a better life. This is where they built a community... As a new immigrant, I hear the echo of their experiences; I feel it in my bones...This mural is a tribute to them; a remembrance that mourns the absence of their lost community here, and honors their bravery.”