The start of Susan Point’s art career was a jewelry-making course she attended in 1981. Looking for designs that would mean something to her personally she began to focus on historical Coast Salish spindle whorls, which are carved discs with a central pole used for spinning wool. Point understood that the translation from making utilitarian objects to fine art would require experimentation with different media, and she began to experiment with printmaking. Her search for modern materials and new senses of scale eventually pushed the “humble” spindle whorl to monumental sizes such as the 1995 work Flight commissioned for the Vancouver International Airport. In the late 1980s Susan Point was the one of the first Northwest Coast artists to experiment in the glass medium. Her lovely free-standing editions of spindle whorls in etched glass with wood spindles allow the glass to be lit in various ways, revealing the shadow play between the light, the design, and surrounding surfaces. Point became the second Northwest Coast artist to be invited as an Artist-in-Residence to the prestigious Pilchuck Glass School in Stanwood, Washington in 2006. For an extensive survey of similar and related works by the artist see the 2017 Vancouver Art Gallery exhibition catalogue by Bill McLennan et al, Susan Point: Spindle Whorl.