Hlk’yáan K’ustáan (Frog) Drum by Danielle Louise Allard (Haida)

Material: Buffalo hide, Haida Gwaii alder, acrylic paint

Dimensions: 16 inches x 16 inches x 3 inches

Design:

The drum is hand painted with an original design. Danielle’s signature is designed using Haida formline and is inspired by a whale tail and dorsal fin representing her signature, DA.

This drum beautifully showcases how Danielle Louise Allard integrates the classic formline style with elements from her diverse painting background, resulting in a stunning piece of Haida art. Using a frontal design, she skillfully shapes the frog to fit perfectly within the drum's shape. 

The choice of colours is striking, transitioning from a vibrant green body to a deep green that defines the frog's eyes, lips, and ribs, with light green highlighting the webbed feet and a coral tongue adding a pop of colour. 

The abalone shell painted on the drum is theartist's specialty. With fine detailing and a gloss coating, it is hard to tell that it isn't a real abalone shell. She calls this technique faux-balone (as in faux abalone). One of her most well-known uses of abalone painting is when she painted an abalone shell labret on Dog Fish Woman, one of the carvings on the pole raised outside Christian White’s longhouse in 2022. The pole was a tribute to the ‘living Haida.’

Meet the Artist:

Danielle Louise Allard, Haida

Since childhood, Danielle has been interested in creating; drawing, painting and building, using any materials she could get her hands on. Continuing her artistic exploration through her youth eventually brought her to choose to study Fashion Design and Fine Arts in post secondary education. The study of art brought a fresh new way of thinking to her life and opened her mind to unlimited ideas and potential; the development of her work benefitted greatly from this and her experimentation began, continuing to utilize all mediums and concepts that intrigued her. As her skills developed and she slowly narrowed her artistic vision, she started to educate herself more about her Haida culture and background. During this time she continued making work for galleries and shows creating acrylic paintings, block prints and mixed media pieces; but, in her spare time, she was reading up on the Haida culture and working on studies of great Haida master artists. She currently resides in Masset, Haida Gwaii, to continue her study of Haida art apprenticing with master carvers and artisans.