Water Guardian
Susan Point's design is based on her image of a frog used in her public artwork Water Guardians at Hazelgrove Park in Cloverdale.
Artist: Susan Point
Category: Temporary public art: street banners
Year Installed: 2016
About Water Guardian
The frog’s traditional design symbolizes the cycle of life, small transformative beginnings, and the rhythm of the land. She has a previous public artwork in Surrey called Frogs on display at the South Surrey Recreation and Arts Centre.
Point explains her connection to frogs: "I have lived my whole life, as well as my ancestors for thousands of years before me, in a territory renowned for its abundant natural beauty including lakes, rivers, and the Salish Sea. If I am not fishing or beachcombing or watching frogs from the shoreline of a pond, I am imagining the world through the eyes of the aquatic creatures that have survived here since time immemorial. One of my favourite creatures is a frog. I've never really lost the captivation of watching them develop from tadpoles, and I don't think anyone really does . . . Frogs have always been the indicators of the changing seasons to First Nations people of the Pacific Northwest."
About the artist
Susan Point is a descendant of the Musqueam people and is a distinguished local Coast Salish artist.