The large panel on the Northwest and Southwest sidewalls is of the drummer, a central figure of the Inupiat people. The drummer sings of a shaman's journey in meditative state. The images are marked by time. The round sun and moon forms with teh landscape of sea and land. They journey to the end of the world, where no mortal person has gone. The tradition of drumming is still the way the Inupiat people are passing on tradition, to tell legends of great hunts and hunters. The Inupiat people have no known written language; oral traditions are passed from one generation to the next. The music is a way of not forgetting, a way to give respect to the elders and to entertain guests or visitors in the villages. Lawrence Ulaaq Avakana, an Inupiat Eskimo artist, was born in Fairbanks and reared primarily in Anchorage. Well known throughout the Pacific Northwest for both his sculpture and hand blown glass containers, he describes his work as "mostly realistic". He strives to show an interrelationship of feelings using "parts or wholes of humans and animals". The traditional feelings displayed in his works exemplify the inner strength and deep emotion of his Inupiat heritage. He studied art at the Institute of American Indian Art in New Mexico, the Cooper Union School of Art in New York City, and obtained his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the Rhode Island School of Design. His commissioned works are in many public buildings throughout the Pacific Northwest. Many of his works are prominently displayed in the permanent collection of the Anchorage Museum as Rasmussen Center and he has shown his works at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.
