Below excerpt from: "Reid Controversy" - The Canadian Encyclopedia (online)

In 1980, Haida artist Jim Hart was 27 and unfamiliar with city ways when he first arrived in Vancouver from the Queen Charlottes. When his plane touched down at Vancouver airport, it seemed there were more people in the baggage claim area than in his entire home town of Masset. A slim but powerful carver with a long black ponytail, Hart soon got word that [Bill] Reid [see AskART] wanted him to work for him.

Little did he know that his first job would involve carving the finishing details - known as "surfacing" or putting "the skin on the bird," as one artist describes it. At $10 an hour, Reid wanted him to surface h...