David Boxley rediscovered his culture and his own passion for art making when living in Seattle.  As Boxley states:

I was about 27 when I started to go beyond oil painting and jumped into carving.  I didn’t know who to go to at the time for instruction so the museums were a good place to be inspired. I guess my “style”, Alaskan Tsimshian, began with those museum visits, melding my own ideas with the way the old masters produced. I learned so much from the Tsimshian, Nisga’a, Gitksan art and  even some Haida objects wherever I could find them. Our art took me over, but I also came along at a time when our people were about to rediscover our culture. I am fortunate that I was able to mix my art journey with the language, ceremony, and dance. I am grateful for the adventure the past 40 years has been.
 
The Naxnox is a Tsimshian tradition that enacts unseen powers or forces that affect humanity or act as spiritual guardians. The masks manifest these unseen powers in the human performing it. A person comes to own a Naxnox mask after experiencing a number of events that tell him this is his special guardian spirit, or by seeking the spirit through hard work, privation or through an inexplicable experience. The Naxnox is demonstrated by performers called Halait, in an event that precedes the potlatch. A Naxnox is both a particular spiritual power the owner inherits when he takes the name and is also a dramatization of the power of that spirit.

David Boxley has recently created two stunning Naxnox masks for the Inuit Gallery. The first, called Sees the Spirit, represents a figure whose eyes are rolling back in his head as he goes into trance. The dancer going into trance in this instance, “disappears in front of everyone in attendance.” The chiefs who are assembled for the event are invited to come and sing their Naxnox songs in an attempt to revive the figure. Being unsuccessful, they would be compensated for their efforts. In the end the person who owned the mask would come and sing the mask wearer “back to life.”

The second mask is called the Laughing mask, and is a nod to his younger son who owns the laughing mask. The performance of the Laughing mask involves a group of dancers gathered in the centre of the space, talking among themselves. The crowd would hear laughter coming from the forest, then the laughing man would enter the space and touch one of the dancers, who would break into laughter. In turn he would touch another dancer, infecting him with laughter, continuing until the entire crowd is laughing uncontrollably.