Native North American Jewelry Arts of the Northwest and Southwest.
In addition to being a clothing designer, I'm a collector of the arts, particularly jewelry. Being a Haida woman, it's important to have jewelry. It signifies a lot in your life - your status, your identity. We all love to have lots of bracelets when we go to functions or momentous occasions, because it's a show of love. Jewelry makes me feel empowered.
I'm a basket weaver, and I do some jewelry, but my main medium has been fabric. I started out making ceremonial regalia, such as button blankets, dance aprons, and basketry hats. My grandmother taught me basketry. At that time, in 1981, there weren't many women my generation who did weaving; it was mostly the grandmothers, the elders. But it's an art form that has been revived in the last twenty years. Now there are hundreds of weavers.
From those traditional wearable arts, I was inspired to create something new. The button blanket is a recent art as far as tradition goes. It's a ceremonial blanket that evolved out of European trade items the Hudson Bay blankets and pearl buttons from China. After making them for many years, I had the idea of doing wearable art, things that had sleeves as opposed to a square blanket. Beautiful clothing that people could wear to feasts or potlatches. So it was born out of that ceremonial aspect.
The art that I put on the clothing is traditional form line art. It's something that I studied for many years, so I have great respect for the forms. I think that Haida art is one of the most elegant forms. It looks fluid and free, but it has a structure with a set of rules. I manipulate the designs onto the clothing so that they work with the body.
What I've tried to do over the last fifteen years is build a bridge of awareness between cultures through clothing. I've carefully kept my business small, so I could foster it in the right direction, keeping the integrity of the art. I sell my work to people from all walks of life-Native people. non-Native people, professionals, art collectors. By purchasing it and wearing it, they're marking a personal statement. Because clothing is a personal statement. Whether you're buying a designer suit or something from he mall, it's a personal statement about who you are. When people buy my clothing, it's a statement about their alignment to Haida culture, their acceptance of it. And it allows them the experience of wearing art as Opposed to looking at art. It's a really good thing to bridge our cultures like that, through clothing.
The Raven Takes the World," Haida wedding dress. Dorothy Grant (Haida). The dress is made of white deer hide and silkscreened with a Haida design, "Raven Takes the World." Raven, the transformer, is depicted holding the four corners of the earth with his human hands. The dress was made in honor of Dorothy's mother, Eleanor Judy Morrison. The edging of the bodice is beaded with mother of pearl beads and glass trade beads, and the three-tiered body has hand-cut fringe. 1994. length, approximately 49". Private collection
The dentalium headdress, by Marianne Jones (Haida), was commissioned by Dorothy Grant in 1994 to match the wedding dress. It was inspired by the headdresses worn by Salish tribes. Dentalium shells, amber beads, blue glass trade beads, and mother-of-pearl. Private collection
