Federal money for arts, culture and educational programs will fund the creation of two dugout canoes in Southeast Alaska.

Goldbelt Heritage Foundation, the nonprofit arm of Goldbelt, Inc., will teach Alaska Native youth how to carve canoes with nearly a quarter million dollars in grant funding from the National Park Service. The goal is to teach Tlingit culture while applying the principles of science, technology, engineering and math education to canoe making.

The National Park Service awarded the grant of $243,457 to Goldbelt Heritage Foundation on Aug. 15.

Desiree Jackson, Goldbelt Heritage Foundation executive director, said the four-year grant will be the start of a continuing education program that will uphold canoe stories behind the traditional use of the canoe.

“We want to grow this momentum around youth paddling and utilization of the yaak’w (canoe) because this is another sport and activity youth should be engaged with,” she said.

Goldbelt Heritage Foundation will create courses around the building of dugout canoes.

“There is so much undocumented curriculum around navigation,” she said. “How did we use the stars? How did we use waypoints?

The program is called “Daak Yaylatsaak,” which means “push the boat out” in the Tlingít language. Jackson said the goal is for the program to be run through classrooms in Southeast Alaska during school, which she said is important for Alaska students as part of place-based education.

The group aims to host a regional youth canoe gathering within the next few years.

The money is part of the first round of awards for the Native Hawaiian and Alaska Native Culture and Arts Development grant program. The National Park Service administers the grant on behalf of the Secretary of Interior, Deb Haaland, using funds appropriated by Congress.

National Park Service Director Director Chuck Sams said the project will provide educational programming while it continues traditional practices for youth in Southeast Alaska.

“The National Park Service is committed to supporting Native Hawaiian and Alaska Native culture and art programs, including traditional and contemporary expressions of language, history, visual and performing arts, and crafts,” said Sams.

The National Park Service awards the grants for scholarly study and instruction of contemporary arts and culture, to establish educational programs that lead to degrees in Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian art and culture programs or to develop arts in the community. Private, nonprofit groups that primarily serve Native Hawaiian or Alaska Native communities and are recognized by the governor of Hawaii or Alaska are eligible.

Alaska Beacon is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Alaska Beacon maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Andrew Kitchenman for questions: info@alaskabeacon.com. Follow Alaska Beacon on Facebook and Twitter.

Depending on how you want to look at it, the Columbia Museum of Art’s exhibition Resurgence
and Renaissance: Art of the Catawba Nation Since 1973 could be thought of as a few
years, 50 years or a few millennia in the making.

Stroll through the exhibition space for just a few minutes, though, and one thing
is clear: The attention that Catawba artists are getting is overdue.

A collaboration between USC Lancaster’s Native American Studies Center and the CMA,
the exhibition, which runs until Sept. 3, features 82 items — primarily pottery but
also quilts, hats, baskets and photos of some of the Catawba potters.

All of the pieces on view are from the collections of the Native American Studies
Center, which was established in 2012 for the study of South Carolina’s Native American
peoples, their histories and their cultures. The center features archaeology, language,
and folklore and oral history labs; primary and secondary texts on Native Americans
in the Southeast; classes and programs for both students and the public; and, perhaps
most notably, the largest collection of Catawba pottery in existence.

But to understand today’s exhibition, one must first look back several decades more,
at least. This year marks the 50th anniversary of the museum’s first Catawba pottery
exhibition, in 1973. It was organized by a USC Columbia graduate student, Steve Baker,
who recognized the pottery as a traditional art form.

Stephen Criswell, director of Native American studies, professor of English and folklorist
at USC Lancaster, discussed the impact of the 1973 exhibition at a recent lunch and
learn conducted by the NASC.

“It was the first time that outsiders began to see Catawba pottery as art, and collectors
began to see it as art,” Criswell said. “And the price of the pottery reflected that,
and the reverence for the pottery began around this time. Potters had been working
for, what, 5,000, 6,000, 7,000 years making this pottery. They’d been doing this for
generations and generations, and the pottery was sold for very, very meager prices,
and often traded for goods or services.”

Catawba pottery had been exhibited at museums before, but typically at natural history
museums, “sort of exoticizing the Catawba instead of seeing this work as art,” Criswell
said. But Baker did see it as art.

This marked a monumental shift in attitudes regarding Native American skills and artistry.
Presenting the pottery as art changed people’s perceptions, and it opened up a market
for the Catawba thanks to newfound demand for their craft.

As a result, at a time when some, including Baker, were beginning to wonder how much
longer these ancient techniques would survive, production increased, helping to breathe
new life into a time-honored tradition.

As evidenced by the pieces featured at the CMA, today’s Catawba potters still use
the techniques passed down from generation to generation for some 5,000 years or more,
even while they explore their own creativity. The pottery is made from traditional
clay resources, time-honored fire methods are used, and mostly traditional forms are
still seen as well.

Their processes also carry some traits that are distinct from modern pottery making.
The elements within the clay used affect the final colors of the art, so there is
often distinct coloring that is a result of the firing process and different types
of clay. Additionally, Catawba pottery is unglazed, which affects both the creation
process and the finished product. The results are fascinating and beautiful.

Resurgence and Renaissance, however, is about more than just the pottery, and about
more than 1973. “It was important for us to let the experts and the citizens of Catawba
Nation take the lead,” says Jackie Adams, director of art and learning at the CMA.
“We wanted to center Catawba voices not just through the objects, but with the design
of the show.”

So, in addition to the works of art, elements of storytelling, folklore and language
were brought into the exhibition. Even the color of the walls — a rich blue — represents
water, specifically the Catawba River. There are also graphic elements to the show
created by Alex Osborne, a Catawba citizen, designer and featured artist. Osborne’s
work includes a large, striking image of a Catawba chief’s head and a genealogy tree
of artists and potters that goes back generations.

It all makes for a captivating, entertaining and highly educational experience that
must be seen in person to be truly appreciated. “I remember Beckee (Garris, NASC program
assistant and Catawba artist) said something: ‘People still think we walk around in
leathers and feathers,’ ” Adams says. “There are these really perpetual stereotypes
that still exist, and we need to counter those. And the show does that.”

If you’re going

Resurgence and Renaissance: Art of the Catawba Nation since 1973 is on display at
the Columbia Museum of Art, 1515 Main St., through Sept. 3.

The Gorman Museum of Native American Art at the University of California, Davis — unique in focusing on, exhibiting and collecting contemporary Native American art — will reopen in a new, greatly expanded location with a celebratory weekend Sept. 22 and 23 (Friday and Saturday). The occasion also marks the museum’s 50th anniversary.

After a ribbon-cutting ceremony at noon Friday, Sept. 22, the museum will open to the public at 2 p.m. The following day’s events will include music, dance and other performances from noon to 4 p.m. The museum will be open noon to 5 p.m. on weekends and 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. Admission is free.

“Since its founding, the museum has been a unique and important place for telling the story of the continuing artistic accomplishments of Native Americans,” said Estella Atekwana, dean of the UC Davis College of Letters and Science, of which the museum is part. “The greatly expanded museum in a more visible and accessible location stands to make an even greater impact during the coming decades.”

New location — 4 times the space

The museum, located in the UC Davis Gateway cultural corridor along Old Davis Road, has 4,000 square feet of gallery space — nearly four times more than its former home on campus. Along with space for temporary exhibitions, it features a gallery displaying works from the collection on a rotational basis and visible storage to give visitors access to the collection.

“UC Davis has a long history as a home for Native American artistry, including visual and performing arts,” said Chancellor Gary S. May. “This spacious location near the campus gateway is an ideal place to showcase the influence and contributions of Native people for generations to come.”

The Gorman Museum is committed to contemporary Native American art that enacts visual sovereignty through politically and socially engaging exhibitions.

The museum has a collection of 2,250 artworks, most created since 1980, including paintings, photography, ceramics, textiles and original prints. Among the artists represented in the collection are Kenojuak Ashevak, D.Y. Begay, Rick Bartow, Robert Davidson, Oscar Howe, Lucy Lewis, Lee Marmon, George Morrison, Bill Reid, Jaune Quick-to-See Smith and Kay WalkingStick.

Since its founding in 1973, the museum has shown works by a wide range of established and emerging artists, with 225 group and 88 solo exhibitions, and has also developed touring exhibitions.

“The year 2023 marks the 50th anniversary of the Gorman Museum and continuing supporting contemporary Native American artists who create art as a continuum of Native American presence,” said Hulleah Tsinhnahjinnie, museum director and professor in the Department of Native American Studies. “The renovated space was manifested and realized into reality by a dedicated community of local, inter-tribal artists and allies who embrace the power of Native American art as a site to continue the creative and intellectual conversations that were interrupted by tropes and bias.”

Entrance features Native design

Those coming to the museum will be greeted by a large, circular public artwork based upon Native American basketry designs that was created by Tsinhnahjinnie, who is also an artist. The pavilion honors the late Bertha Wright Mitchell, a Patwin basket weaver who in the late 1990s was the only documented fluent speaker of the Patwin language.

The building, a single-story structure with deep eaves common in California architecture, is painted with bands of green representing tule grass, a once-common plant in California used by Native American people to make baskets, clothing, tents, houses and boats.

The museum provides learning resources for classes and research opportunities for students and faculty across many UC Davis disciplines, as well as for other scholars and educational institutions.

Carl Nelson Gorman, Native American studies

The museum is named in honor of the late artist Carl Nelson Gorman, a founding faculty member in the UC Davis Department of Native American Studies. The department, founded in 1969, is one of the oldest Native American studies programs. UC Davis is one of three U.S. universities offering a doctorate in Native American studies.

The museum is an integral part of the UC Davis Gateway cultural corridor connecting UC Davis cultural gems: the Robert and Margrit Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts and the Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of Art. The Gorman Museum also physically links the Gateway with the departments of Art and Art History, Music, Theatre and Dance and the UC Davis Arboretum and Public Garden. The museum is easily accessible from Interstate 80.

Opening exhibition

The opening exhibition “Contemporary California Native Art” will include about 40 works by 20 artists, all members of California tribes. Prior to European contact, there were about 500 tribes in California, which has the largest population of Native Americans — about 760,000 — of any state.

UC Davis and Patwin land

UC Davis is located on land that has for thousands of years been home to the Patwin people. There are three federally recognized Patwin tribes: Cachil DeHe Band of Wintun Indians of the Colusa Indian Community, Kletsel Dehe Wintun Nation and Yocha Dehe Wintun Nation. The full land acknowledgment statement is available here.  

Directions and parking

• From I-80 West (from Sacramento): Take UC Davis exit and turn right onto Old Davis Road. Continue past the Manetti Shrem Museum and Hyatt Place hotel. The museum is located on the left/north side of the road at 181 Old Davis Road.
• From I-80 East (from Bay Area): Take UC Davis exit and turn left on Old Davis Road. Continue past the Manetti Shrem Museum and Hyatt Place hotel. The museum is located on the left/north side of the road at 181 Old Davis Road.
• From Highway 113 (from Woodland): Take the I-80 East/Sacramento exit, then the UC Davis exit. Turn left on Old Davis Road. Continue past the Manetti Shrem Museum and Hyatt Place hotel. The museum is located on the left/north side of the road at 181 Old Davis Road.
• The closest parking is just past the museum on the right in Visitor Parking Lot 5, and there is additional visitor parking in the Gateway Parking Structure next to the Manetti Shrem Museum. (Parking payment information.)