#Chilkat Paintings

[formlines]

Chilkat Blanket Necklace

David Neel

from the website: From my childhood I wanted to be a Kwakiutl artist. My first piece of Northwest coast Indigenous art was a painting, which I did when I was 8 years old, which based on a Chilkat blanket that I saw in a National Geographic magazine. Ever since that time I have wanted to do another art work based on the Chilkat style design. I came upon the idea to make a pendant with a Chilkat style design, using 23K gold (96.5% pure)  wire to symbolize the distinctive goats wool fringe. I then inlaid the eyes, not with abalone shell, but with 23K gold to compliment the gold “fringe”. The result is a one-of-a-kind necklace that pays homage to the Chilkat robes, which came to the Kwakwaka’wakw from the Tlingit people through marriage.

- David Neel

[infinite-cancer]

Interior posts of the Grizzly Bear House.

Newcombe recorded in 1906 that these were the posts taken by Jacobsen to Berlin. He states that they supported the large round roof beams and faced the door. Here they are shown just before their removal from Masset, arranged for display with a Chilkat blanket, painted hat, and two daggers that probably belonged to Xa’na. The formal display represented in the photograph is typical of that put on at a chief’s funeral. The Chilkat blanket is draped over a box that may be the coffin box of Xa’na.

[blatantescapism]

Yes, absolutely!

And I will write up all my overexcited thoughts on creating drafts and designs, at some future point when I have the time and sanity.

Of course, there’s plenty of books on this subject already, so you don’t need to listen to me. I just have a somewhat different approach than the books I’ve read, and am itching to share.

A lot of tapestries are actually just plain weave in structure. Your floor loom can be used for that kind of tapestry, but also more structurally complex things like figured brocade, shadow weave, summer and winter, rose path, etc etc.

A book you might find useful is “Weft-Faced Pattern Weaves: Tabby to Taqueté” by Nancy Arthur Hoskins.

(To sidetrack, the pinnacle of tapestry art is Chilkat weaving/twining. It can NOT be woven on a floor loom. It uses completely different, absolutely brilliant techniques. I highly recommend “The Chilkat Dancing Blanket” by Cheryl Samuel. More people ought to know and honor Jennie Thlunaut’s name.)

Sidetracking even more completely, “false ikat”, the type using deliberate color-pooling or patterned sock yarn, is a ton of fun, and can be used as a background for other techniques (like brocade):

Probably very obvious but if I were to follow this draft to make my kitchen towels:

And I used all black for my weft, which parts of this design would turn out black, the white or the peachy-orange?

[stephendavid]

Chilkat Triptych, Stephen David Jones (WanJuXiong) This is how I have the entire series hung on my wall... with #2 (the largest) in the center.

[prairie-tales]

Chilkat blanket.

Region: British Columbia.

The Tlingit word for these traditional Chilkat blankets is Naxein, meaning ‘fringe about the body’. They were made by the women of the tribe from mountain-goat wool, to designs painted by the men onto planks of cedar wood. The formline designs are divided into two groups: one representing animals and the other the human face. This is an example of the second group, showing a large face in the centre of the blanket. Three separate sections of the design are set out very precisely; the height at the centre is half the width and the black-and-yellow striped border is one-twelfth of the total width. The divisions of the fields are clearly marked and the side sections are symmetrical. There is, however, generally some variation in the curve of the lower border.

Items like this blanket are traded extensively and were highly prized for the Chief Dances at Potlaches, when the chiefs of the southern tribes would wear them. This type of blanket weaving was once carried out over a wide area, but disease decimated many people and the art died out with them. The Chilkat women alone carry on this tradition.

Source: ‘Folk Art’, Susann Linn-Williams, pp. 220-21.

[tommyplum]

Andy Everson was born in Comox, BC in 1972 and named Na̱gedzi after his grandfather, the late Chief Andy Frank of the K’ómoks First Nation. Andy has also had the honour of being seated with the ‘Na̱mg̱is T̓sit̓sa̱ł'walag̱a̱me' name of Ḵ̓wa̱mxa̱laga̱lis I'nis. Influenced heavily by his grandmother, he has always been driven to uphold the traditions of both the K’ómoks and Kwakwa̱ka̱'wakw First Nations.

Although he began drawing Northwest Coast art at an early age, Andy's first serious attempt wasn’t until 1990 when he started designing and painting chilkat-style blankets for use in potlatch dancing. From these early self-taught lessons, he has tried to follow in the footsteps of his Kwakwa̱ka̱'wakw relatives in creating bold and unique representations that remain rooted in the age-old traditions of his ancestors. The ability to create and print most of his own work has allowed Andy to explore and express his ancestral artwork in a number of contemporary ways.

artist website

[stephendavid]

I have been in love with these Chilkat blankets/robes since I was a child and saw them in Alaska. I did a series of oil paintings based on Pacific NW Indian art, HERE

Anna Brown Ehlers (right) and her art, made using Chilkat weaving techniques. Ehlers is Tlingit, born and raised in Juneau

h/t twitter.com/womensart1

[englishchinesetranslations]

Humans are exterminating themselves by exterminating other life forms. As a person committed to free thought, I sometimes catch myself wondering if what is really needed is a form of Borg Star Trek mind control to stop us from destroying the planet for the sake of profits for the few.

External costs are neglected by economists, and the unintended consequences of laws and political decisions—indeed, any decision, even those that seem highly rational—can be surprising. I am convinced that the external costs of capitalist production exceed the profits and in instances exceed the value of the output. The most carefully considered law and the most carefully planned corporate undertaking can result in disastrous consequences. Essentially, when humans make decisions, they seldom have any idea of what they are doing.

The situation worsens when a financialized, jobs offshored economy multiplied by other economies doing the same thing finds that it is more profitable for public corporations to buy back their own stock, even indebting the corporations for the purpose of decapitalizing the corporations, than to invest in new plant, equipment, and labor. Buy-backs are the main use of corporate investment today in the US. In recent years, the entirety of corporate profits and borrowing has been used for stock buy-backs, which reward executives and shareholders. Central banks in Japan and the European Union now support equity prices by stock purchases. The Japanese central bank is the largest holder of Exchange Traded Funds (ETF). I am convinced that the Federal Reserve prevents crashes of the US stock market by purchasing S&P futures.

The loss of jobs destroys the ladders of upward mobility, thus increasing social and political instability, and the concentration of all wealth and income gains in corporate executives and shareholders skews the income distribution to that of the aristocracy and serfs in pre-modern times. The elevation of stock and bond prices from central banks injecting liquidity creates asset bubbles that are accidents waiting to happen.

As little attention as the external costs of production receives from economists, the external costs of human activity on the planet gets even less.

I was reminded of this when I received as a Christmas gift a copy of Joel Sartore’s magnificent photographs of Earth’s vanishing species. https://www.amazon.com/National-Geographic-Photo-Ark-Vanishing/dp/1426220596/ref=sr_1_1_sspa?keywords=Joel+Sartore&qid=1577406247&s=books&sr=1-1-spons&psc=1&spLa=ZW5jcnlwdGVkUXVhbGlmaWVyPUEyREtFRTdWR0VKUlBJJmVuY3J5cHRlZElkPUEwMTg3MjQ0MVRaREpaNFJRUlRHTCZlbmNyeXB0ZWRBZElkPUEwNDU5Mjg1MzAyQVIxS0RHTUZRQSZ3aWRnZXROYW1lPXNwX2F0ZiZhY3Rpb249Y2xpY2tSZWRpcmVjdCZkb05vdExvZ0NsaWNrPXRydWU= It is heartbreaking, and it makes one wonder why God gave dominion to humans who have no regard for the disastrous consequences of their actions. Consider the extinct and vanishing species of animals, insects, reptiles, birds. Why did we do this? For no other reason than a few rich people could be a bit richer. They didn’t need the money that erased animals, plants, forests, clean water, fish and marine life, birds, butterflies, bees and large numbers of insects.

Ever since Dick Cheney was US Vice President, effectively President, the Environmental Protection Agency has been an agent for mining, timber, and energy interests. Most other environmental and wildlife protections have also been set aside. National forests are being cut down, national monuments are being defaced, wolves are being slaughtered, and rare species are being poached and trophy hunted. It seems humans won’t be happy until every species is exterminated.

The private environmental organizations are now so dependent on corporate money and corporate trustees that they are largely ineffectual. They can’t effectively lobby against their corporate donors’ interests in Washington.

Consider the Pebble Mine. A Canadian mining company, Constantine Metal Resources, has, with US EPA approval, received a permit to begin a mining operation at the headquarters of Bristol Bay in Alaska, an American state. These waters are the place of salmon spawning and where Eagles and Grizzlies that exist on the salmon find their food. As the clothier, Orvis, makes clear in its ads, what is to be gained from the Pebble Mine is foreign company profits, 2,000 temporary jobs, and a measely 1,000 full-time jobs during opeartion. What is to be lost is a $1.5 billion fishing industry and the 14,000 associated jobs, 417 square miles of pristine habitat, 4 world-class fishing rivers, 60 lineal miles of prime salmon spawning habitat, and the destruction of pristine waters by 360,000 gallons of toxic effluent daily passing into the Chilkat River, bringing with it the destruction of salmon, eagle, and grizzly life along with that of 14,000 people.

This is the way capitalism makes decisions. Those who count for the life of the planet do not count. Those who count for profits are massive corporations who can lobby their will and their profits through the Congress and the regulatory agencies that are supposed to protect the environment and the life that depends on a protected environment.

When capitalism is seen in the real light of its operation and not in the romanticism that free market economics paints it, it is seen as a destructive force. The less regulated it is, the more destructive force it is. But can it be regulated? All efforts have failed. University of Chicago economist George Stigler said that all regulatory agencies become the captives of those they are supposed to regulate, and, thereby, the regulatory agencies become the agents of those they are supposed to control.

The Amazon rain forest is being destroyed by people who, in effect, are criminals destroying a world resource and only get in exchange one or two crops from the denuded land. The corrupt Brazilian government put into office by Washington to serve American interests is a party to the crime against life on earth. The same thing is happening in Indonesian forests thanks to Chinese timber corporations. Good-bye Sumatran Tiger. Good-bye native populations dependent on the forests.

In the Foreword to Santore’s Vanishing Animals Elizabeth Kolbert makes the point that humans today are the equilavent of the asteroid 66 million years ago that wiped out the dinosaurs, only we are wiping out everything, ourselves included.

When we wipe out an animal or an insect, a species’ genome is lost. In effect, we are wiping out libraries, making ourselves more ignorant.

It seems to me that the advocates of diversity could do much more good if they redirected their emphasis on replacing white people to saving the life of diversity on planet Earth. But this would require intelligence and empathy for all life, traits that are not abundant in the human population.

[formlines]

Glimmers and Gratitude

Juanita Ens

from the website: "The concept for this box is an exploration of joy and gratitude using colours that in Haida art, are most often reserved for special details or coveted items. Trade beads, in a deep royal blue, have a special significance and value to people up and down the Northwest Coast. A favourite for butterfly designs and a timeless colour used in Chilkat blankets, yellow is a highly coveted hue found in both contemporary and historic pieces. 

The splits in the design represent "glimmers." A relatively new term, they are the opposite of triggers or negative events and interactions. Glimmers are small moments that spark joy or bring peace and calm. The vibrant yellow breaks up the deep moody blue illustrating the idea there are things to look forward to, and small moments to be grateful for, even in the times we feel are darkest. 

The deep blue glass is enhanced by layers of back painting giving it extra interest and depth. The thought behind using this glass is when it's illuminated and viewed from a far, it shows the beauty of both the light and dark. The hard times marked by lessons and imperfections add character and enhance the design. This is one of a kind experimental art glass painted by an unknown artist that was available in a very small quantity so this box cannot be replicated."

-Juanita Ens

This piece is part of Lattimer Gallery's 2023 annual Charity Bentwood Boxes auction running from November 25th to December 9th. All proceeds will be donated to the Urban Native Youth Association.

[rhysintherain]

Hey, I can help with this!

I'm from the Pacific Northwest, where precontact textiles are a huge deal.

The major site you want to check out for this is Ozette, in Washington state. It's a wet site preserved by mudslide in the 1700s, and contained samples of baskets, mats and looms. It's an amazing site that was excavated for preservation with the full participation of the Makah community, and they run a cultural centre that features a lot of the artefacts and information about the old village.

Pretty much the whole coast had pretty advanced weaving techniques before contact, from Oregon in the south to Alaska in the north. Typical fibers included cedar bark, mountain goat hair, and woolly dog fur (my personal favorite). Mountain goat was more common in the north, woolly dogs were red for this purpose on Vancouver Island and the southern BC coast, and cedar was used wherever it was available.

The most well-known type of garment from this coast are the Chilkat Robes, which are incredibly intricate, time-consuming to make, and valuable. They were a symbol of wealth and power, generally worn by the most influential leaders at important events. If you've been to any of the big museums in BC, you've probably seen one. Important symbols and stories are woven into them, and they are incredible works of art.

Here's a Kwakwaka'wakw robe that's over 300 years old, which was sold to the Royal BC in the 1980s by Henry Bell:

And here is the same robe, worn by Henry's granddaughter Joye at her convocation:

(these pictures, and the story that goes with them, are from CBC News and can be easily googled)

We know a lot about precontact weaving technologies partly from archaeology, partly from continued use in communities, and partly from accounts and art from around the time of contact.

For example, there's this painting by Paul Kane, which kinda shows you how complex and important weaving was. The loom is huge and complex, and takes up a considerable amount of indoor space. I also love this one because it has a woolly dog:

(the people in this picture are thought to be Saanich, but we're not totally sure)

Another of my favorite woolly dog pictures is this one:

The girl looks so confident, the dog looks so resigned...

Woolly dogs were little white floofs, totally unsuited to dogly duties, but very suited to being cuddly and producing soft weaving fiber. Since they were so small and single-purpose, and since their fluff was so good for making very valuable textiles, they probably belonged to wealthy weavers, so I would bet money they also spent a fair bit of time as lapdogs, hanging out and being brushed for a living.

I'm not as familiar with mountain goat hair as a weaving fiber, but I imagine it was pretty valuable, since you can't just walk up and shear a wild goat, and even with modern technology they aren't the easiest thing to hunt.

Cedar bark, on the other hand, was a super common weaving material. In places cedar grows it's abundant and accessible, and can be used in wide strips for things like mats, or pounded soft to use in clothing. It was woven into blankets, robes, and skirts (that's one you'll see in a few museums), and could be tightly woven into baskets and water-resistant hats. The cedar basketry is highly detailed, intricately decorated, and comes in literally any shape and size. Where I'm from you commonly see whales and thunderbirds woven on hats and baskets. They're amazing. On the south coast of BC grasses were also used in basketry, and in the north spruce root was used.

The most important thing about these textile techniques, of course, is that they didn't really go away after contact. Robes made of imported sheep's wool woven in traditional styles from after contact turn up in museums sometimes, showing how important traditional regalia was after contact. On the west coast of Vancouver Island some elders and artists still make traditional baskets that you can buy in Indigenous galleries around BC. And Haida weavers have done incredible things to revitalise traditional weaving techniques, down to spinning their own yarn with precontact methods so the warp and weft have the same twist direction. It's all very cool, so go look up some Pacific Northwest weavers to see what they're up to!

One of your posts said you could tell us about pre-contact textiles and that sounds incredibly interesting! Do you have any examples you think are particularly neat?

Hey anon - I’m afraid you’ve got me muddled up with the tags from @buckets-of-dirt from this post who im sure can tell you ALL about that given the opportunity

australia doesnt really have pre-contact textiles per se in terms of a weaving type technology. but sewing and working with skins, as well as string and cord making was very common

not an archaeologically common find - but i love them and even though Wally is the one you want to talk to, imma tell you all about these anyway because i love them. 

possum skin cloaks - they typically started for a baby, and then were added to and grown as the child aged. they dont typically survive from past periods since individuals were often buried in them

(image source)

anyway i love them and everyone should read about them (x) (x) (x)

[chocolateheal]

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[stephendavid]

Chilkat #2, Stephen David Jones (WanJuXiong) This is the second in the series, and my favorite painting. I painted this after I bought some books on Pacific Northwest Coast Indian/Native American Art and looked closer at a number of photos of real Chilkat blankets/robes. I really like the geometric designs, along with the many eyes and the central masked face.

[formlines]

Apron Whale Design Pattern Board 

Calvin Hunt   

Artist introducing the piece (and another one) via Youtube

From the website: Chilkat weaving is said to have originated among the Tsimshian and was later adopted by the Chilkat Tlingit. Among the Kwakwaka'wakw, those with Tlingit heritage claim the prestigious Chilkat-woven ceremonial regalia that came to them through marriage. When she married Robert Hunt in Fort Rupert, Tlingit noblewoman and Calvin Hunt’s ancestor, Anisalaga (Mary Ebbets), brought the knowledge and the rights of this intricate and complex weaving to the Kwakwaka'wakw.

To appreciate this design, the viewer must see it reversed horizontally—much as a dancer wearing the finished Chilkat woven apron would see the looking down on it. The upside-down face at the bottom of the panel represents the Orca’s large dorsal fin. Often in representations of whales, Northwest Coast artists depict a human face at the base of the dorsal fin. On either side of this split representation are crescent shapes representing the whale’s blow hole. To the left and right, again in split-representation, is the Orca’s large head with rows of teeth in the upper and lower mandibles. The upper central forms represent pectoral fins. The very top of the pattern board has 5 long U-forms representing the surface of the water.

Chilkat weaving represents a collaboration between male and female artists. Crest designs for a Chilkat garment—a dancing robe, tunic, apron, or leggings—were traditionally painted by a man on a flat pattern board to be translated into the luxurious mountain goat wool weaving by a woman. For large robes, the painter of the pattern board illustrated only half the design; the weaver would duplicate the other half to complete the entire garment.

The fine art of Chilkat weaving was done on an upright loom with twined wool and cedar bark warps. Finger-weaving the weft of white, black, yellow, and sometimes turquoise blue and red twinned wool, a female artist created curvilinear formline designs that included ovoids and perfect circles. The dramatic Chilkat Dancing Robe—still seen in potlatches worn by high-ranking people—is hemmed on the bottom edge with a heavy flowing fringe of white mountain goat wool. Chilkat aprons sometimes have fringes adorned with tiny bells, deer hooves, and in the past with brass thimbles and or puffin beaks.

[formlines]

Model House 

Frederick Alexcee

From the website:  Viola Garfield recorded this explanation of the house model: "The model was made by Fred Alexcee, Port Simpson, British Columbia, in 1934 for Viola E. Garfield. It represents a house with a potlatch in progress. At the back of the house is a dancer dressed in Chilkat blanket and ermine headdress accompanied by a drummer using a large box drum suspended from a beam. A chorus of women is seated on the left and a director with dance baton stands back of the dancer. In front of the house is a greeter with dance baton to direct guests to their seats. The seated figure has no special significance. (These two figures had limpet shells on their heads to represent spruce root hats.) The housefront painting represents a grizzly bear, crest of the maker of the model and his lineage. The small faces bordering the bear's face represent skulls of ancestors. Hexagonals connected by black bars above represent bones of the knees and lower limbs. These are the skeletons of ancestors who killed many mountain goats and left them to rot. In revenge, and to teach them a lesson in respect of animals, the mountain goats caused a mountain slide that destroyed many people. The facade pole on the right of the doorway represents a shaman with cedar bark head band and blanket holding a symbol of his supernatural power. The bird figure at the base is a crane. I do not recall the significance of the figures on the other pole, but they probably represent a dancer at the top and a grizzly bear at the base." Viola E. Garfield, Oct. 9, 1957 The design on the front of the house seems to be based on the design of the interior "Rain Screen" of the Gaanaxteidi Tlingit Whale House from Klukwan, Alaska. The small pole to the right seems to be based on the "Woodworm House Post," one of four interior house posts from that same house. It may be that Alexcee was looking at a photo of that house interior when he made his model, but interpreted it to match his own family history. Robin K. Wright, Feb. 8, 2006.

[stephendavid]

Chilkat #3, Stephen David Jones (WanJuXiong) The Third and last of the Chilkat Triptych series. This is the largest of the three.