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Daily Sitka Sentinel
Museum to Celebrate Artist Program
Sarah Williams holds up a salmon skin during a workshop at the Sitka Sound Scince Center led by a fellow Sheldon Jackson Museum Native Artist Demonstrator in July. A celebration is planned for Saturday, January 26, to mark the 25th anniversary of the SJ Museum's demonstrator program. (Sentinel Photo by James Poulson)By TOM HESSE
Sentinel Staff Writer
After 25 years of bringing Alaska Native artists to Sitka to demonstrate their craft, the Friends of Sheldon Jackson Museum think it’s time to celebrate.
The group will host a Gala Celebration in honor of the 25th anniversary of their Native Artist Demonstrator program 7 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 26, at the museum.
The celebration will include a lecture on Alaska Native traditional headgear by Steve Henrikson, curator of collections of the Alaska State Museums; a silent auction featuring Alaska Native art; Native dance groups; music by Dave Galanin, Gary Gouker and Bob Banghart; and a buffet of traditional foods. The event is free and proceeds from the silent auction will go toward funding the demonstrator program.
Mary Boose, the business manager for Friends, is organizing this year’s gala and said the demonstrator program, which has brought nearly 70 artists to Sitka since it began, said the guest demonstrators give Sitkans an opportunity to view the creative process for Alaska Native art.
“As visitors come through they can observe the artist and see the process they go through with whatever it is they work on,” Boose said. “It’s giving visitors the opportunity to see the down and dirty of this process and how the artists turn their work into what they are.”
If the program sounds similar to the demonstrations program at Sitka National Historical Park, that’s because it is, said Rosemary Carlton, the SJ Museum curator who brought the program to the museum in the late 1980s.
“The reason that the program got started is that I guess I was envious of the park and the National Park Service for their wonderful program down there of artist demonstrators and I knew that’s the best way to do it,” Carlton said, “to convey the art and the culture forming from the people who do it.”
Janice Criswell was the first demonstrator to officially participate in the program. She demonstrated spruce basket weaving strictly as a volunteer and Carlton said she immediately knew they had something.
“After that first year it was like ‘Oh, yeah. That’s the way to do it,’” Carlton said. “Of course now we needed to get more money because we wanted to grow the program and pay the artists.”
Carlton said the movement started first with help from the Friends of Sheldon Jackson Museum and then grew to include outside grants.
“It got started slowly. I think the first big grant we got was like $5,000,” Carlton said.
Carlton said the money allowed them to bring in artists from outside of Sitka.
“Selina Alexander was our first out-of-town artist,” Carlton said. “We would have people come in a couple of times a week and then it eventually started to build. I think it was ’96 when we got out first grant with National Endowment for the Arts and that was like whoa. Big time,” Carlton said.
With more money the program evolved. Carlton said the Friends of Sheldon Jackson Museum realized that the grants didn’t have to be a one-way street that benefited only the museum.
“The biggest thing, in my mind, is it started out as, let’s get these artists so they can share their culture and their art with the visitors,” Carlton said. “And then at some point, maybe it was around the time we got the first NEA grant, we thought maybe we need to concentrate and think about bringing the artists who can’t get to Sitka normally or who have never been here.”
Carlton added that the change in thinking opened up more doors for grants and helped grow the program for the better.
“I think that the biggest change was trying to take that focus from just having something for the visitors to giving the artist a chance to come down here so they could learn from us and we could learn from them, so that was quite a shift in the thinking of the process,” Carlton said.
The artists who are brought in receive, through help from the community and grant funding, a place to stay, airfare and small stipend, Carlton said.
Sarah Williams is one of the artists who has participated in the program. Some of her bead work is displayed in the Shee Atika building, and she’s done demonstrations for Holland America on top of being a frequent demonstrator for the Sheldon Jackson Museum.
Williams said she learned her Athabaskan craft growing up in Ft. Yukon.
“I learned when I was about five years old. I didn’t know that I was learning and I learned by watching my grandparents,” Williams said.
Since she began working in Sitka, Williams has added Tlingit art to her repertoire. Williams makes everything from boots to guitar straps.
Williams’ favorite thing to work on?
“Anything,” Williams said.
She particularly enjoys working with soft sewing materials like moose skin. When it comes to colors, however, Williams is partial to a combination inspired by her alma mater on Japonski Island, Mt. Edgecumbe High School.
“Red and gold (are) my school colors so most of the time I make something it’s red and gold,” Williams said.
Williams said she gets enough requests from people in the community that her focus is constantly changing. One week may bring a pair of gloves and the next may bring a Tlingit vest, and if she runs into something she’s not sure of, she always knows where to go to learn the tricks.
“If I don’t know how then I go home and they teach me how to do it,” Williams said. “People ask me to do different things and it gets hard sometimes but I come out with it.”
While home, Williams likes to track down some diamond willow from the banks of the Yukon River to carve, a practice she picked up about five years ago.
Williams said she demonstrates in the program because she likes showing the techniques from her art. Even when she’s working outside the program Williams still finds herself passing on skills and techniques. Right now she is helping members of the Episcopal church make bead pins with the design of the Episcopal shield for an upcoming convention.
“We got the Southeast convention coming up for (the) Episcopal church and several ladies are asking for the pins, and I’m teaching them how to make them,” Williams said. “We go from 9 to 11 and it’s so fun it goes fast.”
Williams donated a pair of gloves for the silent auction, which will also include art from other demonstrators and donations from local businesses.
Boose said the gala is meant as a celebration of the demonstrator program and to get funds to bring in the next Native crafts expert.
“In part, this is an event to raise money to support that program. We have foundational support from the National Endowment for the Arts in order to help bring those artists in for things, but there’s still some money we need to find,” Boose said.
The celebration will run 5-8 p.m. Jan. 26 at the Sheldon Jackson Museum. There is no charge for entry.
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20 YEARS AGO
March 2004
Matthew C. Hunter of Sitka recently returned from Cuba as part of a St. Olaf College International and Off-Campus Studies program. Hunter, a junior physics major at St. Olaf College, is the son of Robert and Kim Hunter of Sitka.
50 YEARS AGO
March 1974
Eighth graders have returned from a visit to Juneau to see the Legislature. They had worked for it since Christmas vacation ... Clarice Johnson’s idea of a “White Elephant” sales was chosen as the best money-maker; Joe Roth won the political cartoon assignment; highest government test scorers were Ken Armstrong, Joanna Hearn, Linda Montgomery, Lisa Henry, Calvin Taylor and David Licari .....