MEET THE CURATORS

The exhibit was developed by the Alaska State Museum, working with a curatorial team of internationally renowned weavers: Marie Oldfield, Saantas’ Lani Hotch, and Evelyn Vanderhoop.

Marie Oldfield

Haida and Tsimshian
Prince Rupert, British Columbia

Marie Oldfield creates innovative weavings by combining and exploring nontraditional media and reworking raven’s tail weaving with other techniques. She began her formal training in cedar bark and spruce root weaving in Old Massett, Haida Gwaii, instructed by elders and other talented weavers. In 1995, she completed a Certificate of Merit in Weaving from the Totem Heritage Center in Ketchikan. Marie was an apprentice to renowned Alaska Native weavers Delores Churchill and Holly Churchill, and in turn, now passes on her understanding of the art to adults and youth in Prince Rupert and Terrace, British Columbia. Her work has been featured in several museum exhibits and permanent collections.

“While I am weaving a piece, I picture the weavers of the past and the weavers of the future. I am fortunate to have had some amazing teachers, and the old robes are among that group. They teach long after the hands that created them are no longer here, leaving lessons and challenges to create and to grow.”

Saantas’ Lani Hotch

Tlingit
Klukwan, Alaska

Lani Hotch was born in the small Tlingit village of Klukwan (Eternal Village) in the mid-1950s. She descends from a family of weavers that spans at least four generations, including her two daughters.

Hotch is committed to keeping the tradition alive in her community and has spent the past 30 years weaving her own work and providing learning opportunities in Klukwan. She has woven over ten dance robes and miniature robes and developed three group weaving projects. Her work is included in several national and international museums and private collections. In 2006, she placed second in Contemporary Arts in the Sealaska Heritage Institute’s Juried Art Show in Juneau. Lani has received several major awards for her work, including a Community Spirit Award from the First Peoples Fund in 2011, the Alaska Governor’s Award for the Arts in 2017, for Arts Business Leadership, the Native Arts and Culture Foundation Mentor Artist Apprentice Fellowship in 2017, and United States Artist Fellowship in 2020. One of Lani’s highest honors was being named a “Culture Bearer” by her tribe, the Chilkat Indian Village, in April of 2017.

“By teaching these art forms, I am passing on the knowledge and skills I’ve learned. Students who learn these skills are then able to create their own dance regalia and hence, my teaching serves to strengthen the traditions of song and dance as well.”

Evelyn Vanderhoop

Haida
Old Massett, Haida Gwaii, Canada

“I am an artist in the mediums of wool, cedar, and paint. I have always wanted to create what I see and feel in the world that surrounds me. My world of forest, beach, ocean, and mountains are the environments that enveloped my Haida ancestors. As a young person my drive for creativity produced scenes of landscapes and seascapes in oil on canvas. After university and marriage, I moved to Martha’s Vineyard Island—far from the Northwest coast. I painted that beautiful island in watercolors because it was a safer medium to have around my three young children. After many years away, I returned to the Pacific Northwest, and to a to a yearning to join the revival that was happening within the traditional arts of the coast. I come from a family of weavers and the flying fingers of my mother, inspired and summoned me into creating the ceremonial regalia using my own hands to join the ancestral rhythm in the textile traditions of the Haida. I now specialize in weaving the traditional chief’s robes of the Naaxiin. The designs of the Naaxiin robes flow within a matrix of horizontal and vertical fiber. I now “paint” in wool and cedar and my paint brushes are my fingers moving in the ancient rhythm of my weaving ancestors. The garments of the past proclaimed the Haida alignment to the natural and supernatural forces of the environment. Today the robes continue to drape ceremonial leaders. It is an honor to produce objects and garments that illustrate the continuing story of power and culture that evolved from the past and moves us into the forces that surround us today.”