The Sheldon Museum and Cultural Center received a $15,000 grant at the end of August to produce an oral history project about the formative years of Alaska Indian Arts (AIA).

“The focus really is about the original artists (at AIA) that taught this new generation of artists that were trained in the 60s and 70s,” said Zack James, the museum’s collections manager, who’s spearheading the project.

James plans to interview artists and others who worked with AIA, a non-profit art school and studio founded by Carl Heinmiller, in the 1960s and 1970s. He hopes to document the experiences of native and non-native artists alike, including Wayne Price, Greg Horner and Nathan Jackson, who trained at AIA during its early years.

Heinmiller started Alaska Indian Arts more than 60 years ago. Noting a U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs report that mentioned 13 other artist co-ops in Alaska in the late 1960s, James said he’s particularly interested in how AIA artists interacted with artists across the state.

“We wanted to hear it from the people themselves rather than making a value judgement on our own,” James said.

The grant, from Alaska Humanities Forum, will go towards interviews and equipment. Local volunteers will assist James with transcription. The project’s projected timeline is six months.

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