Artists pass on traditional skills through new CIA apprenticeships

Chilkoot Indian Association’s first cohort of arts mentors and apprentices began working on long-term projects earlier this March as part of a program to revitalize Tlingit cultural traditions like weaving and metal-working.

Three mentors are working one-on-one (or one-on-two) with apprentices through the rest of the year to develop skills that include preparing mountain goat wool, dying, weaving, clan stories, soldering and many other traditional techniques. Two apprenticeships are in Chilkat weaving and the other is in silver carving.

CIA’s program, funded by a federal grant, is intended to “transfer intergenerational cultural and/or traditional knowledge,” “perpetuate creative development and artistic rigor in the Traditional Arts fields” and “empower mentors and apprentices to play an integral role in the community,” according to a press release.

Cara Gilbert partnered with sister Gwen Sauser to learn Chilkat weaving and cultural immersion from Klukwan elder Marsha Hotch.

“It’s something we’ve always wanted to do. I never thought it would be an opportunity that would be open for me,” Gilbert said. “I’ve always wanted to learn how to weave because it’s always been a part of my family.”

Gilbert and Sauser’s great-grandmother was Jennie Thlunaut, a famed Chilkat Valley weaver who’s credited, according to the National Endowment for the Arts, where she was a fellow, “with single-handedly keeping the tradition alive in Alaska during a period of decline in interest in native crafts.”

“It means a lot more than just learning how to weave,” Gilbert said. “To me, it’s also honoring (my great-grandmother). Gwen and I have been talking and it feels like we’re closing a circle. It feels like she’s kind of guiding us through this process. It’s a gift that she has given out to others, and now others are giving back to us.”

Thlunaut held a weaving workshop in Haines in 1985. One of her 12 students was Clarissa Rizal, late mother of Lily Hope, a Juneau-based professional Raventstail and Chilkat weaver, who, through the CIA program, is mentoring Haines resident Karen Taug in Chilkat weaving.

Hope grew up learning the art from her mother, who apprenticed with Thlunaut after the workshop and became an acclaimed weaver and teacher. Hope started teaching soon after her mother died, five years ago. “I realized I was probably the one who should be teaching,” Hope said. “Many of her students are now my students.”

“I feel like this particular apprenticeship is kind of a return to the source. It’s a pretty powerful connection to bring the work back to Haines, where it all started, where my story started,” Hope said.

Chilkat weaving is an art long practiced in Indigenous cultures along the coast of Alaska and British Columbia. It originated in Tsimshian culture and spread throughout Haida and Tlingit communities. Although the 20th century saw a decline in weaving, the work and mentorship of artists like Thlunaut resulted in a period of revitalization, and there are now several practitioners throughout Alaska and British Columbia.

Hotch, a longtime Tlingit language teacher, who knew Thlunaut, said one of the components of her mentorship of Gilbert and Sauser is “looking at what drove our grandmothers to be the weavers who created the old Chilkat robes. To me, it was their way of contributing to maintaining history.” She also said that she’s excited to be shaped by her students, a notion of reciprocal learning that she has come to value through teaching language.

The mentors and apprentices have varying artistic experience and are working on a variety of projects, including a robe, a pouch and jewelry.

Taug has been weaving Ravenstail since 2012 but is new to Chilkat weaving. Ravenstail predates Chilkat and is more minimalistic, using only black and white and geometric shapes. Chilkat incorporates more color, including blue, and humanoid shapes and circulinear designs. The two forms involve different techniques.

Taug’s project is to weave a child-sized Chilkat robe – which will take about 800 hours, she said. The robe will be 30 inches wide and will feature a humanoid face in the middle, hands lower down on the side, and formlines throughout.

Taug said she wanted to take up the weaving apprenticeship because “it’s part of my heritage. Our ancestors have been weaving for hundreds of years, and it’s an art that I would like to see revitalized, and it is being revitalized, and I want to be a part of that to pass that down to my children and my grandchildren.”

In the third pairing, mentor Greg Horner will be guiding Rob Martin in silver carving. Horner said the two have worked together in the past and will create many objects in the coming months through a fusion of western and Tlingit metal-working techniques.

Final products will be displayed for the community, a CIA press release said. Apprentices also will be posting updates on a blog and will hold a workshop at the end of their apprenticeships.

Gilbert, Taug and Sauser all said they plan to continue weaving after the program ends.

Sauser said she’s the only apprentice with no background in the art form she’s apprenticing, although she’s well-practiced in other genres, like ceramics and sculpture. Still, she said Chilkat weaving “is probably the hardest thing I’ve ever done.”

“For me right now in the beginning stages, it’s kind of like this responsibility in this way to learn this right, not just for myself but for the future generations. I think I can feel the weightiness of that and the importance of that,” Sauser said. “At the same time, it’s been really enjoyable, the moments where I’ve been able to get into the motion of it-there’s something very relaxing about it and beautiful about it. So I’m looking forward to really pursuing it and learning it well.”

Sauser and Gilbert both recalled spending time at their great-grandmother’s house in Klukwan, where she spoke to them in Tlingit and told stories. They both recalled her hands.

“Her hands were always busy,” Sauser said. “They were also continually reaching out to family and showing love.”

Applications are open for the next cohort, which will start on Oct. 1. CIA members 18 or older may apply. Application forms are at https://www.chilkoot-nsn.gov/mentor-apprentice-program/.